When Sarah and I got the idea to put this contest together, I don’t think either of us had any clue just how massive of an undertaking it would turn out to be, or how fast the word would spread (although I should have known better).

I can only speak for myself here, of course, but I just didn’t expect so many freaking nominations to come in. It’s haunting my dreams – and that’s *if* I get any sleep because I have literally been working around the clock to enter all the nominations.

In fact, as I type this, my laptop keeps dinging, indicating even more coming in. Which, of course, is great and wonderful and spectacular with cherries on top… but a bit overwhelming, too.

And I know that the bigger something gets, the more questions arise. And people start putting their two cents in. And people want to, like, know stuff.

And sometimes I want to scream, “People? I was hoping to get 12 nominations so that we could fill out a freaking calendar without having to ask Dad or Bust to Photoshop in a picture of David Hasselhoff eating a sandwich to fill October.”

Well, that or, “Where’s the Xanax!?!?”

So then, let’s address the questions coming in and try to clear the air of any confusion, shall we?

Q: Is this thing for real?
A: This one baffles me a bit. I can definitely think of better ways to spend my free time than concocting a site and spending – literally – hours entering all the nominees’ names and blogs, as well as working behind the scenes to put a (fake) shoot together and pretend to produce calendars. All for shits and giggles! So yes, this thing is fo’ real. Fo’ sho.

Q: Are you really flying the winners to New York City for the shoot?
A: Look, we realize that it is not feasible to expect everyone to get to NYC on their own dime. Also, our personal private jet service will be out of commission the weekend of the shoot, so there goes that option, too. Really, though… we said we are inviting the finalists to come to NYC for the shoot. Do we dare to dream big and hope that an airline will want to get involved here? Of course. (Southwest? JetBlue? Delta? That’s your cue.)

Q: So if I can’t get to NYC for the shoot, I’m basically screwed?
A: No way! Sure, you’ll miss out on the fun of the shoot experience, but we’ll work with you to get a calendar-ready hot photo.

Q: So how does the nominating work? The more nominations someone gets, the more likely they’ll make the final cut? Or will everyone who’s nominated be eligible?
A: So, when we first came up with this idea (just to reiterate), we had no clue how huge it would become. We assumed that we’d allow everyone nominated to just be eligible for the final voting round. But within the first few hours we had so many nominations coming in, and so many people getting nominated more than once, that it started to make more sense to narrow down the field based on the # of nominations per person. But that doesn’t seem to be making people happy. So, we’re still up in the air on this one. That means, don’t stop people from nominating you. (What’s it going to be? Like 20 seconds out of their day?) But if you want to leave us a comment here to let us know which method you think is better (let everyone who is nominated be eligible OR have us narrow down the field based on nominations), feel free. We’ll be listening. But you only have until Sunday night (August 24) to let us know. Good grief! OK, everyone who is nominated is eligible. Happy? No? Sorry.

Q: What if someone doesn’t post photos of him/herself? How will I know if he/she should get my vote?
A: We’re hoping that people are going to be thinking beyond skin deep here and looking at other qualities that make someone “hot”… like a person’s wit, intelligence, writing, etc. In other words, the reason you go back to their blog to keep reading. If someone makes the final cut and really truly does not want his/her face shown, I guess we can work around it, but we’re hoping it doesn’t come to that. We’d like to get the “hot” bloggers out from behind their computer screens.

Q: I nominated someone but I don’t see him/her up on the site. WTF?
A: If you’ve nominated someone, rest assured, that person will be added shortly. We don’t have little minions to do the data entry. That’s on our shoulders, too.

Q: Why don’t you (fill in blank here with unsolicited suggestions)?
A: We are honestly working very, very hard to put this together and make it as fun and successful as possible for everyone involved. We know we can’t make everyone happy. If you’ve made a suggestion that we haven’t implemented, it’s just because we can’t do it all. But we still love you. And you’re still hot to us.

Still need more answers? Shoot us an email at jane[at]hotbloggercalendar[dot]com or sarah[at]hotbloggercalendar[dot]com and we’ll answer it for you.