Welcome to this issue of the Carnival of the Indies blog carnival. This issue is for December, 2011. We welcome your submissions on topics related to writing, self-publishing, book design or marketing books.

A collection of outstanding articles recently posted to blogs, your reading here will be richly rewarded.

See the end of this post for links to submit your blog posts for the next carnival, or for participating Bloggers and Featured Bloggers to grab your sidebar badges. Thanks to everyone who participated.

Featured Posts

Allison Moon presents Where the Money Goes posted at Tales of the Pack. “Many folks in my community, because they want to support a hip indie artist (i.e. Me) have asked how they can buy the book so that I keep the lion’s share of the profit. Since so many people have asked, here’s a list, in order of greatest profit to me to lowest, of where the money goes when you buy a book from a certain retailer.”

Bridget McKenna presents Someone To Watch Over Me posted at Points of View. “Blindly turning your writing income and prospects over to someone else seems to me, especially in today’s rapidly changing publishing environment, like a really dumb idea. But it wasn’t always a really dumb idea. In fact, when I wrote my first three novels, it was a terrific idea.”

John Perich presents Feel Like A Touch, A Touch Too Much posted at Periscope Depth, saying, “Details the process that my designer and I shared for coming up with the cover for TOO CLOSE TO MISS. Useful for authors who are having trouble putting a cover concept into words. Also, shows off some phenomenal cover design.”

Book Design and Production

iWriteReadRate.com presents 4 Quick Reasons Why Your eBook Cover Is Critical posted at The iWriteReadRate Blog, saying, “A short, but helpful article about why having a good cover is critical to your ebook. This is part of our 4 Quick Tips series of blog posts.”

Matt Harrison presents Ebooks for 3rd Graders posted at Hairy Sun, saying, “I recently had the chance to teach elementary students how to create ebooks. While we didn’t give J A Konrath a run for his money, we did have a good time learning a lot.”

Nick Daws presents Should Writers Create Their Own E-book Covers? posted at Nick Daws’ Writing Blog, saying, “A thought-provoking guest post from successful UK author and publisher David Robinson.”

Indie Author

Lakisha Spletzer presents New KDP Select & Indie Publishing posted at My Inner Muse, saying, “a look at the new KDP Select program and what it means for indies.”

Joanne DeMaio presents Putting My Self On the Shelf … Why I’m Self-Publishing My Novel posted at Whole Latte Life.

Marketing and Selling Your Books

Matt presents How to Make a Custom QR Code posted at Guerrilla Wordfare, saying, “I’ve got quite a few articles about social media and SEO for indie authors that I would be happy to submit if you’re interested..”

Nick Daws presents NovelRank: A Brilliant Free Resource for Tracking Your Amazon Sales posted at Nick Daws’ Writing Blog.

Dana Lynn Smith presents What’s the Most Important Thing on an Author Website? posted at The Savvy Book Marketer.

Self-Publishing Success

Bridget McKenna presents Don’t Be The Fish posted at Points of View, saying “Is Penguin Book Country really “no worse than others” of its kind, as Victoria Strauss claims on Writer Beware? Or is Penguin making a tasty meal of starry-eyed writers?”

Jennie Coughlin presents Robert Bidinotto and Hunter’s Stunning Amazon Success posted at Welcome to Exeter…, saying, “After Amazon selected Robert’s indie book for a one-week promotion, it skyrocketed to the top of the best-seller lists, passing Stephen King, John Grisham, James Patterson and other big names. He took some time to answer questions about his wild ride and why he thinks Hunter achieved such success.”

Dave Bricker presents Self-Publishing IS Real Publishing-The Difference is up to You posted at The One Hour Guide to Self Publishing, saying, “The notion of real publishing- vs. self-publ-ishing is obsolete. The difference is up to you.”

Writing Tools and Tips

Rebecca Berto presents Art of Writing 2: Nail your novel’s first sentence posted at Novel Girl, saying, “What to do to ensure you write a first sentence grabs the reader.”

Gibson Goff presents Do Words Flow Through You And Onto The Page? posted at Freelance Writing Dreams.

Rebecca Berto presents My top 10 tips for fiction writers posted at Novel Girl, saying, “This is a complete guide for fiction writers on tips and things they can do to drive their success.”

Rebecca Berto presents Perfect your writing voice – Kathryn Stockett and other helpful
hints posted at Novel Girl, saying, “I’ve published this article so writers have a practical guide to develop their ‘voice’ in fiction writing.”

How to Take Part in the Carnival of the Indies

Well, that wraps up this issue. I hope you enjoy some of the great articles here, and let other people interested in self-publishing know about the Carnival—Use the share buttons below to Tweet it, Share it on Facebook, Plus-1 it on Google+, Link to it! The next issue is January 29, 2012 and the deadline for submissions will be January 20, 2012. Don’t miss it! Here are all the links you’ll need:

The original announcement post
Carnival of the Indies web page
Submit your article here
Bloggers, grab your official Carnival of the Indies Badges here
Follow Carnival of the Indies on Twitter
Subscribe to The Book Designer Blog