How To: Readathon

How To: Readthon

Littlebookowl’s Readathon 2016 Calender

General Tips:

01 Schedule Time 

• Schedule free time. If you are still at school or work full-time you should try to make time on the weekends or for an hour or two during the school week.
• Also, make sure to read during the holidays. Read some of those bigger books now that you have the time.

02 When To: Readathon

• Try to avoid readathons when you have big assessments coming, you won’t read as much as you wanted to and your assessment won’t be as good as it could have been had you put all your time into it.
• You don’t have to participate in every readathon – there’s probably one the next month.

03 Preperation

If you’re doing a 24 hour readathon then you need to prepare. Have ready meals and snacks available.

The day Before:

• Make sure you get plenty of sleep prior to the readthon.
• Prepare food before the readathon.Chopped up fruit and other bite sized foods are great to eat throughout the day.
• Have a sensibly sized TBR. Have a stack of short books, comics and/or graphic novels. It’s a short readathon so you need short content. Graphic novels and comics are definitely great for short readathons.
• If you’re doing a week-long readathon you don’t need to prepare as much but you do need to make sure that your week is mostly free and that you don’t have many, if any socials during the week.

04 TBR

• Have a sensibly sized TBR. If you know you won’t be able to read a certain amount of books then don’t overload your TBR.
• Your TBR is never set. You can always switch the books on your TBR if you suddenly don’t feel like reading them.
• It is completely okay if you don’t complete all of the challenges for the readathon. If you’re stressing about not completing all of the challenges and feel like you have to complete them then try to make some books fit into multiple challenges.

05 Keep Motivated 

• Get hyped prior to the readthon, watch some TBR videos and get inspired, participate on social media and post a picture of you r TBR or even post a video on YouTube.
• If you don’t want to do the readathon alone the buddy read a book with a friend, it’s always really cool to be able to talk to a friend a bout a book and to be able to see what they did and didn’t like about a book.

Stay Motivated

If a book is not keeping your attention then stop reading it, you can always pick it up again after the readathon.

If you are feeling unmotivated go to social media. Usually for a readathon the host/s will have spints going (twitter) and there are always people posting reading updates – if you see someone reading a book on your TBR or that you’re currently reading talk to them about it.

06 Different Formats

Different formats help to break up the bigger novels and make the whole readathoms process WAY less stressful.

Try: audiobooks, graphic novels or comics.

07 Distractions

This step sort of contradicts step 05 but for most people technology is a distraction. Turn off your notifications (or go the extra mile and turn off your phone and shut down your computer) and try to stay tech free during the readathon (this is especially important for short readthons, 24 hour readathons in particular).

08 Take Advantage of The Library

Libraries are there for a reason. A lot of readathons have challenges so in order to fit books into those categories you may have to buy some of the books. The thing is you don’t always know if you’ll actually enjoy all of the books so if you can, try to find the books at the library.

Short Readathons:

• Short books are a given. DO NOT read a long book because you will never finish it.
• Comics & graphic novels are great for short readathons. They are a great way to break up all of the shorter novels in you TBR because they’re a different format.

Long Readathons:

Multiple challenges 

• Most readathons will have multiple challenges (usually 5-9) so that can be a lot of pressure on you to try and read that many books. Where you can try and fit a book into multiple challenges.

Move around

• Staying in one spot for a really long period of time can be quite boring so try moving around every now and then. Go to the library or go grab a coffee at a cafe and read for half an hour. If you’re an outdoorsy person you could even go sit at the local park or listen to an audiobook as you walk your dog.If you do end up moving around and you do end up going to get that coffee then set a goal. Tell yourself that you will read the next 2 chapters or that you will read 50 pages of your book before you go home. If you have a goal set then you’ll feel much better about your progress in the readathon.

• It can be very taxing to read a lot of books that are all the same size. But it can also be very annoying to read books that are all really short and have very fat paced plots. Try and switch up the lengths of the books you plan on reading, this may contribute a bit in your enjoyment of them.

Sleep is key

• Sleep is completely necessary. If you’re tired you will read less and honestly if you’re yawning through the day you probably won’t even feel like reading.Going with the sleep thing, this is a readathons so you’re bound to get tired at some point. If you find that you are tired and that you don’t really feel like reading then watch some TV. No one’s going to judge you if you watch a few episodes of a TV show – although, you should really try to avoid marathoning/ bingeing a show.
• It’s a longer readathon so it’s completely okay if you do have errands to run. If you do end up with errands try to listen to an audiobook. You’re still reading and it’s a bit of a break from physical books.