I know that feeling:/ this would be the first story I publish too. I think all submissions should be anonymous to readers until the deadline that way you don’t know who the aurthor is and there isn’t any favouritism.
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Just make sure your story has a captivating beginning that will make sure the reader stays to read it. Then if you promote your story in a number of different ways and places, you should get enough reads. Posting your story on the discussion for this contest should get a great number of reads too, as a lot of readers love to read the contest entries. 
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I think that’s why I saw above someone might be making a group for those of us entering this contest so we would read each others stories thereby helping each other out. That would be a good start.
I would wait to publish closer to the deadline. Above I asked Liz whether a story that gets 200 reads before the deadline would qualify, and she confirmed that it would need an additional 100 reads in the week after the deadline for a total of 300 in order for the retention score to be valid. Otherwise the team that scores entries wouldn’t even look at it.
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So if The story gets 200 reads before the deadline but no reads after, it doesn’t count?
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So basically, as far as scoring is concerned. we all start at “0” when the deadline comes, no matter how many reads we actually get beforehand.
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Yes. 
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Yup this part is true… though personally…even if its 100 reads …compared to well known authors…who can easily gain 500+ reads after the deadline compared to lesser known authors within a short amount of time… yeah
I don’t think the team would read every story even if its 100 reads or more…too many contest entries… so only those with 1000 reads would get a shot…
But dont worry we just try our best 
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No
Imagine getting 1M reads before the deadline and then none after 
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I really agree with this…
Right. You have to first get 100+ reads. Then they look at your retention. After that, they only read and judge about 15-30 entries that meet those two qualifications.
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Im totally doing this!!
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I’ll be making a group a little before the deadline.
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Is it to help each other get reads?
I do find it stupid that if you have 100+ reads, it doesn’t count. Before the deadline.
Yeah, I sugested it earlier.
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What? That’s the part that does make sense. It has to be fair for everyone!
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Do you have any ideas? If so, what? (don’t worry, I’m not trying to steal your idea, I already have an idea of my own. I just like to know what other authors are thinking of doing)
It wouldn’t be fair to the others who’ve taken more time to write the chapters.
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