@Joseph Keeler  I know the frustration you’re feeling right now. This is not an easy thing, especially during the course of a contest. We all are facing the same struggle, hustling to make that front page the best we can. Last year I was in the Nerdist contest, and my book never once made the front page. It was hard, it was frustrating, but in the end, even after the campaign ended, I was a better writer, and a better person because of it.

You have to push past the guilt and promote yourself constantly. Your friends will get sick of it, people will tune you out, but you have to push past that. We all want to win, and you’re going to get support from a lot of friends, but the biggest source of support you are going to get is the other writers here on Inkshares.

A failed campaign sucks. It’s a kick to the gut, and can rattle the faith you have in yourself as a writer. When I failed last time, I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and ignore the world. I was broken, battered, and angry. I let the pressure get to me. I blamed myself for the failures. Now, a year later, I’m trying it again.

Do your best. Push yourself. Develop your pitch, and talk about your book constantly. This is going to be hard. You’re going to feel a hundred different emotions at once, but know you really are amazing. You’ve put the thing you love, your book, out into the world. Not everyone can say that.

Thank you guys for this thread, all of you. I have been stressing out *hard* these past couple of days trying to get people to pre-order my book. Posting about it to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, Tumblr, you name it. I’m trying so hard and am getting very little in the way of interaction/response, and I’ve only gotten 4 orders. It’s super stressful! I’m going to try to keep pushing through that "I’m posting about this too often" guilt, though, and hope that it pays off... :/

These are really good points from a lot of good Inksharians, and I just want to throw my experience in as previous contest winner/newbie. 

I just wanted to put my nose into it as one of the many many people who have 5 or less preorders as of right now in the G&S fantasy contest.

It is not easy to get people to preorder your book when you only have access to five or six people in your life. Ive asked every single family member, every single close friend, and have started to reach out to the weird social group that is distant highschool friends. Ive asked nearly 100 people so far, telling them i need as much support as possible.
Ive gotten a resounding 2 preorders out of this.
Im not saying the system is rigged. Im saying the system leans towards people who have worked the site for probably years at this point.
I love G&S and i love writing, Its always been a dream of mine to get published.
I dont mind working my ass off to get the preorders but after three days of constant nagging (because thats what it feels like at this point) Ive reached the point where I can no longer rely on my immediate area for preorders.
A tiny little bit of help would be greatly appreciated.

also the syndicates throw a big wrench into things.
Say one of the larger syndicates  backs one of the bigger authors because theyve been fans of that author and thought this would be a great chance to give him/her their support.
That could be upwards of 100 preorders handed to the top spot.
Again... not saying the system is rigged, just that it leans heavily towards well set up and long time authors of the site. Authors like @Rick Heinz @André Brun just to name a couple.
I want so badly to be an actual voice on this beautiful site, but it just feels like i and many other small time authors are being completely ignored by the audience at large. Ive even appealed to G&S fans on youtube at this point to get more support.