Hour 21: The Doctor Is In

What? You thought this would be the #24in48 where I managed not to draft a post entirely filled with Doctor Who gifs? Pssh. No way. Never going to happen.

David Tennant as Doctor Who leans on a wall and says, "NAH!"

So, since The Doctor is in, as it were, let us know how things are going! Are you hanging in there? Crushing your goals? Struggling and needing a bit of encouragement? Ready for a nap? (I know I am…)

The Thirteenth Doctor gestures and says, "When people need help, I never refuse."

Wherever you are in your #24in48 journey, this is a reminder that you (yes, you!) are doing a great job. Whether you’ve read for 21 seconds, 21 minutes, or 21 straight hours, you’re making reading a priority in whatever way works for you, and that’s an amazing thing!

David Tennant as the Doctor says, "Oh yes!" while wearing 3D glasses.

Be kind to yourself, and give credit where credit is due.

Peter Capaldi as the Doctor says, "Be kind" with dramatic lighting.

And remember…

Matt Smith as the Doctor shouts "You can do it!"

But before you go forth to do the thing, how about some more door prizes? This round of prizes is kindly brought to you by Graywolf Press, a non-profit publisher of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and genre-defying literature whose aim is to foster new thinking about what it means to live in the world today. Door prize winners for Hour 21 will be randomly selected to win one of the following cool titles from Graywolf:

📕 Be Recorder | 📗 Machine

For our international winners, you’ll be able to pick between a $15 gift card to your choice of Amazon, Book Depository, or Wordery.

Hour 21 Door Prize Winners:

Sandy Reimche | Jennifer Daniell | Tracy Towley | Heather Hill

Corissa Wallace | Kristen Matti | Shalini Banerjee (international)

Congrats to each of you! Keep an eye out for an email from us to claim your prize.

WE’RE GOING LIVE ON INSTAGRAM AGAIN at Hour 29; this time we’re focusing on our International readers! Join Rachel at 5am EST, 11am CEST for book talk, golden retrievers, the Italian countryside, and more of us not knowing what we’re doing.

Before you go, don’t forget to enter the Hour 18 Challenge for more chances to win great prizes, which is open until Hour 24 for submissions! Want to win a door prize yourself? All you have to do is be sure you’re officially signed up for the July #24in48 and are actively participating online somewhere we can see you!

As in recent ‘thons, we’re aiming to keep track of ALL of the books read during the #24in48 weekend. Enter the titles of all the books you’ve finished in this form, and then pop over to our July 2019 24in48 Goodreads shelf to see what others have been reading during the weekend!

Hour 18: Romance Challenge

By the official timeclock, it’s 6pm EST and 18 hours have elapsed on the official timer.

In our heads, this looks like a giant clock in a mission control room where we calmly comment on how time has passed. In reality, it’s all of us at 24in48 HQ checking what time it is in a rush and making sure we’ve done everything we need to do for this hour and the last and oh gosh, there’s something I forgot did we check that social platform in the past hour hey someone has a question did we oh Rachel answered that one hold on, OK, we’re good.

Much like real life, even the very best parts of 24in48 can be a bit overwhelming on the brain when you’re trying to juggle everything, and one of our absolute favorite genres to read when that happens is, you guessed it, ROMANCE. (Although, to be fair, it’s just one of our favorite genres all the time.)

When you pick up a romance novel, you know things will always work out, that the ending will always be happy, that the world will make sense and hit you in the stomach and the heart and the head with all the best feelings in the world. We’re so thrilled that this hour’s challenge is sponsored by Avon and William Morrow, because it means we can talk about romance and give it away!

We want to hear all about your romance love, loves. Tell/show us about how much romance you read every year, how you got into the genre, what your favorite tropes are, anything related to reading romance is fair game. You can submit your challenge entry here or in the embedded form below; you have until Hour 24 to enter this challenge.

You’ll be entered into our random drawing to win a copy of one of the following romance titles:

📘 The Right Swipe, 📕 A Little Light Mischief, 📗 No Judgments,

📙 The Marriage Clock

For our international participants, you’ll be entered to win a $15 gift card to your choice of Amazon, Book Depository, or Wordery.

Before you get back to the books, help us congratulate our winners from our Hour 12 Audiobook Challenge! If you see your name below, keep an eye out for an email from us to claim your prize!

Amanda Cunningham	Kathy Webber	Sera Indelicato
Kelly Brady (blatantcobra)	Christine Crofts	Colleen (janeycanuck)
Katy Alice	Amanda Hamilton	Amanda Schaefer
Erin McConnell	Vanessa Aldaz	Marilag Angway
Leslie Klemm	Laura Corsi	Crystal Vause

Don’t forget to log any books you finish here, and to interact with your fellow readers using the hashtag #24in48.

Hour 15: The One With More Prizes

Hey hey, friends! Has anyone told you today how amazing you all are? And how excited we are you’re reading with us this weekend, you and your co-hosts and just a few thousand of your favorite online readerly friends? No?

Animated gif of a model speaking, with the caption "You're amazing."

Well. You’re AMAZING. And we’re so excited you’re reading with us this weekend!

Behind the scenes, your hosts are loving all of your updates, check-ins, challenge entries, likes, comments, and more. If you’ve sent us a question and haven’t heard back yet, we’re doing our best to stay on top of all emails and DMs across a bunch of platforms, so hang tight! We’ll get back to you ASAP. We’re also making some lists and checking them twice so we can announce more prize winners… like, right now!

This round of door prizes is brought to you by Doubleday Books, a publisher of commercial fiction, literary fiction, and serious non-fiction titles. Winners will randomly receive a copy of one of these Doubleday books:

📙 The Most Fun We Ever Had | 📗 The Porpoise

International winners can pick between a $15 gift card to your choice of Amazon, Book Depository, or Wordery.

Hour 15 Door Prize Winners:

Franchesca (@death_by_tbr)

Angela Heath

Kara Roost

Carlee Loupe

Dalvina Chin

Congrats to each of you! Keep an eye out for an email from us to claim your prize.

Before you go, don’t forget to enter the Hour 12 Challenge for more chances to win great prizes, which is open until Hour 18 for submissions! Want to win a door prize yourself? All you have to do is be sure you’re officially signed up for the July #24in48 and are actively participating online somewhere we can see you!

Hour 12: Audiobooks Challenge

Oh hi there, readers. Have you stretched recently? Hydrated? Stepped outside to enjoy the (hopefully) summer sunshine?

Around this time, we’re doing a changing of the guard at 24in48 HQ, since Kerry and Kristen are in EST and Rachel is a few hours ahead! It’s the perfect time, because we’re one-fourth of the way through this thing.

We’re back to ring the challenge bell, interrupt your reading, and generally remind you that you’re doing THE GREATEST JOB and we’re SO HAPPY YOU’RE HERE WITH US.

This hour’s challenge is brought to you by our partner Hachette Audio, and we’re SO ready to talk audiobooks. Rachel is a longtime audiobook champion, Kerry is no slouch in that department, and both of them

conspired to turn nonfiction-on-audio-only Kristen into a fully fledged fiction audiobook reader.

For this challenge, we want to hear (see what we did there 🎧) about your audio reading life. Do you get your books from Audible, or Libro.fm? What does your audiobook library look like? Are there any audiobooks you’ve listened to over and over again? What’s your favorite audiobook?

Image from iOS — Kristen’s Audible library

Post an audiobook-related photo that gives us insight into your audio reading life, and tell us all about it. You can submit your challenge entry here or in the embedded form below; you have until Hour 18 to enter this challenge.

You’ll be entered into our random drawing to win a copy of one of the following audio titles:

📘 Interment, 📕 Once & Future, 📗 Teeth in the Mist, 📙 Dear Evan Hansen

For our international participants, you’ll be entered to win a $15 gift card to your choice of Amazon, Book Depository, or Wordery.

Before you get back to the books, help us congratulate our winners from our Hour 6 Challenge!

If you see your name below, keep an eye out for an email from us to claim your prize!

Barbara Bates	Steff Pasciuti	Kristin Seed
Susanna Palomäki	Kaci Lund	Dwayna Paplow
Christina @ You Book Me All Night Long	Rachel Finn-Lohmann	Brittany Paloma Fiedler
Shai Villanueva	Chantel McCray	JoAnna Becker
Vì Figueroa	Ryan A Franklin	Rebecca MacLean
Maíra Protasio	Laura Myers

Don’t forget to log any books you finish here, and to interact with your fellow readers using the hashtag #24in48.

Hour 9: Rise and Shine and Read!

Your two EST co-hosts (Kerry and Kristen) are waking up, coffee-ing, and getting ready to really dive in to this weekend we love so much (meanwhile, co-host Rachel is wrapping up the end of her day on the other side of the world like so many of you, and now that we’re awake in the US, she’ll get a bit of a hosting break so she can actually, you know, read a book).

Sir Patrick Stewart reclines in a bed with a book in hand. The caption reads, "All I require is to sit in the sun and read my book. Alone."

For those just waking up and getting started, what are you reading first? What are you eating first? What are you most excited about?

For those who’ve been up for hours and have already finished more books than those of us sleepyheads have even considered, what did you read and love? What were your best meals and snacks? What are you most excited about?

Don’t forget that we’re going live on Instagram in just ONE HOUR at 10am EST! Come hang out with Kristen (aka watch her have no clue what she’s doing), and most likely a dog or two.

This hour’s post – which includes our first round of door prize winners! – is brought to you by Coffee House Press, an independent publisher whose mission is create new spaces for audiences and artists to interact, inspiring readers and enriching communities by expanding the definition of what literature is, what it can do, and who it belongs to. Translation: really, really cool books (and more!).

Congratulations to the winners, who will each win a copy of one of these awesome books from Coffee House Press:

📕 The Remainder 📗Socialist Realism 📙 Song for the Unraveling of the World

International winners can pick between a $15 gift card to your choice of Amazon, Book Depository, or Wordery.

Hour 9 Door Prize Winners:

Elizabeth Adams (@elizabetheadams)

Jess L. (@librarybelle)

Christine Sporleder

Shaina (@shainajo)

Lizette Davila

Elizabeth Riffle

Nina Myhren

Congrats to each of you! Keep an eye out for an email from us to claim your prize.

And now… back to the books!

But wait! While you’re here, don’t forget to enter the Hour 6 Challenge for more chances to win great prizes, which is open until Hour 12 for submissions! Want to win a door prize yourself? All you have to do is be sure you’re officially signed up for the July #24in48 and are actively participating online somewhere we can see you!

Hour 6: SFF Challenge

Good morning, good morning, good morning you glorious bookworms and reading unicorns!

It’s Hour 6, and the seasoned 24in48-ers among us know that that means it’s time for our very first challenge of this July 2019 readathon. This year, we’re running challenge prizes a bit differently, so if you’ve joined us in the past be sure to give this post a thorough read!

Tor.com Publishing’s Logo

This hour’s challenge is brought to you by our amazing, fantastical partner Tor.com Publishing, “an imprint for science fiction and fantasy novellas and novels.”

Thanks to fabulous donations from our pals at Tor, we want to hear about all your weird, fantastical, magical, technological, cyber, crypto, robotic books.

Basically: Show us that SFF, y’all. Post a photo of yourself with a favorite SFF novel that you’ve loved in the past, a magical tale that’s on your #TBR for this weekend, your SFF-inspired tattoos, that Harry Potter Funko

Host Kristen’s Deathly Hallows Ink

collection on your bookshelves … whatever gorgeously amazingly weird beautiful fantastical stories that transport you, speak to you, or that you’re discovering for the first time.

Submit your challenge entry here or through the embedded form below, and you’ll be entered into our random drawing to win a copy of one of the following titles:

📘 Gideon the Ninth, 📕 Sisters of the Vast Black, 📗 The Monster of Elendhaven,

📚 Silver in the Wood, 📙 Miranda in Milan

For our international participants, you’ll be entered to win a $15 gift card to your choice of Amazon, Book Depository, or Wordery.

You have until Hour 12 to enter this challenge.

Don’t forget to log any books you finish here, and to interact with your fellow readers using the hashtag #24in48.

Now, get back to it, and we’ll see you in a few hours!

PS: Don’t forget that we’re going live on Instagram at Hour 10 (10am EST!)

Hour 3: Why Hello There!

YOU GUYS. It’s #24in48 weekend, we’re three hours in, and THINGS. ARE. HAPPENING.

Animated gif from The Good Place with the caption, OKAY, HERE WE GO.

(Ok, let’s be real: for some of us, sleep is happening, because it’s the middle of the night. But if you’re awake and reading because you are THE BOSS and/or are in a timezone where it is not the middle of the night, LOOK AT YOU GO!)

If this is your first time joining us for #24in48, or your first time joining in a while, let’s go over some of the basics we get asked a lot as the weekend kicks off:

First, and most importantly, it’s not too late to sign up! You do need to be officially signed up in order to be eligible to win door prizes, challenge prizes, and/or 24-hour completion prizes. And yes, we will check. (Can’t remember if you already signed up? Check the list of July 2019 #24in48 participants here.)

Also, don’t forget to check out the Intro post at Hour 0 to be sure other readers around the world get a chance to know you. And then hop around to other’s intro posts to see who else is participating! Cheers and encouragement from other #24in48 participants are one of the best parts of the whole weekend, so don’t be shy.

We’re trying something new this time around: going Live on Instagram! We have no idea what we’re doing, but we’re doing it anyway! Catch Kristen on Insagram Live at Hour 10 (10am EST!).

We hope you’re all settling in for an amazing weekend of reading and connecting with other readers. Feel free to send us any questions on Twitter, Instagram or via email, and we’ll get back to you as quickly as we can. You can also check out the FAQ page for answers to the more commonly asked questions.

Get it? Got it? Good. Now back to the books!

While you’re here! Don’t forget to check back at Hour 9 for our first door prize drawing of the weekend, and be sure to enter the first prize challenge coming up at Hour 6 for even more chances to win a prize!

Hour Zero: Welcome to the July 2019 #24in48 Readathon!

We made it! You did it! It’s here! A full weekend dedicated to nothing but reading. (And sleeping and eating and maybe a little bit of hammock time if you’re lucky?)

By the official readathon clock, it’s 12:01AM ET on Saturday morning and this party doesn’t stop until midnight tomorrow. And like any good party, there will be lots of good company, good snacks, and excellent entertainment.

If this is your first 24in48, welcome! We’re so happy you’re here. If you’re coming back for 2nd or 3rd or 7th or 8th round, it’s great to see you again.

Your hosts (that’s me, Rachel, and Kristen and Kerry) have made a few changes for this readathon (more about that in a minute), but the basics are the same. The three of us (plus a few helpers who you can find here and here) will be posting throughout the weekend, here and all over social media. We’ll be taking turns on the official social handles — Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Litsy — and keeping track of the official hashtag #24in48.

We’ve also scheduled two (COUNT ‘EM, TWO) Instagram Lives during the readathon, one at Hour 10 with Kristen and one at Hour 27 with me, Rachel, for those international readers. So make sure you mark those times on your calendars (we’ll be sure to remind you throughout this weekend too) and join us for all the fun readathon-y goodness).

We’re bringing back book tracking where you can log all the books you’ve read during the whole readathon weekend. As you finish a book, enter it HERE and we’ll be adding those to Goodreads throughout the readathon. (Please be patient if you don’t see your books on Goodreads immediately; it’s a manual process for your hosts.) You can also check out your hosts’ TBRs and recommendations.

Plus! If you haven’t gotten your #24in48 merch yet, what are you waiting for? We’ve got tons of swag, including coffee mugs, t-shirts, hoodies, totes and more, in our classic design AND a special limited edition summer readathon design. Pick up your 24in48 stuff HERE or click on the baseball tee in the sidebar (everything’s on sale throughout the weekend). All commissions we make go right back into to the running of the readathon, including helping us ship prizes out to you lovely readers.

Additionally, don’t forget about our PayPal Donate button to help cover the costs of international prizes, which allows us to include many more of your fellow global participants in the prize giving. We’ve gotten a few donations so far this year, but the more we get, the more prizes we can offer. Click on the button in the sidebar or go to this link to be taken to our donation page. 100% of your donations (minus PayPal’s fees) will go toward helping your fellow participants who are not US-based the chance to win prizes.

And speaking of prizes, we’re changing up our prize process this year. We’ve spent some time looking at your feedback from past ‘thons, trying to figure out to simplify the giveaway process, and decided to make some adjustments. Rather than posting a giant list of prizes that you can choose from, we’re telling you right up front which books or prizes are up for grabs for each challenge. You’ll have a chance to win a specific title so if you’re particularly interested in something, you’ll have a better opportunity to enter for it. When you win a prize, we’ll send you an email with a form to enter your mailing information and your prize will be sent directly to you. As with any new thing, there will be some kinks to work out so if you have recommendations for next time, make sure you fill out our closing survey at Hour 48 to let us know how we can improve.

Okay! Now that we’ve covered the administrative shenanigans, let’s get into some readathon-ing. Starting now at midnight EST, we’ll be posting updates every three hours until we put this ship of fun to sleep on Sunday night at midnight. It’s not too late to sign up (and you still have plenty of time to drag your friends and family in as well), which you can do here. Even if you don’t think you’ll hit 24 hours of reading, you should still absolutely sign up. Only a tiny fraction of participants do a full 24 hours but everyone that signs up and participates is entered to win door prizes and can complete challenges throughout the weekend for additional prize entries. Don’t forget: the goal is not to hit a target time, but just to spend the weekend dedicated to reading. (Click the Follow button at the bottom of the screen to be emailed every time we post a new update here.)

For more tips and instructions, check out our post on how to readathon and the FAQ page.

Now, let’s kick this thing off with our intro survey. Introduce yourself by fill out the form below, then check out your fellow readers’ answers in the spreadsheet below.

Announcing July 2019 Prize Packs

We are SO SO SO CLOSE to this weekend’s #24in48 readathon, but we’ve still got a few more announcements up our sleeves. Namely, our prize packs! These are amazing prizes for participants who read for a full 24 hours during the ‘thon – more and more of you are hitting that milestone and we couldn’t be more happy to give more of you the opportunity to win goodies. (Don’t forget, whether you read for 24+ hours or 2 hours, you’re doing the damn thing and setting aside the time to spend with books, and that’s the most important thing.)

gimme gif

Because of our incredibly generous donors, we’re going to be able to offer SEVEN prize packs for US-based winners and two for international winners.

In order to be eligible for one of these prize packs, you must:

Sign up officially using your name, a valid email, and a URL/username for the platforms you’ll be updating during the ‘thon. (If you need to edit your response to include an actual link or username, you can do so by following the confirmation link you received when you signed up.)
Be active on those platforms during the readathon.
Use some method of tracking your time. This can include your phone’s stopwatch function or a digital stopwatch (preferred) or a written time tracker, but your 24 hours must be clearly recorded. (If you need a digital stopwatch, Google “stopwatch.”) *Pro-tip: take a screenshot of your stopwatch every time you pause it, just in case you accidentally reset it instead of restarting it.*
In the post that goes up at the end of the readathon, you’ll be able to submit your info and proof of 24 hours of reading. You’ll also be asked to note whether you’re US-based or international.
You’ll have until midnight ET on July 24th to submit this proof, after which the form will be closed.

Obviously, your proof is on the honor system and, while we’re thrilled to be able to offer these prize packages, please don’t abuse it.

Also, please don’t forget your internationally-based brethren and donate if you can.

Now for the prize packs!

For U.S.-Based Readers:

Prize Pack #1
One Fiction Box from Call Number
Velocireader Dolman Shirt (Out of Print)
TBR socks (Out of Print)
Jane Austen Tea Mug (Obvious State)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Tote (Obvious State)
Rumi Journal (Obvious State)

Prize Pack #2
One Nonfiction Box from Call Number
Velocireader Dolman Shirt (Out of Print)
TBR socks (Out of Print)
T.S. Eliot Spoons Mug (Obvious State)
Emily Dickinson Tote (Obvious State)
Sappho Journal (Obvious State)

Prize Pack #3
3 month subscription from Feminist Book Box
Velocireader Dolman Shirt (Out of Print)
Jane Austen Tote (Obvious State)
Sappho Journal (Obvious State)

Prize Pack #4
Gift card for one Litographs poster (up to size 24×36″)
Velocireader Dolman Shirt (Out of Print)
TBR socks (Out of Print)
Jane Austen Tea Mug (Obvious State)
Shakespeare Journal (Obvious State)

Prize Pack #5
Velocireader Dolman Shirt (Out of Print)
TBR socks (Out of Print)
Hearth & Hammer Literary Travel Tin Trio
T.S. Eliot Spoons Mug (Obvious State)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Tote (Obvious State)
Shakespeare Journal (Obvious State)

Prize Pack #6
Velocireader Dolman Shirt (Out of Print)
TBR socks (Out of Print)
T.S. Eliot Spoons Mug (Obvious State)
Emily Dickinson Tote (Obvious State)
Hearth & Hammer Literary Travel Tin Trio
Rumi Journal (Obvious State)

Prize Pack #7
One Standard Books and Baths Co. Box
Jane Austen Tea Mug (Obvious State)
Jane Austen Tote (Obvious State)
TBR socks (Out of Print)
Hearth & Hammer Literary Travel Tin Trio

For International Readers:

Prize Pack #8
US$25 gift card to Amazon, Book Depository, or Wordery
Book Nerd Tote Bag
Go Away I’m Reading Mug
Crocomark

Prize Pack #9
US$25 gift card to Amazon, Book Depository, or Wordery
Read Like A Girl Tote Bag
Book Lover Mug
Nessie Tale Bookmark

But you can’t win if you don’t sign up! So scurry over and get on that, people! And we’ll see you right back here for readathon-ing this weekend.

Are you ready to #24in48!?

HELLO READERS! We are so, so excited about the upcoming #24in48, we can barely contain ourselves. Your co-hosts are working frantically behind the scenes to be sure everything is ready for the weekend, and in the meantime, we wanted to be sure to share a few key highlights as we count down these last two days to the official ‘thon kickoff.

FIRST UP: Be sure to subscribe to our site via email to receive notifications/alerts when a new post goes live (link in sidebar!). This is the easiest way to ensure you don’t miss a check-in/door prize announcement, or a challenge to participate in!

A new post goes live on the site every three hours, and if it’s your first time joining us and you have questions about how the challenges work, DON’T WORRY: just wait and see! Trust us, we give you all the instructions in the post! And if, by chance, you do miss an email notification, we push all of our posts to our various social platforms when they go live; we don’t want any of you to miss them either!

Your hosts have picked our book stacks for the weekend, and given a little explanation of why we picked what we did. (While there are no rules or requirements for your weekend reading, we do encourage everyone to read diversely and to have a larger stack than you may need for the weekend so you have options to choose from!)

Hour 0, aka the official kickoff of the July #24in48 readathon, will be at 12:01am on Saturday, July 20th, Eastern time. You can find a time zone converter to track the official hours in your own time zone here, or if you prefer to adjust Hour 0 to be 12:01am on Saturday in your own time zone, that’s fine too! We cover that all in our FAQ, which also has answers to lots of other commonly asked questions (What if I don’t read 24 hours? How do I win prizes? Where do I sign up?)

Speaking of sign ups, make sure you sign up! We’ll have lots of prizes over the weekend – door prizes, challenge prizes, and special prize pack chances for those of you who manage to read the full 24 hours – but prizes are only available to those who are officially signed up for the ‘thon. You can sign up here, or check whether or not you already did sign up here.

Get your snack stacks as ready as your book stacks, be sure to follow us on social media and be ready to check back here for regular updates throughout the weekend, and you’ll be ready to #24in48! We can’t wait to start reading with you all… let the countdown begin!

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