Just want to reiterate what @Matthew Poat posted below:
"That, after all, is what these contests is about, the hustle. Whether your idea/writing is any good isn’t as big a factor as maybe it should be. A great book written by someone who struggles to promote it properly will always struggle against a mediocre book written by a natural salesman with a big social network. At least in a crowdfunding/competition setting."
That sums it up. Everything. Right there. The hustle is all.
The front page of the contest only displays the top ten - the rest are only accessible by clicking the tiny "Browse Submissions" button at the top, and if you look on there right now there’s like a hundred (probably more) books, most of which have the dreaded "0 Ordered" notification. Where are these folks? If they literally DON’T HUSTLE then they won’t get noticed. If they don’t get noticed... well... That’s too bad, too. I’m willing to bet there are some really, really great gems in there. By chance, if you’re one of the contest entrants I’m describing and you’re reading this right now, I would suggest two basic steps to get started:
1- Get an interesting book cover. Now. Like NOW now.
2- Get your immediate family - husband, wife, mother, father, brothers and sisters - to pre-order right now. Like NOW now. To-frikkin-day. This is your trial run for what kind of HUSTLER you are. Make these people understand that you don’t give a crap if they’re into fantasy novels - they can burn your book to keep warm once you get published for all you care... Make them understand that they are supporting YOU, YOUR dreams, YOUR chance to be a published author.
You need a FOUNDATION on inkshares. Once you get a following, once you get a few dozen pre-orders, then things can start ramping up quickly if you’re smart. There are a million things to consider. Once you get that foundation, then you can start HUSTLIN’.
(@Philip Wesley I went to the browse submission page and searched for your book - ctrl+f your book’s tagline - but found nothing. Also, I noticed on your author page that it says you’re the author of your book twice. Something weird going on there. Contact hello[at]inkshares via email and see if they can help you sort it out. Could it be that your book already had 20+ orders before the contest? If you "re-submitted" it after the contest started, then it probably wound up as a new entry. To my knowledge, I don’t think you can "move" an existing book onto a contest. You have to "start fresh." ---- IF that’s the case, and you want to restart your book in the G&S sundry and transfer your readers/pre-orders... uh, well I suppose you’ll have to convince those couple dozen people to do it all over again, which can be a pain in the butt...)
EDIT: Maybe there ought to be a button underneath #10 that says "Browse Submissions" so that the other hundreds+ books are easier for page-visitors to locate. Rather than just the tiny link at the top...?
