#COYER with Friends Reading Challenge Sign-Up
I adore this twice annual challenge and love the new twist emphasizing friendship in the on-line book community. Heart-felt thanks to Michelle and Berls @ Because Reading and Stephanie @ Once Upon a Chapter for hosting.
Here are the details as posted on Because Reading blog:
It’s that time again, Winter COYER will run Sunday, December 1st – Saturday, March 7th, and, as always, we have a fun twist for you. Who’s ready?! You can sign up below until January 15th, 2020!
But wait.. before we get started…
We have some extra help this time!
As most of you know, Berls just had a baby in September. And since she’ll be going back to work at about the same time COYER kicks off, we knew that we’d probably be needing a bit more help this COYER. So Michelle put out the word for volunteers and so many of you responded. Thank you to everyone for being so willing to help us keep COYER great. Michelle ended up randomly picking someone from the group that had volunteered and our helper this COYER is Stephanie from Once Upon a Chapter. Thank you Stephanie! Stop by her blog and get to know Stephanie better!
The Rules
As always, Winter COYER is the strict version of COYER. You can keep it simple with these basic rules, or go full in with the twist, which we’ll explain fully below.
1. Read Your E-Reads! Every book you read MUST be in an electronic format – meaning E-Book or Audiobook. It’s okay to start a book before December 1st, you must be less than half way for it to count then review it during COYER.
2. The books must be FREE or NEARLY FREE! This includes review books, tour books, NetGalley, Edelweiss, etc. What’s nearly free? No more than $2 for eBooks and no more than $5 for Audiobooks (or the equivalent in your currency). Library books, borrowed books, or Kindle Unlimited books do not qualify for this COYER.
3. Announce your participation! This can be a blog post (or if you don’t have a blog – Facebook, Twitter, Google , Booklikes, Goodreads, Shelfari, etc.) If you want to list books you would like to read, that’s great, but not necessary. The point is to let everyone know you’re committed to COYER, maybe share some goals, and help spread the word. Not sure how to do your post? Check out this example from a previous COYER.
4. Make a book recommendation on your sign-up post! This is new, but super easy. When you write your sign up post (#3 above), recommend 1 book that you think everyone should read. It doesn’t matter if it’s recent or decades old. Genre, length, format… none of it matters.
5. Link up! Link that post (not just your blog homepage) to the linky below.
6. Review & Link Reviews! Your review may be on your blog, Goodreads, Shelfari, Booklikes, etc. Link the review to the Review Linky (which will be available on the kick off post on December 1st).
7. Visit Each Other, Chat & Have Fun!
We are giving away (2) $10 Gift Cards to either Amazon or Barnes & Noble. One is for the review link and the other is for participating in our fun twist (see #COYER with Friends below). You can choose to just do COYER or do all the extras… or just a few of the extras, it’s totally up to you!
#COYER with Friends
Blogging is, for most of us (we think…), about more than the books and posts but the friendships we form and COYER has been a great way to really develop those friendships. We thought this COYER would be a great opportunity to nurture those friendships, make new friends, and honor the friends we’ve lost this past year to cancer. Thus, COYER with Friends was born.
COYER with friends is essentially a buddy reading challenge. For a book to count for COYER with Friends points, you have to pick another COYER participant to Buddy Read it with. Let us break it down for you.
Buddy Reading
Pick a COYER participant to buddy read a book with. This means you read it at the same time and talk about it. You can read as many books at the same time as you’d like, but you can only read 2 books per buddy.
There are NO price or format requirements for books you buddy read. They can be physical books, library books, KU books, etc. If they meet the COYER requirements, when you review them they can also go on the review linky. If they don’t meet COYER guidelines, the review links only go on the rafflecopter.
Review the books! Same as with regular COYER, we want to see a review. In the review, list your buddy with their number on the sign-up linky and the rating they gave the book (feel free to do some back and forth chatting or buddy reviews too!).
Recommended Reading
Remember how we asked everyone to recommend one book that they think everyone should read in their sign-up post? Here’s why… when you read a book that was recommended on someone’s sign-up post, you get an entry in the COYER with Friends Rafflecopter. It’s okay if these books don’t meet the Winter COYER requirements. But if they happen to be free/nearly free and eBooks/audiobooks, go ahead and add them to the review linky as well!
Read-a-thons
We will have four read-a-thons this time and every read-a-thon you participate in will earn you another entry in the COYER with Friends Rafflecopter. To participate in a read-a-thon:
Be sure to announce your participation in the Facebook post for that read-a-thon (up the day before the read-a-thon begins)
Read at least one qualifying book
Report your results in the Facebook post for that readathon (up the day the read-a-thon ends)
So mark your calendars to participate in as many or as few read-a-thons as you’d like. All Read-a-thons books are exempt from COYER rules. Read whatever format or price you’d like ?
1. FFS, I suffer from FOMO! This read-a-thon (FFS= For F*cks Sake & FOMO= Fear of Missing Out) is about reading those books you wanted to read this year but didn’t get around to and runs December 15th – 28th
2. Honoring Lost Friends. This read-a-thon is in honor of Tiffany and Grace, good blogging friends lost this year to cancer. In honor of them, pick a book from their TBR or Read Shelves on Goodreads (Tiffany’s book list & Grace’s book list) January 5th – January 11th.
3. Buddy Read. Maybe you’re not feeling up to the challenge of doing lots of Buddy Read books, but you want to get in on the fun for a bit. Join us January 19th – February 8th to buddy read a book or two.
4. Read Their Book! Read a book from a COYER Participant’s (aka a friend’s!) to-be-read shelf February 16th – February 27th.
Social Media
As always, we hope you’ll join us in our Facebook Group for some fun with COYER Friends. We’ll be posting discussions and games every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (and maybe a few surprise posts too!).
We’ve noticed that Twitter parties have had a lot lower attendance in the past couple COYERs so we decided to pull back and just do one party. Mark your calendars so we can have a great chat! The Twitter party will be February 22nd at 2pm EST. And as always, tweet any progress or reviews with the hashtag #COYER.
Finally, we will have an Instagram challenge, running for the month of February. Watch in the Facebook group late January for the challenge prompts.
Sign-up
And now the moment you’ve been waiting for! Sign up, declare you goals, and don’t forget to recommend 1 book! We can’t wait to have fun with Friends this Winter COYER!
Link: https://www.becausereading.com/winter-coyer-with-friends-time-to-sign-up/
So, here is me tossing my hat into the ring to participate in the regular COYER (or I might do a buddy read if a friend asks) for 40 books, for 3 of the 4 Readathons, the Facebook and Social visits, and I'll have to wait and see on the Instagram Challenge. I'll be tracking and reviewing each book on GoodReads so you are welcome to friend/follow me there if you're interested in my thoughts on the books I've read for the challenge.
GoodReads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/5063928-sophia?shelf=2019-coyer-winter-friends
READING RECOMMENDATION:
The Restorer by Amanda Stevens
#1 The Graveyard Queen
Urban Fantasy, Southern Gothic
Blurb:
Never acknowledge the dead. Never stray far from hallowed ground. Never get close to the haunted. Never, ever tempt fate.
My name is Amelia Gray. I'm a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. In order to protect myself from the parasitic nature of the dead, I've always held fast to these rules passed down from my father…until now.
Detective John Devlin needs my help to find a killer, but he is haunted by ghosts who shadow his every move. To warn him would be to invite them into my life. I've vowed to keep my distance, but the pull of his magnetism grows ever stronger even as the headstone symbols lead me closer to truth and to the gossamer veil that separates this world from the next.
Cheer me on to this fun shelf-clearing challenge and do join if you can. A good time will be had by all. :)
