And here are a few answers.

Yes, this is the "Reader Retention Contest" I'm talking about :) I didn't figure I needed tot repeat it (as your assumption proves,) though I will go back to my blogs concerning it and tag them with the appropriate contest tag once it is available. Now, for the numbered questions:

1. I'm fully expecting authors to be working on their contest ideas well before the actual posting date (starting basically now, actually.) A title page for the overall volume ahead of time isn't going to hurt anything, I don't think, so long as you don't include anything like a blurb for your story or something like that, since that would technically count as early content for readers. Which leads us on to question 2 . . .

2. I honestly hadn't considered that people would choose to do this? It's a great idea, and a good way to garner extra interest, but as with the title page anything directly related to the story's content probably needs to wait until January. So, advertising that you're working on something is great, even letting the title be known is fine, but throwing out teasers, character profiles, or things like that would be overstepping it a bit, essentially letting you post story content months ahead of time. Which yet again segues nicely into number 3 . . .

3. Anything you choose to post in blogs or conversations your friends start during the actual run of the contest are perfectly fine! Once the contest proper has started pretty much all bets are off, though keep in mind that, unless Erin would prefer I do include them, would not count toward the story kudos count as far as win criteria are concerned. Advertising is a great idea though (and something we as a community very much need to do more of,) so go to town tootin' that horn of yours!

4. In the case of cheating at the contest by posting multiple stories or kudo-ing your own work, I really don't feel anything that extreme is necessary. For one thing I never specified that authors were limited to only one entry in the contest: in past iterations I have allowed multiple but only counted the highest overall voted story toward the actual contest, and I don't see why I would run this one any different since it's basically putting in double the effort, and I believe in rewarding hard work. The likelihood of one author winning both prizes under different names is something I hadn't considered, but doing so would do little to benefit them: they would in essence be getting 17 books rather than 15 for first place since all the curated titles in the second place prize are also in the first, so why?

The Kudos thing is perhaps a slightly bigger concern, given how much an extra vote or two could add up over the course of multiple parts, but at the same time is not really something I could control. Even using a poll of some sort would have the same issue, after all, with people being able to vote multiple times from different accounts, and though there are potentially ways around it they are all either too complex, too expensive, or too invasive to bother with for a pokey little contest like this.

Much like with previous contests, we're working on the honor system here. The main purpose of these contests is to help promote and fund BCTS so that it can continue to survive and, hopefully, one day even thrive. As naive as it may sound, I truly believe that we have a pretty good community here, and that, even though the opportunity is there, the desire or drive to cheat in any significant way are something that shouldn't cause an issue. The prizes are mostly there to give people something to aspire to, with their main benefit being that I'm paying BCTS for every one I offer, which adds just a bit more to the site's coffers and helps keep the servers in electricity and fiber.

If you feel that cheating is a serious potential concern for this contest, I will offer this up: if anyone sees an entry or author that they think is cheating in some way, whether it be vote fixing or whatever, feel free to PM me with the information. Despite my rather easygoing demeanor in terms of MY expectations of cheating, I do want to make sure that these contests can serve as a pillar for the community to gather around, and I will take any requests for inquiry into this matter seriously.

Melanie E.