Alyce Wilson

The voting for Round 2 of America’s Next Author will begin soon, and my story will be eligible for votes.

In the meantime, I’ve done some research into how voting works, and here’s what I’ve learned. According to a guide on how to vote for America’s Next Author, there are three ways:

1. Quickvote: This is the box on the right side of the page where you can select your impression of a story and then click VOTE.

2. Share stories on Facebook and Twitter. This also counts towards an author’s ranking.

3. Leave reviews. This counts towards an author’s ranking as well. Plus, leaving four or more reviews might win you an iPad!

From reading other information on the site, however, they are looking for reviews of at least a few sentences. If you leave a review of just a couple words or a short sentence, such as “Good job, Alyce!” it could wind up being thrown out. In their FAQ on author ranking, the contest organizers state:

Low quality reviews will not be taken into account for the final results. For example, if someone were to quickly write four 5-star reviews with one line of text, or four 1-star reviews with short complaints, those would not count towards rankings or win an eReader.

The takeaway: please write reviews that actually mention aspects of the writing, and make them at least two sentences long. It will help me, and if you also review three other writers’ works, you could win an iPad.

The more that you can share the link to my story on Facebook and Twitter — and encourage your friends to do the same — the better off I should be in the rankings.

Top prize for this contest is $5,000, which if I win it, will go towards a four-door family-sized vehicle to replace our hatchback. No more hitting my head while putting my little Kung Fu Panda in his car seat!

ETA: Voting is now open! Visit the Alyce Wilson author’s page to vote.