Well, last year’s reading challenge is over so now it’s time for the 2015 Mad Reviewer Reading & Reviewing Challenge.  A huge thank you goes to the amazing Diantha Jones for designing the lovely challenge button you see above for the third year in a row.  If you’re participating in the challenge, you can grab the button above. Here is the HTML for it:

<a href=”//themadreviewer.com/2015/01/02/the-mad-reviewer-reading-and-reviewing-challenge-2015-sign-up/” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://i1164.photobucket.com/albums/q574/DianthaJones/MRRC2015Final.png” border=”0″ alt=” photo MRRC2015Final.png”/></a>

Once again, the challenge is the same as last year:

The Mad Reviewer Reading Challenge is to read and review (either on Goodreads, Amazon or your own blog) 104 books in one year starting January 1, 2014 and ending December 31, 2014.

I’m fully aware that not everyone has time to read 104 books which is why I’ve created different levels of the challenge that you can aspire to:

1.  Mad Reviewer: 104 books in one year. (2 books a week all year.)

2.  Crazy Reviewer: 52 books in one year. (1 book a week all year.)

3.  Slightly Sane Reviewer: 26 books in one year. (1 book every fortnight all year.)

4.  Sane Reviewer: 12 books in one year.  (1 book every month all year.)

RULES

1.  Self-published, independently published and traditionally published books are all completely acceptable.  Whether you read print copies or ebook copies makes no difference at all.

2.  No audiobooks.  I’d prefer people to read the books themselves, not have someone reading to them.  Audiobooks can absolutely be a valuable tool for busy readers but they’re not really in the spirit of this challenge.

3.  I don’t have a sign up form but if you intend to do this challenge you must post a comment below so that you’re officially signed up.

4.  You can review your books on any site.  Your own blog, Goodreads, someone else’s blog, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.  The point is just to review the books you read!

5.  The last day you can sign up is July 31st of 2015.  I’m not taking any more entries after that, sorry.

6.  The draw for the 2015 prizes will take place in the first few days of January 2016.  This will give everyone time to tell me they’ve finished their chosen level and I’ll have time to actually verify the reviews.  I’m not chasing people around like I did in 2013; especially not now that my challenge includes 50+ people.  So at the end of the year, in December, head on back to my blog and tell me through the Contact Page or my submissions post I’ll have up on December 30th.

If you have a blog it would be great if you could use the button at the top of the post designed by the lovely Diantha Jones for me.  (She also designed the 2014 version and my banner.)  If you would like to keep track of your progress using a side bar, I find that this one worked well for me in 2014:

<div id=”progressbar” style=”background-color:black;border-radius:13px;padding:3px;width:104px;”>
<div style=”background-color:orange;border-radius:10px;height:20px;width:0px;”>
</div>
</div>
0/104 books read

In order to use this sidebar, all you have to do is change the first bolded px length to however many books you’re reviewing that year (104, 52, 26 or 12) and when you review a book, you change the second bolded px length to indicate it.  So if you’re amazing for 26 books and you’ve reviewed 13, your bar would look like this:

<div id=”progressbar” style=”background-color:black;border-radius:13px;padding:3px;width:26px;”>
<div style=”background-color:orange;border-radius:10px;height:20px;width:13px;”>
</div>
</div>
13/26 books read

If you need anymore help with the progress bar, let me know via my Contact page.  I’m not the most tech savvy (which is why credit goes to Mark Lee of The Masquerade Crew for designing this bar) but I will try my best to help.

PRIZE SELECTION

Anyone who completes the level they stated as their goal will be entered into a draw.  How many entries you get will be determined by what level you’ve achieved:

Mad Reviewer (104 books): 4 entries

Crazy Reviewer (52 books): 3 entries

Slightly Sane Reviewer (26 books): 2 entries

Sane Reviewer (12 books): 1 entry

I know life gets in the way of reading and reviewing frequently, so what I offer to people who don’t complete their goal is a second chance of a sort.  Say you aimed for Crazy Reviewer and only reviewed 30 books.  Since you reviewed a minimum of 26 books you can still enter the draw as a Slightly Sane Reviewer.  That way you’ve at least achieved a level of the challenge as well as had your name entered in the grand prize draw where I’ll be choosing a winner and three runners up.  (This second chance applies to any level.)

HOW TO SIGN UP

Just post your name, the link to where you’ll be reviewing your books and the level at which you want to participate in the comments below!  I’ll be posting a separate list of all the challenge participants (and their goals) as the comments flow in. If you could also publicize the challenge using Twitter, Facebook, your own blogs, etc. that would be great.  The more the merrier!