Fellow author and growing friend, Steve Soldwedel has put me to shame, so I'm going to follow his lead.

In the last hour of the contest, or any time before their 1,000 pre-order deadlines, if you have extra credits lying around or you just want to support good writing, let me recommend my favorites:

IT"S DONE!

The 100 for $100 contest has 100 entrants. That's right, Blood Dawn is at 204 pre-orders! Less than a month ago I was at 104 pre-orders. This is amazing! Blood Dawn's support nearly doubled in a month, which was exactly what I'd hoped to do. To all of you who jumped on board during this time, you're AWESOME. Thank you so much!

Stay tuned for what comes next -- I have a exciting announcement for you all.

But first, stay tuned tonight for the results of the draw. As promised, I will be printing out the 100 names of the entrants and putting them in a blue wizard's hat, then drawing the one who will be the lucky winner. I'll post a short video on Vine so you can see the process and know the contest wasn't rigged.

Please continue to spread the word. I'm just thrilled to see the momentum growing!

Remember when we were little kids and didn't care what anybody thought of us? We played and pretended and we were what we loved without worrying about what loved us. We weren't competing. We were simply being. (Kyle Cease looks at that past here.)

Speaking for myself because my writing partner has grown silent, this competition has made me, as I'm sure it has all the other introverts, face two things:

1. Stepping waaaaay outside my comfort zone to do what needs to be done, and

2.How the hell I can promote myself and my work without losing my soul?

I already knew how to do what needs to be done: I've been a single mom since the moment I gave birth. But a self-promoting introvert? Man, the word "pre-order" has become a euphemism for something nasty, and every time I spoke, wrote, or thought the title of the book-that-must-not-be-named, a tiny piece of my soul crumbled off and rolled away looking for some meaningful little object to hide in till this was over.

Well,it's over. The competition is over. Like everyone here (except maybe Romero Russo), I gave it everything I had. More than I knew I had. And then some.

Thanks, Inkshares, for giving us this opportunity to grow our base of support and gain confidence that we've written something people want to read. I especially want to thank Avalon for being a constant source of kindness, help, and encouragement. I'm most grateful for this unexpected bonus: in the last six weeks, I've made contact with some genuine, generous, like-minded people all over the world who are now part of my life.

November 15th is somewhere down the road, where I can offer support to those new friends and hopefully find at least 462 pre-orders for my project scattered along the way. If not, there's always Plan B.

For now, I'm ready to play again. To create and have a great time being what I love, and not worrying about what loves me. To simply be. So ready. But first, there's that little matter of those missing soul crumbs. It's time to hunt them down like horcruxes so I can become a whole person again.

See you on the other side.

Sue

So. Here we are. The last day of the Inkshares/Nerdist contest. Wow.

Congratulations to the winners. I hope winning the contest is everything you hoped it would be, and you are able to use this wonderful opportunity to its fullest extent.

Congratulations to everybody who has finished writing a novel. Short stories are sprints, novels are effing ironman marathons. Just being able to complete a major work of art such as a novel is a minor miracle, and you should be very proud you have done it.

Finally, congratulations to everybody who is working on their first novel. Being an artist is a lonely, frustrating, highly misunderstood life – and we wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world!

So, that’s me. I know I still have 45 days to get my book published here, but honestly: if I couldn’t get 40 preorders in 45 days, how likely is it that I’ll be able to get 960 preorders in the next 45 days? Besides, I have a novel to finish writing by the end of the year, and November and December are likely to be filled with my data entry day job, so the next month is the only realistic time I will have to finish it.

Thanks to everybody who has supported Both Sides. NOW! That has meant a lot to me. And, fear not for Both Sides. NOW! It’s a very good novel, and they always find a home somewhere sooner or later.

CONCLUSION

I say this at the end of all of my readings and interviews, so I thought I should probably end with it here. If you read a book by a small press or self-published author that you really enjoy let the world know! Blog about it. Post reviews to Amazon, Goodreads or the like. Mention it to your social networks. Small press and self-published authors live and die by word of mouth, and your friends would probably be grateful to find a good book by a new writer. Everybody wins!

PS

If you’re interested in keeping up with me beyond the Inkshares/Nerdist contest, I’m all over the place.

MY WEB SITE: Les Pages aux Folles (http://www.lespagesauxfolles.ca)

ON TWITTER at https://twitter.com/#!/ARNSProprietor (I follow back any HUMAN who is NOT TRYING TO SELL ME SOMETHING, whether it be a product or a religion)

ON FACEBOOK at http://www.facebook.com/ira.nayman (personal page)

ON FACEBOOK AGAIN at http://www.facebook.com/ThrishtyFriednishes (author’s page – Shtay thrishty my friednishes!)

ON AMAZON.COM: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AIra%20Nayman (in case you’re curious about my available writing)