Matt Kaye liked the forum thread, Welcome Nerdist Authors!!!
Hello everyone thanks for inviting me to the conversation!  I am so excited to participate in this.  I have been writing in a vacuum for quite a while now so I am very pumped to get some things out into the world. I am very new to the process of getting the word out about my work so any suggestions from folks with some experience in these areas would be greatly appreciated.  

Good luck everybody!
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    Matt Kaye liked the forum thread, Welcome Nerdist Authors!!!
    @Rhett Pennell Well, I can answer for @Joseph Asphahani and myself: Pretty much every waking moment was spent working on SOME facet of the contest. Everything from working on covers, updates, pouring over content, and actual selling. 

    If nothing else, the contest forces you to get everything in gear pretty fast and really polish up everything that ’surrounds’ the book. Pitch Lines, Synopsis, etc etc...

    I’ll be honest, I’m sort of vicariously looking forward to watching the contest from afar this time while I sit back and read all the entries. 

    Good luck everyone!
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      Matt Kaye liked the forum thread, Welcome Nerdist Authors!!!
      Hi everyone! Like a lot of folks, this is my first time doing this kind of thing. 

      Right now, my brain’s still kind of spinning from everything, but I just wanted to stop in and say good luck to the rest of the participants, and give thanks to the veteran players for their advice.
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        Matt Kaye liked the forum thread, Welcome Nerdist Authors!!!
        Good advice from @Joseph Asphahani . I find that Josephs are a pretty clever bunch. The contest will be a killer, but the stakes are high. Submit your book to the jaggy cliffs of traditional publishing, the ocean self-publishing, or give your all for a guaranteed publication with a top-tier support group, which is right for you? The contest is a chance of a lifetime, and I feel incredibly lucky to have been part of one.

        If you can, get a team together. I had two people working for me. Be aggressive. Unless you are a wild success and can blast all the way to 750 (it has happened before,) it will be a long and challenging path. Hard as it may be, if you consider it against the other publishing options and the benefits of each, it is probably the shortest.

        Work hard, but care for yourself, your well-being, take care of your family, and for God sake keep them in the loop! Don’t do this alone if you can help it. Writing can be solitary; pitching doesn’t have to be.
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          Matt Kaye liked the forum thread, Welcome Nerdist Authors!!!
          Thanks for the advice everyone! I wrote the contest up for GeekDad.com and decided to participate and see what the Inkshares model has to offer (I’ve gone one round each on the Indie and self-publishing models). 

          Sadly, I didn’t have a Space Opera ready to go; but I have a character and plotline that I’m pretty excited about and am determined to hack out a rough draft of in the next month and a half. 

          I guess my biggest question is - should I even be pitching at this point? From poking around, it seems that most authors that are participating already have well-vetted manuscripts that they’re using for the contest. 
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            Matt Kaye liked the forum thread, Welcome Nerdist Authors!!!
            Going in without polish is going to be hard. That being said I did exactly that. When the first Sword & Laser hit I was planning my book and about a month out from writing. I quickly whipped something up and jumped in. It was stressful, don’t expect to get much writing done when you are campaigning.

            Nothing like a trial by fire to vet an idea, and as an added benefit submitting a book to Inkshares is very low risk. If your funding is not successful it returns to draft state and you can attempt to fund it again at a later date when you feel ready. You’ll retain the book’s followers and any pre-orders will be refunded. Aside from the stress associated trying to fund a book (which is completely up to you,) there is little reason not to throw a book in the mix. 
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              Matt Kaye liked the forum thread, Welcome Nerdist Authors!!!
              @Anthony Karcz - I’ve got a pitch, a few short stories that could make chapters, and a rough outline. I’m hoping it won’t hurt anything to throw my hat in the ring, but I’m also here more for the practice and the chance to get to know other indie writers (especially Nerdist listeners) as opposed to winning the contest this time around.

              I’m polishing a Southern Gothic Noir MS right now, and I’m trying to decide if I’m willing to set it aside to get my Space Opera completely drafted. Now that we’re a few days in, I think I might use this round to find other writers to cheer for and hope to build some goodwill for when a genre I’m more prepared for comes along.
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