Last week while scouring WordPress for ideas for this blog and researching book blogging memes, I stumbled upon a concept I had never heard of before- read-a-thons! Basically readers from all over the world pledge to read during a set amount of time and then get together to talk about it online. It’s so nerdy and I LOVE IT!
The particular read-a-thon I joined was The 19th Bout of Books, a read-a-thon that has been happening about three times each year since 2011. In order to participate, you simply post your progress online once per day for the duration of the read-a-thon and add a link to your post on the Bout of Books blog. There were optional challenges and twitter chats as well. I participated in both of those and had a lot of fun! It also was great way to get this blog out there in the book blogging world. Over 350 readers started the challenge, with 100 of them posting all the way through the end. Here is the official Bout of Books blurb:
The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 8th and runs through Sunday, May 14th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 19 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team
Here is the recap of my first read-a-thon journey!
Monday May 8 2017
Challenge Day #1
Pages read today: Swing Time- 17 pages, Handmaid’s Tale- 4 pages
Total pages read: 21 pages
Books finished: 0 books
Daily challenge: Introduce Yourself #insixwords: The challenge was simple: introduce yourself on Twitter, Instagram, or really anywhere online using only six words. My tweet for this was during the first #boutofbooks chat.
Tuesday May 9 2017
Challenge Day #2
Pages read today: Swing Time- 17 pages, Handmaid’s Tale- 14 pages
Total pages read: 52 pages
Books finished: 0 books
Daily challenge: #notafont: Share a book cover where illustrations are part of the typography of the title. Looking at the book cover, you know the letters cannot be recreated by simply downloading a font.
Wednesday May 10 2017
Challenge Day #3
Pages read today: Swing Time- 24 pages, Handmaid’s Tale- 70 pages
Total pages read: 146 pages
Books finished: 0 books
Daily challenge: Share Your Shelfie: Share a picture of your books/shelves/nightstand/e-library/wherever you keep your books on Twitter, Instagram, or anywhere online and use the hashtags #boutofbooks and #shelfie4boutofbooks
Thursday May 11 2017
Challenge Day #4
Pages read today: Swing Time- 41 pages, Handmaid’s Tale- 108 pages
Total pages read: 295 pages
Books finished: 2 books- Swing Time, Handmaid’s Tale
Daily challenge: Character Dating Profile: Create a dating profile for your favorite literary character. This was the one challenge I skipped… I just didn’t have time this night. Also this was the day I realized I’d been posting all wrong- oops!
Friday May 12 2017
Challenge Day #5
Pages read today: The Four Agreements- 7 pages, The Goldfinch- 48 pages
Total pages read: 350 pages
Books finished: 2 books- Swing Time, Handmaid’s Tale
Daily challenge: Book Spine Rainbow: Take a selection of your favorite book spines to make a rainbow! Share on Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #bookspinerainbow and #boutofbooks. This was my favorite challenge! Made me realize I need more purple books haha!
Saturday May 13 2017
Challenge Day #6
Pages read today: The Four Agreements- 50 pages
Total pages read: 400 pages
Books finished: 2 books- Swing Time, Handmaid’s Tale
Daily challenge: Seasons of Books: Choose 4 books, each representing a different season. Spring, summer, winter, and autumn. Share your selections on Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #seasonsofbooks and #boutofbooks. Another really fun challenge!
Sunday May 14 2017
Challenge Day #7
Pages read today: The Four Agreements- 111 pages, Homegoing- 31 pages
Total pages read: 542 pages
Books in progress: 2 books- Homegoing, The Goldfinch
Books finished: 3 books- Swing Time, Handmaid’s Tale, The Four Agreements
Daily challenge: No challenge for this day- just encouraged to read more!
THE END.
What do you think? Having kind of winged this one, I’m pretty proud of my progress! I finished three books and started two more (one of which I’ve been DYING to read forever and it’s already so so good!). Definitely a fun bump for my yearly book goal! The next Bout of Books is scheduled for August and I’ll want to go into that one with more of a plan and a set TBR (to be read list). Through the Bout of Books chats I also found out about a bunch of new bookish resources that I’ll write up for another post later this week. Have you ever heard of or done a read-a-thon? Knowing my experience would you give it a try? I’d love to hear your thoughts but until then…
“Off to the cupboard with you now, Chip. It’s past your bedtime. Goodnight, love…”
Belle of Booktopia 
This looks great! Especially with how streamline you kept it! Good job on completing all the challenges, too, and reading three books. I’d consider that a great endgame for a readathon! Bout of Books is by far my favorite readathon I take part in, but I also enjoy Dewey’s 24-Hour readathon when I manage to catch it at a good time. TBR Takedown is also a fun one. Great job! 🙂
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Thanks for the feedback! 🙂 Like I said this was my first one, but I’m definitely excited to do more- I’ll have to check out Dewey’s and TBR Takedown… I also heard about 24in48? May have opened Pandora’s box here!
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24in48? Never heard of that one, but sounds like a challenge! I’ll have to go snoop that one out.
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