TBR Challenge: May 2014: Rules & Questions

[JoLene, Mistress of the Challenge]

May TBR Challenge

It's time for our annual climb up Mt TBR.

** Sign ups: Participants MUST sign up and provide their book list before 12:00am EST May 1st, 2014. Only those who have signed up and posted their lists by April 30st 11:59pm EST will be able to participate in this challenge. You can not join this challenge after April 30.

** There will be ONE opportunity to re-arrange your unread book list on May 15th. Aside from this date, book lists cannot be changed after May 1st. Choose wisely! ;)

** All points must be reported by 11:59pm EST on May 31, 2014 to be counted.

RULES:
1) Books must be at least 200 pages long. Eligibility for this is determined by the most popular edition on Goodreads. If the most popular edition is 197 pages, it will not count, even if the edition read is 215 pages.

2) The first book used for the challenge should be started on or after May 1st. Exception: Each person will be allowed 1 exception for a book that is longer than 500 pages, as long as they are not more than 1/2 way through the book on May 1. You must be using the "progress update" feature of GoodReads to claim this.

3) Audiobooks are accepted. Page numbers are determined by most popular edition on GoodReads.

4) Re-reads are NOT permitted for this challenge.

5) There is no genre requirement for this challenge, except the Bonus tasks, which must be HF.

SCORING / HOW IT WORKS:
1) At time of sign-up, each participant will select 25 books from their own To-Read list on Goodreads. Any variation of a To-Read shelf will count, including Wishlist. There is NO genre requirement for these books.

Books will be ordered from 1-25, and their placement will determine their point value. Examples: A book in the #1 place will receive 1 point when done, a book in the #25 spot will receive 25 points, etc.

Tip: Order books that you are most likely to read in the higher value spots to earn higher scores. :)

Sign-up thread

2) Bonus Tasks for 50 points each: After you have read at least 5 books on your list, you may chose to do one or both of the bonus tasks.
2a) Choose a HF book from one of the moderators TBR lists ( Jackie, Becky or JoLene) that you have not read, and read it.

Jackie's TBR shelves:
To Read
HF-to-read

Becky’s TBR shelves:
To Read
Wishlist
To Read - Nook
To-read-owned

JoLene’s TBR shelves
Want to read
TBR-owned (can then sort to HF)

2b) Choose a HF book from one of the group’s featured authors (nominees and winners). You do not need to read the book that the author nominated for the featured read. Please link to the post when claiming the bonus. You may use the following threads to find featured authors.
2014 - Round 1
2014 - Round 2
2013 Featured Authors Sign-up OR 2012 Featured Authors Sign-ups and look at posts: 31,49, and 57.


**Bonus book choices do not need to be chosen by May 1 and these can be changed at any time. ONLY the list of 25 books from your own To-Read list need to be selected by May 1. **


3) There are several opportunities to earn Bonus Points. Bonus points will be awarded PER BOOK READ when task points are awarded. Partial task points and/or bonus points (page count, HF point, etc) will NOT be awarded if the task is unfinished. Bonus points can only be claimed when reporting the book score (so make sure to check your postings).

3a) Book Length Bonus:
Bonus points will be awarded based on the length of each book read, as follows:
200 to 300 pages = 2 bonus points
301 to 500 pages = 4 bonus points
501 to 750 pages = 6 bonus points
751 to 1,000 pages = 8 bonus points
1,000+ = 10 bonus points

3b) Historical Fiction Bonus = 5 point
WE WILL NOT AWARD HF POINTS IF IT IS NOT REPORTED.

The definition of historical fiction that our group uses is a work published at least 50 years after at least half of the events in the work. Historical fantasy, alternate history and magical realism books are not considered historical fiction for our group.
If the book has a dual story-line than 50% of the action needs to take place in the historical setting.


_________________________________________
Here's an example of how it will look when reported:

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
#15 spot - 15 points
664 pages - 6 points
HF - 5 point
Total - 26 points

__________________________________________

Hope that you are able to climb your TBR pile!!


Ask questions below.

[Julia]

Does it matter which edition is on my To-Read shelf? I.e. if I added a paper edition but end up reading the ebook will that count?

[JoLene, Mistress of the Challenge]

@Julia, different editions are fine.

[Jackie]

JoLene, if I have a book listed as #2 and I then start reading it before May 15th can I then change the book's placement on the list when you allow us to edit our list?

[JoLene, Mistress of the Challenge]

@Jackie, once you claim points for it the placement is locked. However, if you didn't finish it, you can move it.

You can read your books in any order.

[Margaret]

Can we make a shelf for the challenge or do we have to write a list as a comment? That's a bit of a mission as I am using my iPhone a letter at a time...

[JoLene, Mistress of the Challenge]

Sorry Margaret, because we freeze the list, you have to do it as outlined in the rules.

[Gretchen, Keep your head up or the crown slips]

I would like to ask a potentially silly question. I have never done one of these challenges before and I'm excited to attempt one. Does your list have to include 25 books or can you just make a list of say 10 books with the possibility add more books on the May 15 change date? Sorry, sometimes I need all the help I can get.

[JoLene, Mistress of the Challenge]

@Gretchen.......the rules for this one is that you should do the list of 25 because you get the point value assigned to the place on the list. The book that is the 25th place earns you 25 points.

[Sue]

** There will be ONE opportunity to re-arrange your unread book list on May 15th...

I can't remember from previous years whether one is allowed to 'swap out' an unread book (or books) for other To-Read books, or just to rearrange the order of the unread books that are already on one's list of 25.

Thanks!

[Alicja]

I just noticed that one of the books I've chosen has the popular edition as ebook with no word count, the edition I have is over 200 pages but there are others under 200 pages. Would this be eligible or should I find another one? And I guess I have half an hour to figure this out... crap!

[JoLene, Mistress of the Challenge]

@Sue, you can swap out books. I'm feeling generous tonight :-)

@alicja, when you click on the "other editions", it lists the books in order of popularity. Look for the first edition with a page number.

[CandyBeans]

Will there be a thread for discussing our progress in the challenge? I mean other than just reporting finished books? Thanks to the Baltimore sinkhole/mudslide I don't have work today. So I hope to get a running start and I'm pretty excited about that!

[JoLene, Mistress of the Challenge]

Yes - it has just been created....

[CandyBeans]

Thank you!

[Alicja]

JoLene wrote: "@Sue, you can swap out books. I'm feeling generous tonight :-)

@alicja, when you click on the "other editions", it lists the books in order of popularity. Look for the first edition with a page ..."

The one listed right under is my edition with 246 pages. So I should be good unless this changes in the next month. :P

[Heather]

Whoops. I messed up. One of my books is under 200 pages. Should I wait to switch it for a new one or switch its number until the 15th? Switch it now?

I swore I double-checked them all before I posted......

[JoLene, Mistress of the Challenge]

@HeatherJ --- you can switch it on the 15th.

[Erica]

I started my first book at 6pm on 1st May (got it out from the library that day so the date is on my return slip) but have noticed that it states I started reading the book on April 30th...not sure why this happened...I even thought 6pm 1st May that would be 6am 1st May on the other side of the world so it would still count...does anyone know why it would have the date as the 30th? Odd. My timezone is set for Auckland, NZ too so that shouldn't be the problem

[Jackie]

Are you calculating using Pacific time?

[JoLene, Mistress of the Challenge]

GR time is Pacific time and we are on daylight savings time. I looked it up and it says 6 pm in Auckland (May 1) is 11 pm on April 30.

In order to make things fair, but since it's only 1 hour difference, I will let you just stop reading 1 hour earlier. This means that you need to stop reading at 6 pm on June 1st.

[Erica]

Ok thanks Jolene. I'm new to these challenges so will try to work it out correctly next time.

[JoLene, Mistress of the Challenge]

No problem -- welcome to the world of challenges.....they are addicting.

[Cheryl A]

JoLene - As I was double checking my list on the 1st, I realized that one of my books was not on my TBR list prior to May 1st(Moon Over Manifest, my #12 book, for my HFU BA). I figure the best thing to do is just to leave it there as a place holder and not claim the points for that book. Is this okay?

[JoLene, Mistress of the Challenge]

Sorry Cheryl, when you swap books, it needs to be things that you have not finished yet.

[Cheryl A]

Thanks, JoLene. I'm just going to leave it in the #12 position, but not claim points or swap anything out...I should have double checked before May 1st :)

[JoLene, Mistress of the Challenge]

NOTICE.....

DO NOT edit your list in the list thread. Do not strike out any of the completed books. I am looking at the threads to make sure that people are not editing because there is only one chance to edit!!!

[Alicja]

Is today the day we can rearrange our lists?

[Melanie]

Oh thanks for that reminder. Yes, I would like to change one of mine.

[CandyBeans]

Me too! Are we allowed to just go in and change our lists, or do we need to wait for a mod to unfreeze the thread or something?

[Julia]

I'd like to do some re-ordering too.

[JoLene, Mistress of the Challenge]

You should be able to edit your lists.
I look at the "edit" stamp.

[JoLene, Mistress of the Challenge]

As a reminder, you can only swamp out to places where you haven't read the book. For example, if you read your book in spot 20, then you can't move it higher on the list.

[Julia]

Thanks Jolene

[Christine]

I have a question about reporting points. When reporting completion of bonus tasks 2a or 2b, do we take credit for just the 50 bonus points, or should we report additional points for HF genre and page count? Thanks!

[JoLene, Mistress of the Challenge]

You can count any bonuses --- so you can use the HF and page bonuses as well.