I told my Facebook friends/fans that if my post about the idea of running a fan art contest for my novella “That Prince Guy” received 20 likes, I’d run it. I need to know there is genuine interest in participating and witnessing this, after all. It’s been a couple days and that post has only gotten about seven likes (that’s still a lot of likes, for my Facebook page) but most of those were from artist friends. So, at least I know I have artists interested in participating, probably. I decided to give them a better shot by sharing the concept on my blog. If I get the remaining 13 or so likes here, I’ll post the rules and set the deadline within a couple of days.

Also, I’m counting “likes” double, because why not. You can also give the Facebook post a “like” here. Make sure to follow my page!

I published my YA Fairy Tale Adaptation/Rom-Com on October 18. As I am a mental health advocate, the main character also suffers with depression, and he and the people around him are trying to figure out how to deal with it. The book is only 30,000 words long, and it’s up for $2.99 on Amazon as an ebook or you can read it for free on KU. As of Octover 26, the paperback is also available for $6.99. So far everyone that I know of has been able to read it in 2-4 hours, and I have one confirmed binge-read so far.

Here’s my idea for how the contest would work. I’d give artists something like 6-8 weeks to submit art to my email, then I’d upload it all in an album on Facebook. Viewers would vote for their favorite by liking the photo. There would probably be about a week before winners are announced. Depending on how many artists enter, there would be prizes for the top 3 places, and I’ll probably give out participation prizes too.

I’m still working on prize ideas. At the very least, a signed paperback will be one of them. Possibly an early look at the next book in the series as well, or something like that? What would probably happen is I would collect cool knickknacks related to the book, suicide awareness, and mental health (bath salts and fuzzy socks anyone?) and post videos/pictures on Facebook all throughout the artist submission period so people would know what kind of prizes they might be working for.

I’ll probably hand make a bunch of goodies, too. Because I love crafting. But also November is NaNoWriMo and I’ll be writing the next two books in the series as well as publishing my self-help procrastination booklet, sooooo no guarantees.

Anyway, make sure to like the post if you want to see this happen! And share it with your artist friends!

Okay it might be fun to explain *why* I want to do this. There is the part about promoting my book, yeah. Also, I love fan art. One of my amazing talented friends made me fan art for another novel of mine years ago and it’s still one of my very favorite things. I’m also aching for some interaction with people who have read and liked the book. I miss being part of an involved online community that gets excited about stuff and makes friends with each other. I don’t even know where to find that in this day and age. But I can create it. Plus, my author page on Facebook is kind of dead. It has 68 likes (down from 72) and at least 55 of those are friends and family. I managed to get a whole 20-30 likes on a post once when I ran an ad for a week but usually I only get 0-3 and I almost never get comments.

And honestly, I’m stoked at the idea of seeing what people would create. There are so many emotional and hilarious moments (usually not at the same time?) that happen in this book, and there’s so much more people could do with the ideas. I mean, it’s not like people would have to stick with what’s *in* the book. I want to be able to share those inside jokes and see people’s other brilliant twists of fantasy.

I’m just going to cut myself off here because it’s after 2am and I’m nearly 20 weeks pregnant and this morning sickness is miserable at the moment. I need to figure out what to do about that.

Here’s that book link if you need it again.