@Rhett Pennell it is as @Richard Heinz says. The contest was life, ceaseless, for 45 days straight. I suppose I put in an average of 8 hours a day writing messages, timeline posts, and obsessing over strategies to get the word out (some of which paid off). You just have to blitz. And then try to keep up the pace. Also, and this goes for everyone, set a daily goal and refuse to rest until you achieve it. Mine was five. Yours could be more or less, but what I mean is that the value of having that goal every day was that it was like a sanity waterline. I could justify feeling good about my progress if I reached it, and I had some reason to point at for feeling crappy if I didn’t reach it. 

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.

I thought the last one was rather tame. Especially compared to the first Sword & Laser contest. The top three were solidly in place by a wide margin. The first contest was down to the minute, unless you are talking about the last Nerdist contest. That was intense. So many entrants. I couldn’t believe how many writers it brought to the system.