It begins! Hold onto your hats, kids – we’re about to dive into a weekend of awesome. Right now, it is 12:01am ET and I am, as always, asleep when this shindig starts. Because this is – after all – the readathon for people who like to sleep. Some of you are starting now, whether this is because you’re in a different timezone or you’re a night owl who likes to get a jump on things. And some of you are sleeping just like me.

If you’re just now discovering the ‘thon or have been unsure of your weekend plans, you can still sign up and do so throughout the weekend.

I’ve heard from lots of you about your plans for this weekend and some of you have excellent readathons lined up. Someone’s tackling FOUR Haruki Murakami novels and another readathoner is doing nothing but short stories – 24 of them to be exact. And some of you are working your reading into an already busy weekend with audiobooks and ebooks on the go. No matter what your strategy for the next 48 hours, its guaranteed to be a good readathon.

Check in here every six hours for posts and challenges to win PRIZES and help break up your reading time. They’re gonna be great, I promise 🙂

Follow along on Twitter at @24in48readathon and keep up with your fellow readers with the hashtag #24in48 on Twitter and Instagram.

Those are the details, but here are a few other reminders:

• Even though the “rules” say that the goal is to read for 24 out of 48 hours, it’s just a number to shoot for. The real goal of this weekend is to set aside some serious quality time to do nothing but read with a bunch of other people doing the exact same thing. Your time reading still counts even if you don’t hit 24 hours.
• Take a break, get some sleep, eat well. This is a marathon, not a sprint. And it’s supposed to be low pressure. Don’t kill yourself.
• That being said, try to start with a rough schedule so that you don’t overextend yourself on Sunday night, if you are shooting for that 24 hour mark. Give yourself more time to read on Saturday than you think you’re going to need, because you undoubtedly won’t have as much as you think.
• You can’t win a prize unless you’ve signed up on the main sign up post, so definitely do that. If you win, I’ll be emailing you in the next week to collect your details, so make sure your info is accurate.

I’ll be back at 6am ET with the next update!

Happy readathon! I’m so excited!