I hope everyone enjoyed themselves, and be sure to subscribe to this blog’s feed so you can see our wrap-up post later, as well as our announcement of the dates for the next one!

And, because it’s so true, our final song for the read-a-thon is: “Hard Day’s Night” from the Beatles!

For this hour, please answer the End of Event meme on your blog, then come back here and add your specific post’s link to Mr. Linky. We’ll draw 2 inners; one will get 5 books while the other gets the Hatchette bundle. Meme:

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?
5. How many books did you read?
6. What were the names of the books you read?
7. Which book did you enjoy most?
8. Which did you enjoy least?
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?

Edited to Add: Sometimes it takes a few seconds or refreshes for your link to appear in Mr. Linky. Give it at least a minute or two before you decide there’s a problem.

And here are the winners from the surprise drawing of readers who were still awake back in Hour 22:
Petunia
Samantha (Amethyst Princess)

And the winner of Memory’s mini-challenge: Trish (Trish’s Reading Nook)

Congrats ladies! E-mail us about prizes!

Also, if you think you’re in the running for most pages read or most time spend reading, include your numbers via this form, and we’ll announce the winners later.

Finally, if you were a participant in any way (reader or cheerleader!) please e-mail us (deweyreadathon AT gmail) your vote for Most Enthusiastic Cheerleader (make that the subject).

Thanks again everyone! I hope you all had a WONDERFUL time! I know that I did!

And since you’re champions, let’s go ahead and celebrate that with Queen! Say it after me: “We Are the Champions”:

I’d like to announce the winner of the Turn to Page… Mini-Challenge: Kim. Congrats! Please e-mail us (deweyreadathon(at)gmail) for your prize information.

Still happening:
if you’re a reader who’s still awake and wants to be in a prize drawing, comment on Hour 22.

This hour, we don’t have any new mini-challenges. However, we have 5 winners from those who left comments on the readers of Hour 20:
Jehara
Lenore
Donna Shepard
Karin (Karin’s Book Nook)
Trish (Trish’s Book Nook)

And one more winner to announce: Memory won the mini-challenge at Libri Touches!

Congrats everyone: e-mail us about your prizes.

As if that weren’t enough, we have another surprise drawing!!! This time, it’s of readers who are still awake, so leave a comment on this post letting us know you’re still out there and we’ll draw two winners during Hour 24 (so you have two hours to comment on THIS post.)

Still happening:
Memory’s Mini-Challenge (open until the end of this hour.)
Gail’s Mini-Challenge (open until the end of this hour.)

This hour, we’ve also got two activities to keep you awake! Gail is hosting the Take a Break mini-challenge and offering the winner a signed copy of Boy Toy, and Dana is hosting Adison’s mini-challenge. That winner will receive a $10 bookstore gift card.

Also, we have a surprise drawing!!! The following two cheerleaders have been randomly chosen to win prizes:
Diane (Bibliophile by the Sea)
Katrina (Katrina’s Reads)
Ladies, please e-mail us to find out about your prizes.

And two more winners to announce:
Monica has won the Give Me Five give away . Please e-mail us to find out about your prize.

Patti of Reading Distractions has won Nikki’s mini-challenge. You should be getting an e-mail from Nikki about your prize.

Congrats to all of our winners!

Still happening:

Shel’s Mini-Challenge (open until the end of this hour)
Memory’s Mini-Challenge (open until the end of Hour 22)

Memory’s challenging you to Picturrific, and the winner will get a bookish art prize pack!

Additionally, we have five readers of the hour! Visit them and leave a comment by the end of this hour; a winner will be chosen from the comments on each blog.
Reading Distractions
S. Krishna’s Books
Another Book Blog-Whore
I’m Booking It
Books of Mee

The winner of Care’s mini-challenge is Sarah Hayes! Congrats!

We’ve officially entered ‘the 20’s’: the final few hours of the read-a-thon. Congrats on being up this long, and keep pushing through!

Still happening:

Lynn’s Mini-Challenge (open until the end of this hour)
Shanra’s Mini-Challenge (open until the end of this hour)
Shel’s Mini-Challenge (open until the end of Hour 21)

We’re six hours from the end, and I know it can be hard to push through. I also know when I’m tired, nothing wakes me up faster than awesome music that makes me want to sing out loud and jump around. So each update, I’ll be providing you a Youtube music video to enjoy (if you wish)! Do not judge my taste in music. :p And if you have anything you’d love to here, tell me in a comment and I’ll add it!
Our musical guest this hour: Aretha Franklin with “Respect”

This hour, Shel’s challenging you to Turn to page… The winner gets to choose 3 books from our prize pool. I know it’s getting into the wee hours, but you’re in the home stretch now, so keep it up!

The winner for my (Eva’s) mini-challenge honouring Dewey: Chris of Book-a-Rama. Congrats Chris! E-mail us (deweyreadathon(at)gmail) to see about your prize.

Still happening:

Nicki’s Mini-Challenge (open until the end of this hour)
Lynn’s Mini-Challenge (open until the end of Hour 20)
Shanra’s Mini-Challenge (open until the end of Hour 20)

I have just sent out e-mails to all of the cheerleaders that I have in my spreadsheet, assigning teams and including a few hints and tips from myself. If you haven’t received an e-mail (accounting for e-mail lag time, so give it an hour, and spam filters, so check yours!), and you still want to cheerlead, please e-mail me (astripedarmchairATgmailDOTcom) as soon as possible! Or, if you’ve just decided today you want to cheerlead, or found out you’d have the time (remember, you only need to commit to an hour) go ahead and e-mail me: it’s not too late!

And now I return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Since this is the first time we’re attempting to ‘organise’ the cheerleading at all, there will probably be a few bumps. Feel free to e-mail me, Eva (astripedarmchairATgmailDOTcom), with any questions this post might bring up! Also, I’m looking for a head cheerleader or two who plan to do the whole read-a-thon and are willing to serve as resources for the cheerleaders during the actual read-a-thon. If you volunteer (and to do so, just e-mail me), you’ll have my undying love and gratitude!

Here’s the plan.

As a cheerleader, you can choose a commitment level, based on total hours you plan to spend cheerleading during the read-a-thon (they don’t have to be all at once-it can be five minutes here, five minutes there, etc.).
Level One: 1 Hour
Level Two: 4 Hours
Level Three: 8 Hours
Level Four: 12 Hours

Very soon, I’ll be e-mailing you asking what level you’d like to commit to. That way, if you’re worried about the stress of trying to do it all, you can commit to fewer hours and lose the guilt!

I’ll take all of that information and divide the cheerleaders into 4 teams with an equal distribution of the various commitment levels. You don’t have to worry about that, though; all you have to worry about is which team you’re in. The day before the read-a-thon, I’ll be e-mailing you that information. I’m taking suggestions for team names, by the way! (Colour? Genre? Authors? What theme should the 4 team names have? Update: Softdrink has come up with really awesome names-check out the comments section!)

I’ll also be dividing the readers into 4 parts, simply by dividing the total number on the Mr. Linky sign-up. Right now, it looks like there will be at least 280 readers, so that would mean 1-70, 71-140, 141-210, and 211-280. Each cheerleading group will be assigned one part of the readers for the first six hours of the read-a-thon. During that time, you only have to focus on that (much smaller) amount of readers. It’s up to if you try to visit them all, or just a few, or if you’re not cheerleading at all during that time! At the end of the first six hours, the groups will switch readers. This is one of those things that sounds a lot more complicated in theory than in practice, so I’m going to give you a demonstration.

As a cheerleader, I’ve been assigned to Team Austen (hehe). For the first six hours, I’m responsible for readers 141-210. Once that time’s up, I switch to readers 211-280. After six more hours, I cheerlead readers 1-70. And for the final six hours, I’ll be visiting readers 71-140.

Does that make sense? That way, I get a chance to cheerlead for all of the readers, but I don’t feel overwhelmed by huge numbers. Meanwhile, the readers should be getting more comments, since they’re each in a smaller group for cheerleaders to visit.

Now that you know that you don’t have to cheerlead the whole time in order to be a cheerleader, that you can choose your participation hours & not feel guilty about it, I hope more of you will sign up! Especially readers who are willing to take at least an hour break from reading to cheer on everyone else, or those who have other obligations during the read-a-thon day, but will be able to spend a few hours involved! I’ve already mentioned the upsides of cheerleading, but one last time: 1) the readers love you and often visit your blog to leave a comment back, 2) you’re eligible for the mini-challenges and most prize drawings, 3) you get to see what everyone’s up to!, and 4) you always feel better doing something for others than for yourself!

FAQ

• Do I have to visit every reader in my part during those six hours?
  Definitely not. If you do, that’s great! But if you’ve only got an hour to cheer, don’t worry about it!
• What are these teams? Do I need to be talking with other cheerleaders
  to plan who to visit? Nope. The teams are just the simplest way to divide y’all into 4.
• How will I know when to switch? Conveniantly, your four co-hosts also have divided the read-a-thon into six-hour shifts. So each time one of us takes over, we’ll remind the cheerleaders it’s time to switch groups!
• Imagine I’m a reader that can cheerlead for one hour, but I’m not even sure yet when that’ll be. How will I know which of the four groups of readers my team will be on when I sit down to cheerlead? When I send you the e-mail with your group the day before the read-a-thon, it will include a break-down of which readers you should be visiting when. As long as you don’t delete the e-mail, you can easily refer back to it!
• Do I need to choose specific hours during which to cheerlead? No! You just choose how much time you’ll be spending on cheerleading throughout the read-a-thon-there’s no need to sign up for a time slot.
• Eva, you are so convincing! I definitely want to become one of the read-a-thon elite and cheerlead. Where do I sign-up? I’m so glad you asked! Right here.