By Joel Friedlander
Welcome to this issue of the Carnival of the Indies blog carnival. This issue is for September, 2018. 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
Louise Harnby presents Research tools for crime and thriller writers posted at The Parlour, saying, “If you’re including authentic technical or procedural information in your crime writing, you’ll be wearing your research hat. Your story should come first, of course. However, be sure to get your facts straight before you decide if and how far you’re going to bend reality.”
including my synonym finder, the dictionary, online, and memes. When I’ve posted some of the memes on my Facebook group forum, they were well received by my writer friends. That’s when I had the idea of collecting all these alternative words and putting them together in one list. The list in my newsletter is there for anyone to copy and past to start their own notebook of synonyms. Hope you find it useful as well.”
Ricardo Fayet presents What is the Best Service for Print on Demand Books? posted at Reedsy Blog, saying, “The fruit of several months of research, this article compares the most popular print-on-demand services available to indie authors based on a series of criteria: distribution, royalties, print production and easy of use. It ends with our recommended distribution setup to get the most out of your paperbacks!”
Yesenia Vargas presents Write to Market Results (My Huge Mistake, All The Numbers, Launch Strategy, & More) posted at WriterMom, saying, “The first 8 books I wrote were written purely from the heart and before I learned so much more about even basic story structure. Not to mention how to market, cultivate a fanbase, and grow a newsletter… (in this post I describe) how I went from 8 books and $600 average months to writing to market and my best launch ever. I wanted to do big things with my next series and start making some real money from my fiction. I knew that the key to that was writing to market: finding something I loved writing that readers really wanted to read.”
Book Design and Production
Auden Johnson presents How Indie Authors Can Learn to Design Compelling Images on a Tight Budget posted at Dark Treasury.
Christine Bernard presents Judging a book by its cover. posted at Christine Bernard.
Indie Author
Alexander Zoltai presents Conversation about Which Is Better for a Writer — Social Media or Search Engines ? posted at Notes from An Alien.
Lisa Poisso presents Kick-start your career development program for new novelists posted at Clarity, saying, “The hardest part of breaking into anything new is that you’re not even aware of what you don’t yet know, so dig in. These ideas will help you spot some of the things worth learning and exploring as an emerging novelist.”
Lois Hoffman presents CreateSpace Merging with KDP posted at The Happy Self-Publisher, saying, “Rumors have been flying for months, and now it’s official. CreateSpace is merging with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). The two companies are both owned by Amazon. With the addition of print publishing to KDP, it seemed inevitable that change was underway. Earlier this year, CreateSpace discontinued their professional services to authors, no longer offering editing and design services. In a move that will simplify the publishing process for some, the change disrupts business as usual for many authors, as well as many companies who serve them.”
Terry Whalin presents The Hidden Costs of Publishing posted at The Writing Life, saying, “Our lives in publishing have hidden costs and prolific author Terry Whalin calls these to our attention.”
Marketing and Selling Your Books
Dave Chesson presents Craft a Brand-Building Author Bio for Your Blog Sidebar posted at BookWorks Blog, saying, “BookWorks.com’s Author Branding Expert, Dave Chesson, reveals how to craft a high-impact author bio and image for your blog sidebar in his continuing series on brand-building.”
Frances Caballo presents Author Podcasting: 10 Tips You Need posted at Social Media Just for Writers, saying, “Author podcasting is hot. But is podcasting one more thing that you need to do now to succeed at selling your books? Absolutely not. But I tell you this: when I had a podcast, I sold more books.”
Frances Caballo presents 13 Steps to Improve Your Facebook Reach posted at Social Media Just for Writers, saying, “I often hear authors g-r-o-a-n about their Facebook reach. You know how it is. If you have a Facebook author page, two percent of your status updates penetrate your fans’ newsfeeds, if you’re lucky. Unless … The unless is this: you can better penetrate your fans’ newsfeeds if you buy advertising.”
Glenna Collett presents Our book sales: Three years in posted at Book Design Made Simple, saying, “We’ve been working away at selling our book for 3 whole years now. We’ve learned a lot, so we wanted to share our real life experience. Book marketing is a lot more difficult in practice than it is in theory!”
Nate Hoffelder presents Infographic: How Authors can use Infographics to Connect with Readers posted at The Digital Reader, saying, “Infographics aren’t just fun to read, they are also a great way to raise your profile. Here are five ways authors can use an infographic to connect with fans and find new ones.”
Penny Sansevieri presents Get Ready Now for Your Holiday Book Sales posted at BookWorks Blog, saying, “BookWorks.com’s Book Marketing Expert, Penny Sansevieri, advises authors to prepare for holiday book sales before the end of summer and explains why and how.”
Sarah Bolme presents How to Improve Your Social Media Success posted at Marketing Christian Books, saying, “Every author struggles with knowing how much time to invest in social media. Social media is a time vortex. You can spend hours upon hours each week creating, publishing, monitoring and engaging with content on social media. The important question to ask yourself is whether you see a proportional return for the time you spend on social media.”
Self-Publishing Success
Carla King presents Your Advance Reader Copy: 6 Tech Tools for Sharing ARCs posted at BookWorks Blog, saying, “BookWorks.com’s Tech Expert, Carla King, offers her fave tools for sharing digital files of your Advance Reader Copy (ARCs) with early reviewers & readers.”
Chris Well presents HARO for Authors: Show Your Expertise to the World posted at BookWorks Blog, saying, “BookWorks.com’s Media & PR Expert, Chris Well, shares tips on using HARO, (Help-A-Reporter-Out) the social platform that connects journalists with potential news sources.”
Sarah Bolme presents Follow These Four Steps to Success posted at Marketing Christian Books, saying, “Success is defined as “The accomplishment of an aim or purpose.” Before you can have “success” you have to define what it is for you. What goal do you want to accomplish?”
Sophie Anderson presents How to Self-Publish Your Book, Stage 4 – Reviewing, Design and Indexing posted at Carmine Proofreading, saying, “This stage is focused on the interior and exterior design of your book and creating an index.”
Writing Tools and Tips
C. S. Lakin presents Choosing Settings with the Highest EQ posted at Live Write Thrive, saying, “Whether setting is a huge element in your story because of your premise or not, you can make setting powerful and impacting by choosing each place carefully. For each scene, consider your high moment and the plot point you are going to reveal. The setting should be determined by the high point of the scene. Stop and think what main plot point or character insight you are going to center on in a scene.”
Daphne Gray-Grant presents Why you should be a copycat posted at The Publication Coach, saying, “When I suggest that people copy the work of other writers, word for word, they immediately think I’m suggesting plagiarizing. Not at all! Instead, I’m proposing a way they can deeply absorb, and thefore emulate the style, syntax and vocabularly of other more experienced authors. The practice has transformed my own writing and I believe it can help others, as well.”
Deanna Cabinian presents How Writers Can Avoid Burnout Part II posted at Deanna Cabinian, saying, “A continuation of my last post, with more tips to avoid burnout.”
Iola Goulton presents Copyright for Writers: Using Images in Blog Posts posted at Christian Editing Services, saying, “Images in blog posts can be a great way to break up the text and make the reading experience more user friendly. But we can’t just use any images in blog posts – as some bloggers have discovered the hard way. This post takes readers through how and when authors and bloggers can use images.”
Jay Artale presents 5 Steps to Writing Better How-To posted at Jane Friedman, saying, “This guest post by Betsy Graziani Fasbinder on Jane Friedman’s blog provides actionable tips for writing an attention grabbing and engaging non-fiction how to book.”
Louise Harnby presents How to punctuate dialogue in a novel posted at The Parlour, saying, “If the thought of punctuating your novel’s dialogue brings you out in a sweat, let me mop your brow with these 7 tips.”
Zara Altair presents The Sleuth Triumphant posted at Write Time, saying, “After all the false leads, obstacles, and setbacks allow your mystery hero to showcase his skills when he reveals the killer.”
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 to Tweet it, Share it on Facebook, Plus-1 it on Google+, Link to it!
The next issue is October 28, 2018 and the deadline for submissions will be October 15, 2018. Don’t miss it!
Here are all the links you’ll need
- Have something to share with our community? Submit your article here
- The original announcement post
- Carnival of the Indies web page
- Bloggers, grab your official Carnival of the Indies Badges here
- Follow Carnival of the Indies on Twitter to get deadline reminders
- Subscribe to The Book Designer Blog