Thank Yous

First and foremost, I want to thank the volunteers that eagerly and capably came to my aid. The readathon is extremely time consuming to administrate, and I really couldn’t have done it without these folks!

• Bethany at Dreadlock Girl
• Kim at Page After Page
• Shesten at I Heart Monster
• Jennifer Reading With Tequila
• Kathrin from Secret Dreamworld of a Bookaholic
• Jen at Devourer of Books
• Jill at Fizzy Thoughts
• Jenn at Jenn’s Bookshelves
• Boof at The Book Whisperer
• Sheila from One Person’s Journey Through a World of Books
• Ashley from Ashley’s Library
• Jennifer from Literate Housewife
• Wendy from Caribousmom

If I forgot someone, I apologize. The readathon is a blur, not just now, but when it was happening, so if I forgot you it’s just because you caught me at a time that I was unaware of my surroundings. Even more folks offered to help but I didn’t end up taking them up on their offer only because I’m still learning to delegate.

Winners!

We like to announce mini-challenge winners here on the readathon site, and these are the mini-challenge winners we weren’t able to announce while the readathon was in progress:

• For Shel and Monica’s Hungry for More Challenge, the winner was Bekah from Bekah’s Bytes.
• For Kiki’s Go INDIE! Challenge, the winners were: First place: Melissa from One Librarian’s Book Reviews; Second place: Kanaye from Kanaye Speaks; Third place: Heidenkind from Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Books.
• For Alicia’s Cliffhanger Challenge, the winner was Fiction State of Mind.
• For Sheila’s Reading Sanctuary Challenge, the winner was Readerbuzz.
• The winner of Sparks Notes’ Most Hated Mini-Challenge was Bitsy at Fabula: A Book Blog.
• There is a correction to the winner of Sheila’s Once Upon a Time Challenge. The winner we originally announced was disqualified, and the new winner was Callista from SMS Book Reviews.
• The winners of Joy’s Reading is Fundamental Challenge were: Michelle~ New Horizon Reviews, Bonnie, Morphidae, infogoddess, and debnance at readerbuzz

We still have some winners to announce, folks who won after the readathon ended:

The prize for most time spent reading goes to the little reader for reading for 23.25 hours. Congratulations! You win one individual book of your choice and one prize pack. Please email deweyreadathon at gmail to claim your prize.

The prize for most pages read goes to Bitsy at Fabula: A Book Blog with 1,816 pages read. Congratulations! You win one individual book of your choice and one prize pack. Please email deweyreadathon at gmail to claim your prize.

We have two winners for Most Enthusiastic Cheerleader: Staci from Life in the Thumb and Bart from Bart’s Bookshelf. Staci will get the set of origami bookmarks from Bellezza and a prize pack OR two books of her choice, and Bart will get A set of 10 themed bookmarks from Morphidae and a prize pack OR two books of his choice. Congratulations you two! Please email deweyreadathon at gmail to claim your prize.

We also picked three winners for the End of Event Meme, and those folks are: Amused by Books, Lenore from Presenting Lenore, and Vicki from Reading at the Beach. Congratulations! You all won a prize pack OR two books of your choice. Please email deweyreadathon at gmail to claim your prize.

We inadvertantly forgot to announce the winners of the Mid-Event Survey! The winners of that and what they won are:

• Wendy from itsJUSTme won a book bundle of her choice and the chocolate coins
• Reading Teen won two books of their choice OR a book bundle
• Rebecca from Mood Swings and Other Furniture won two books of her choice OR a book bundle
• Trish from A Bushel and a Peck won two books of her choice OR a book bundle
• Martina from She Read a Book won two books of her choice OR a book bundle

Congratulations! Please email deweyreadathon to claim your prize.

In Hour 18, we asked people if they were raising money for charity. We randomly picked one person, and that’s m. smith gentry. Congratulations! You won the $25 gift card courtesy of Morphidae! Please email deweyreadathon at gmail to claim your prize.

Angels Still Needed

Okay, we are running low (actually in the red here) on Angels. Angels, you ask? Yes, we call them Angels because what they do is make it possible for the readathon prizes to be open internationally since many of the donors are already going out of their way to give the books, we need the Angels to pay to get them to the winners. This year we have more international peeps than usual and have completely run out of Angels!!!! We really need your help so that the readathoners from all over the world can get their books and bookie things. International Priority Flat Rate (envelope that fits one book, box that would fit a few) is $13.45. So it’s not too expensive, but we couldn’t do it without your help. If you are interested please head on over and fill out this Angel Form. Thank you so much!

**We also need angels in Europe! Please help make it possible for everyone in the world to win a book!

The Next Readathon

The next readathon is scheduled for October 9, 2010. Hope to see you then!

Mini-challenge

The mini-challenge for this hour is being hosted by Bart at Bart’s Bookshelf. The mini-challenge is Book Title Sentence. Bart is going to have you line up some books and make a sentence out of their title. This is really great fun! The winner will receive a book of their choice (up to a $10 value) from Book Depository.

Winners announced

We’ve got two surprise reader winners! We randomly picked two participants who will get two books of their choice from the Prizes page. Congrats to Sherri from sherrisue76’s Bookcrossing Blog and Milka from Read.Read.Read.!

The winners from the readers of the hour are:

• April at Good Books and Wine
• ferrywoman
• Kara at World According to Books
• Brittany Landgrebe
• Kristi at Books and Needlepoint

These five commenters each win one book of their choice!

Winners, please email DeweyReadathon at gmail to claim your prize!

Still ongoing

And the nominees are…

Just a reminder – you don’t have to do each and every mini-challenge. Do what works for you!

This hour we’ve got five readers of the hour! Please go give these participants some encouragement! We’ll pick one random commenter from each blog (please comment on the latest post) to win one book of their choice from the Prizes page.

• Allie at A Literary Odyssey
• Alex at Luvvie’s Musings
• Elsi at Reading in Texas
• Bekah at Bekah’s Bytes
• Wendy at itsJUSTme

Have you participated more than once? Leave a comment on this post and we’ll randomly select 4 multi-time participants. The first winner will receive a $25 gift card to any independent bookstore, and the other 3 will win 2 books of their choice from the Prizes page. We’ll leave this open for three hours and announce the winner in Hour 7.

Mini-challenge

This hour’s mini-challenge is being hosted by Bobbie at ‘Til We Read Again. Her mini-challenge is called And the nominees are…. Go check it out! You’ll list nominees in four different categories. The winner will receive a copy of Until We Reach Home by Lynn Austin.

Winners announced

None yet!

Still ongoing

Intro meme

Kick Off of Champions

One thing I know for sure is that this readathon totally wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t have people who were able to help. One of the huge tasks I assigned out was organizing the mini-challenges. This team did a fabulous job, so let’s go give them some thanks!

• Ashley from Ashley’s Library
• Jennifer from The Literate Housewife Review
• Sheila from One Persons Journey Through A World Of Books

Is this your first time participating? Leave a comment on this post and we’ll randomly select 4 first time readers to win two books of their choice, which you can see on the Prizes page. The first winner we pick will also win a lifetime membership to LibraryThing. Woot! We’ll leave this open for three hours and announce the winner in Hour 6.

Mini-challenge

This hour’s mini-challenge is being hosted by Miss Remmers. Her challenge is called Kick Off of Champions, and she’s going to have you post about what you’ve surrounded yourself with to start the readathon! This challenge goes for three hours and a winner will be chosen by using Random.org and they will be sent by email a $15 Amazon Gift Card.

Winners announced

No winners to announce yet! But we will have winners by the next hour.

Still ongoing

Intro meme

Your host for the next four hours is Trish, and Bethany will co-host for two hours, and then Shesten will take over for her. For the next 4 hours, I (Trish) will be typing up the hosts, and Bethany or Shesten will be checking Twitter, checking in with readers, making sure I don’t screw up, and being generally awesome. It’ll be so much fun!

Make sure you check out the Welcome post! It will give you a lot of information that you’ll need. Even if you’ve read it before, you might want to read it again…I mention some new buttons!

Our first mini-challenge for you is the Hour 1 meme that Darcy wrote up quite a few read-a-thons ago. I’d alter it but I’m all about traditions, man!

Where are you reading from today?

3 facts about me …

How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?

Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?

If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, Any advice for people doing this for the first time?

Come back and sign the Mr. Linky below and we’ll draw 5 winners randomly. Each winner gets a book prize pack, and the first winner will also get the chocolate monkey you see on the right. Again, it’s tradition!

This will be open for two full hours, so no rush!

Have fun and let the reading begin!

We’ve got fun activities planned for every hour! This does NOT mean you have to check in every hour; most mini-challenges and prize drawings will be open for at least two hours. It just means that whenever you do need a break, there should be a couple of activities available.

We’re really excited to have prizes to give away every single hour! This means that every time you check in, there will be at least one prize you can try for.

Remember, Readers can also act as Cheerleaders for other Readers during breaks. Feel free to visit your fellow Readers and encourage them. You can find all the readers on the original sign-up page.

We have Angels who have agreed to send prizes internationally if the prize donor is unable to send internationally. Basically, the prize will get sent to the Angel and that Angel will ship the prize to you international folks. Cool, huh?

Here are some links you may want to bookmark; you may need to use them throughout the event:

• The prize list
• You can email your hosts Trish, Bethany, Kim, Shesten, or Jennifer at DeweyReadathon at gmail.
• Original sign-up page with Mr. Linky (please be sure you’ve signed up if you’re participating)
• The Read-a-thon FAQ page
• The Twitter hashtag is #readathon. We will be twittering from @readathon.

Here are some tips from past read-a-thon participants:

a. When you stop reading to write an updating post, come here to check in for mini-challenges and prize drawings before you post. I think some people missed some of these last time because they posted and went straight back to reading. Also, you will probably need frequent reading breaks to stay sane!

b. Have an audio book on hand for when you want to run errands, pick up kids, do some chores, go for a run, etc. Some people found that audio books were also just nice breaks when their eyes were tired.

c. Start off with a short or light book so you have an early feeling of accomplishment when you finish it.

d. Have some light reading or humorous books for the end when you’re tired.

e. Have some pre-made snacks on hand so you don’t have to stop to make yourself meals.

f. Don’t forget to check regularly to see whether you’ve won a mini-challenge or drawing prize! One way to check is to look at your incoming links. If you have one from this blog, you may have won a prize. If you do win a prize, email DeweyReadathon at gmail with your mailing address so we can match you up with the prize donor.

Some Readers use a template for updating their blogs throughout the event. Here’s one suggestion for a template; you can make your own or adapt this one.

Title of book(s) read since last update:
Number of books read since you started:
Pages read since last update:
Running total of pages read since you started:
Amount of time spent reading since last update:
Running total of time spent reading since you started: (keep track of this one to be eligible for a prize!)
Mini-challenges completed:
Other participants you’ve visited:
Prize you’ve won:

This might be a great template for you to use since we will have a contest at the end of the ‘thon for most pages read and longest time reading.

One reminder and one new thing:

• If you have a blog and use word verification, please turn it off for the duration of the read-a-thon. It makes it easier for the cheerleaders to cheer.
• We have new buttons! Check them out on the FAQ.

I want to thank everyone for participating! I know this is going to be a blast!

The  Read-a-thon will start: April 10th  at 5am Pacific (1pm GMT). You can click over to the start times page to check the starting time in your timezone. Remember that if it’s more convenient to you, you could  start either earlier or later, as well as participate for only part of the 24 hours. Very few people make it through the entire 24-hour period without sleeping, so don’t let that discourage you! Sleep is definitely allowed.

For more information on the Read-a-thon, you can read our FAQ. If you have a question that isn’t answered there, you can leave us a comment or e-mail DeweyReadathon at gmail. We’ll try to get back to you as soon as possible!

Sign ups for being a cheerleader will be posted in a few days.

We’ve already posted a Google Form for those interested in hosting a mini-challenge. If you’re new to the read-a-thon and are wondering what these mini-challenge things are, please check our FAQ!

Also, if you’d like to donate a prize, please e-mail us at DeweyReadathon at gmail. It’d be very much appreciated! Here’s a list of the prizes donated for the October 2009 Read-a-thon in case you’re wondering what to donate.

Another thing you can do: Grab a button from the FAQ page, display it proudly, and help us spread the word.

• Co-hosts
• Mini-challenge team (organizing, posting on the readathon blog looking for volunteers, assigning people times, etc)
• Cheerleader team (recruit, organize, and be available for questions)
• Soliciting Prizes team (solicit prizes, solicit angels, and put prizes in list on Prize page)
• Prize monitors/email monitors during the readathon
• Prize distribution team

Any one of these jobs can take 10-20 hours of your time. Some jobs may take less time, but it’s definitely a time commitment.

If you’re interested in volunteering, please email me at deweyreadathon at gmail and let me know which job you’re interested in. THANK YOU!!

Also, raise your hand if you CAN’T WAIT for the read-a-thon.

::Trish raises hand::

Thank yous

Thanks to Hannah, Eva, and Nymeth for helping make this read-a-thon fantastic!

Also thanks to our volunteers, Beth Fish, Trish, Jodie, and Darren. You all were invaluable!

Wieners!

One of our drawings in Hour 5 was a random drawing of two cheerleaders. One of the cheerleaders that we drew wasn’t able to end up cheering, so we’ve redrawn a new winner! Lynn from Chronicles of an Infant Bibliophile wins a book of her choice from the Prizes page and one of the following (given out on a first come, first served basis):

• Laura’s bookmark set
• 2 sets from Katrina (winner gets one of these, but we have 2 to give away)
• Kim’s bookmark
• a set of literary stamps
• Read-a-thon mug

Here’s some winners from mini-challenges we didn’t have a challenge to announce during the actual read-a-thon:

The winner of Dana at Scraptherapy’s mini-challenge Four That Never Bore was Mervi

The winner of Trisha at The Book Case’s mini-challenge Re-Reading the Classics was Tami & Dave.

Now for winners who we had to draw after the read-a-thon was over:

• Most time spent reading: Liyana Liyana Land with 24.5 hours! Liyana, you’re our hero.You’ve won a $15 Amazon gift card!
• Most pages read: Deborah from Books, Movies, and Chinese Food with 6,882. LOL. I think we all wish we could read this fast. You’ve also won a $15 Amazon gift card!
• Most enthusiastic cheerleader was Jill from Fizzy Thoughts. Everyone loved your cheers, Jill! You get a $25 Amazon gift card
• The other most enthusiastic cheerleader was Eva from A Striped Armchair. Congratulations! You’ve won a $20 Amazon gift card!

Winners of the end-of-event meme:

• Fiona from Book Journeys won 5 books of her choice from the Prizes page
• Melissa from One Librarian’s Book Reviews one of the Hachette bundles from the Prizes page

Winners, please email deweyreadathon at gmail to claim your prize.

Money for Charity!

As far as we can tell, $956 was raised for charity! You guys are awesome! (Probably more money was raised but it’s hard to keep track of everyone!)

Other cool stuff

We have a French version! They had their first read-a-thon in June and had 10 people participate. They’re already planning another read-a-thon for 2010!

Begging and Pleading

Unfortunately for me, Eva and Nymeth have decided to not to co-host in the future. So we’re now in need of at least two more co-hosts for April. I can’t say exactly what you would do as far as co-hosting before the read-a-thon, because we split up the duties so one person isn’t saddled with everything, but things that we do pre-read-a-thon and that you may or may not end up doing include: soliciting prizes, getting mini-challenge hosts, organizing the cheerleaders, answering questions, divvying up the prizes for the various hours, etc. Duties during the read-a-thon  are more universal and include: posting during each hour of your shift (shifts are 6 hours), being the back-up for someone else who is posting for their shift, monitoring Twitter, going around to participants as needed, following up with mini-challenge hosts, etc. If you’re interested in co-hosting or volunteering in some other way, please send an email to deweyreadathon at gmail.

The next read-a-thon…

The date for the next read-a-thon is April 10, 2010. Mark your calendars!

(Originally I’d set this date for April 3, 2010, but April 4th is Easter, so I switched it.)

Mini-challenges

Drea from Book Blather is doing a guess the book cover challenge! The winner will receive 3 books of their choice from the Prizes page.

Kara from Opi’s Ramblings is doing a mini-challenge called Perspectives. The winner will receive a copy of A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and a couple of other goodies.

Winners announced

The winner of Trish’s Where in the World is the Read-a-thon is Audrey from Brizmus Blogs Books. Congratulations, Audrey! Contact Trish at trish(dot)heylady(dot)net to claim your prize.

The winner for the people participating for the first time is Jennifer from My Tea Time is Book Time. Congratulations, Jennifer! Please email deweyreadathon(at)gmail to claim which Hachette set of books you want. You can find that on the Prizes page.

The winner for the multiple times participating is Eva from A Striped Armchair. Congratulations, Eva! Please email deweyreadathon(at)gmail with your mailing address so you can receive the “grab bag” of 3 (new) surprise 2010 ARCs from Aaron’s Books.

The winners from the readers of the hour from Hour 3 are:

• Book Bliss
• Morph
• Chocolate & Croissants
• Erica
• Irish

Winners from readers of the hour, please email your book choices (you get to pick TWO books!) and address info to deweyreadathon(at)gmail. You can find your book choices on the Prizes page.

Still ongoing

Bart’s mini-challenge

Excerpt Expert