Guidelines and Rules for the Book Challenge

you can assume away! .... well, on that score anyway! LOL

YES ... the Desires, Medicals, Presents and Romances are classed as "novels"  ..... even though most are printed on about 189 pages, the typeface really accommodates our word count of 50,000 words or there abouts  ... esp. with the Medicals where many have such teeny tiny print! 

How are groups going to be treated this year?  Will they be like 2007 where we had "real" groups as opposed to 2008?  Is there going to be a listing of all participants individuals & groups again like 2007?  I found 2008 more disconnected from everyone else even though all reviews were posted under the Challenge.  I missed the more "togetherness" feeling we had in 2007.  I'm on the fence about joining in 2009!    Part of me wants a break from reviewing and part of me wants to join the Challenge again!  I guess I'm in a kind of wait & see mode!!

Merry Christmas to all.  I'm not sure if I will be back here again before Christmas!  Whatever you do and whoever you are with enjoy the day.  Stay safe if you are traveling.   

Hi Eleni

Yes .... you would combine these similarly as outlined above for the Harlequin Mini's ... in the title of your review you could put ... Five Children's Stories ~ all adored!  .... or Three Young Adult by so 'n so 

Penn wrote a review that is an excellent example ... The Magic Tree House Books 1-4 by Mary Pope Osborne

Excellent question, Eleni .... I'd also like to mention that all genre of books are acceptable for the Challenge ... even our beloved Cook Books! 

Are you adding your name on the Sign Up for the 2009 Book Challenge?

Hi Eleni

Some members write up their reviews in notepad or word as they read ... this is particularly helpful when reading the shorter formats as this helps you keep track of them until you have enough to post as a full book  ...

as far as the grouping adding up to the word count, I'm going to have to rely on our Challengers to be fair in their estimates of how long the story is .... so for your Anita Blakes, if the count is there, yes posting them together is great, if not, please save them and add another short(s) for posting

your grouping of shorts need not follow any theme, they can just simply be that -- a group of shorts.

I love that we can add ANY book we read .... which reminds me I have two cookbooks I can review! 

So nice to have you joining the Book Challenge!

I was wondering the same thing too Debbie. Especially after the confusion last night where it said zero for my personal counter then I came back 5 minutes later and my 2008 count was there again. I don't want to post any new books until the personal counters are rest in case we lost the new books in there as well. I know they techies are on vacation too for the holiday but since they had the new book challenge counter set up yesterday and I thought briefly our personal counters were reset I wondered if they'd be ready today after all.

too. Will just list them on my pad till I see we're a go for 2009. I hope more people read all the rules as I saw quite a few books posted that really shouldn't have been; such as Beedle the Bard which should have been listed with something else as it's too short.

I posted on the Ask Katherine thread regarding the Book Counters  .....  as stated there, our personal counters may not be zeroed until next week .... not to worry, when it is set up your counts will be based on which Challenge you've selected to post your review

in the book review template you now can select the "challenge name"  ... the default is 100,000 Book Challenge ... if you click the drop down you'll see the Book Challenge 2009 option .. just select that and your review will be on the 2009 counter .... you can go back in and edit your reviews you've posted to change them to the correct counter

the 100,000 Book Challenge (2008) will be locked soon from further posting ... I'm not sure when this will happen

Can I direct you to the Ask Katherine thread for these types of questions?  ...it will benefit more members if I answer in a central location, plus much easier for me to remember where I've answered and what I've answered to  ...  I'd like to keep this thread for discussions related to the Guidelines 

thanks for understanding

Yes, Deb .... there is very little different in these guidelines from the past Challenges .... word count has not changed, though I have clarified things I hope   ..... this is why I requested everyone come to this thread to read the guidelines before they've signed on for the Challenge 

I'd just like to avoid repetive threads and blogs like we had with the last format change in November ... not only does it make my job so much easier, but it helps everyone who is looking for answers when it's not all over

I suggest you mark the Ask Katherine thread to your favourites ... it's a fairly active thread so it'll probably be on the first or second page for easy access

Hi Debbie ...

If I get a header back in the Book Challenge review module, I'll post there how to find the Book Challenge Forum, and what the discussions are there  ..... this was given in the email I sent out confirming your sign up for the 2009 Challenge .... the titles of the discussion pretty much explain what they are about  as well as the content of their headers  ... I will add a sentence above though to visit my other discussions 

But a comment...it was so much fun seeing the cover for I Waxed My Legs for This?, Katherine!  I adored that book...and that cover is one of my all time favorites!

Looking forward to more great books this year.  I just started That Summer Place anthology!  Hey, it's cold here in Erie and I'll take any warmth that I can get!  LOL

Holly 

Hope you're having a lovely year so far. 

I didn't finish listing the books I read in '08, so my question is, should I go ahead and get them listed before the counter trips over, or just wait until the new list sets in?  Thanks!

Hi Hope

The plan is to lock the 2008 Challenge from further posting .... I'm not sure when that will happen, probably in the next few days .... if you want your reads to count in 2008, you may wish to post them if you can  .... in 2009, I would think they would be considered as rereads and then the 12 month rule would apply

I'll run take care of it right away!

can i make a general comment/suggestion here? I'm going to post this a few places as it is applicable more than in just here.

First off, Katherine, I really appreciate all the hard work you've put into making all these preparations and trying to keep everyone informed about various things. I know tons of other folks are as well, if comments I've seen along those lines elsewhere are any indications. You've put a lot of time and effort into doing all of this and we do appreciate it all. Especially while youa re trying to still learn how to maneuver through all the moderator stuff yourself.

I'm apologizing in advance because there is a "but" in here, but don't let that negate the above comments.

You did a great job detailing things but (yes, here it is) there is TOO much information in some of these blogs and forum headers. I know the number one rule we are given at every single job I've ever had is the "KISS - Keep It Short and Simple" rule. Too much info means the really important stuff gets lost in the reading a document or listening at a meeting.

As I'm looking at some of these details you've posted, I am sitting here wondering "when the heck am I going to find time to read all that?" And "I have to reread all that stuff every single time I need to look something specific up or refresh my memory on something?"

Everyone who participates here, including all the moderators, have very full and busy lives. So it would be really nice to have short simple concise information that doesn't require loads of scrolling to read everything. If all the info is crucial, maybe break it up into separate forums or blogs so people have less to weed through to find what they need? That would still ensure all the information is out there without having to fish quite as much.

The guidelines say that a book should be approximately 200 pages to be counted as a book.  However, this month, the focus is on Desire, and the mini-challenge also focuses on Desire.  However, I bought the One-Click Buy, which includes 6 Desires, all of them around 180 pages (one of them 179 pages).  Does this mean that I will need to combine two of the books together to qualify as one review?  (Is it possible that ebooks wind up with fewer pages for the same number of words than print books do?  I would do a word count to find out myself, but I can't copy and paste the words into Word.  ebooks don't permit copying.)

It seems a shame to have the mini-challenge focus on Desires if none of the current releases count as single books because, in the current market, some folks can't afford to buy two in order to get one review.

Thanks Deb for jumping in  ... I appreciate the help

JV ... the post Deb is referring to is one I made two down from the heading....

YES ... the Desires, Medicals, Presents and Romances are classed as "novels"  ..... even though most are printed on about 189 pages, the typeface really accommodates our word count of 50,000 words or there abouts  ... esp. with the Medicals where many have such teeny tiny print

it's easy to miss something when the comments start rolling on in  .... not to worry

hmmm, maybe this is something I should include in the header guidelines?

Hi Laure .   ..... the 2008 100,000 Book Challenge is still accepting reviews ..... just go into Create a Book Review as normal .... about midway down you'll see a box "challenge_name"  ... just make sure that 100,000 Book Challenge is the one that's visible  ..... the other option there is Book Challenge 2009 .... this will direct which year your review will be counted for 

yes, please post them