Starting a new Blog Carnival for Self-Publishing

When I started blogging last year I kept hearing about blog carnivals, a way to get more readers and spread the message that I was writing about on my blog, TheBookDesigner.com. But I had no idea what a blog carnival was. Was there cotton candy? Roller coasters?

Turns out blog carnivals are collections of links to other blog articles across a subject area, curated by the blog owner to bring more articles to the attention of readcers, and to bring more readers to bloggers with something valuable to add to the conversation in that particular niche.

I found a couple of blog carnivals and started submitting my best articles. And it worked! I got links back to my blog, and a steady trickle of new readers who found me through the carnivals.

But I was disappointed that there was no blog carnival devoted to indie publishing.

That's why, a couple of months ago, I started a brand new blog carnival: Self-Publishing, the Carnival of the Indies. The first issue came out at the end of October.

It featured articles from 20 bloggers.

I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of reader interest, but I was hoping that bringing together a lot of great content would attract readers, too. After all, if you follow one blogger on the list, you might like one or two of the others.

It's been three weeks since the first issue went live. As of this writing the page has had over 1200 pageviews. Considering that it takes about 1 minute to submit an article to the blog carnival, I'd say the bloggers who took part got a good payoff.

If you're interested in this whole subject of blog carnivals, here are two things to consider:

1. If you write about self-publishing, writing, book marketing or related subjects, think about submitting your best articles and we'll include them in the next issue of the Carnival of the Indies. It's easy, it's fun, and you'll get traffic to your blog.

2. If you write in a specific niche that has a number of other bloggers, think about starting a blog carnival centered around your subject. It's a great way to get to know other bloggers in your niche, and you'll get more links from hosting the carnival.

Here's a link if you want to find out more about the Self-Publishing, the Carnival of the Indies blog carnival, and for all the links you'll need if you want to submit a post, go to:

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/carnival-of-the-indies/

To find out how to set up your blog carnival, head over to:

blogcarnival.com

See you at the carnival!

Tags: blog, blogging, book, carnivals, marketing

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Permalink Reply by Joel Friedlander on December 1, 2010 at 4:53pm

Thanks, Kae. It's been a lot of fun and we just issued our second edition this past weekend with some great posts headlining the Carnival.

I've been having trouble with blogcarnival.com also, not sure what's happening there but we are trying to check it out.

I hope you'll stop by and have a look at the Carnival of the Indies, there's some great reading there.