I’m going to enter the upcoming Queer contest and I’m almost done with my story. It will be ready for publication in about a week. I know that some authors are waiting to publish theirs on the 18th of May, the deadline. What is the reason for this? Will it hurt my chances of winning if I publish sooner?
because you need 100 reads and the reads you get wont count before after the deadline.
it will only hurt if you cant get 100 reads before then. and you might wont because the ones interested would already have read it
I need 100 reads for them to even consider it? wow
yes. its the first elimnatiosion. if you dont 100 reads your story cant continuie to the rewiew. have you read the rules it says so?
I read the rules but didn’t see anything about that. I’ve never entered a contest before
Guess I’ll wait then!
yeah I just looked I cant find it either weird.
You can publish whenever you feel like, but it’s generally recommended to publish as close to the deadline as possible; a lot of people prefer to wait a day or even few hours before the deadline because after it passes, that’s when the reader retention counts. If you were to publish now and get reads, they ultimately wouldn’t count towards the retention, which is how Episode picks winners (out of many things)
I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that’s the reason why 
And, it was already mentioned, but the 100 reads to qualify is a probably a factor as well
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Reads and reader retention aren’t measured until after the deadline.
Check out point 3 from this post:
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Yeah tbh I think the number of reads you have in general is one of the deciding factors for who wins 
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