2020 Blog Challenges Sign-Up Post

Okay, I'm a day or two later than I'd planned for this. But I was unsure what challenges I wanted to do for sure.  I've settled on just two for the year I think.  Although the first one, The Bookish Resolution Challenge, actually has several parts to it, and will tie into the other one anyway.  So let's talk about them now!

So, there aren't a lot of rules for  this one, just these three guidelines:

The book must have been published in 2019 or earlier to count. It can be in any format (including an ARC/eARC) as long as the release date is 2019 or earlier (i.e. 2020 releases are not allowed).
You have to start and finish the book in 2020 to count it. Any books started in 2019 and finished in 2020 do not count. Any books started in 2020 and finished in 2021 also do not count.

The challenge runs from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020
(your local time)

Everything beyond these 3 rules is COMPLETELY OPTIONAL and designed just for fun so you can put in as much or as little as you want into this challenge.

My goal is to read 2 books a month that are already on my bookshelves.  Books I've purchased and didn't already read as either an e-galley or an audiobook.  I might be more specific and say one YA and one romance a month, but for now I'm going to stick with just two.  I'd love to get around to more than 2 a month, but that is going to depend on my sticking to my goals in how many review books I sign up for this year.  There is also a team mini-challenge, which last year was Harry Potter themed, not that I did that great in it.  You don't have to be a part of that, but I might try it this year since I'm not doing a bunch of other challenges. The team I'll join is the:

The TBR Stackers! For every book you read, you’re adding a bunch more to your TBR. It never ends!

 Because that right there is the main reason I'm joining!  If you want to sign up as well, you can go HERE.

There are a few more guidelines to this challenge than the Beat the Backlist Challenge.  Here they are:

1. Create between 3 or more resolutions related to books/book blogging/writing (there are examples below but you can make up your own)(you can have as many resolutions as you would like, there is no limit) 
2. Create a signup post and add it to the Linky on this post (sign up before Feb 28th)
3. Since this is a year long challenge we ask that you pick goals with some longevity. Pick a goal that will take you no less than 4 months to complete.
4. Twice a year we will have an update to see how you are doing. May 1st and September 1st. The last update will be the wrap up post.
5. For each goal you complete you get one entry into the giveaway that will be in our wrap up post on December 31, 2020
6. The Winner will be picked randomly so the more goals you complete the better chance you have to winning one of the $5 Amazon Gift Cards at the end of the year.

So, let's go over my three main resolutions, although I have parts that make up each one.

1.  Blogging - This year I really want to get more organized and tidy up my blog appearance a bit. So I think I might bite the bullet and sign up with Ashley at Nose Graze for her hosting and setup help.  Which means there may soon be a new web address location for my blog.  I hope I can get all my followers to come along!

On my own I plan to continue to keep up my blogging planner with when I'm reviewing and other posts I've scheduled, etc.  I used a Google database this past year to keep track of my reading, but in the end I don't know how much I used it overall for statistics.  I need to go back and see if it was worth the time.  I plan to cut back on tours.  No more than one review tour a week, unless there are special circumstances, like authors I love having books out at the same time, or else when the next SmartyPants Romance releases come out this spring, I may be reading more than one a week.   I also intend to continue working on commenting on other blogs, and keeping up my weekly posts of Cleaning Up My TBR with a giveaway, and Lisa's Looking Forward To on Wednesdays.

2.  Reading - I will of course do the Goodreads Challenge.  I'm setting it at 220 books again.  And I am going to try to not let the months when I get behind cause me to drop the number to be safe and make sure I reach the goal.  Along with that, my Beat the Backlist Challenge goals above will hopefully help me get my shelves somewhat worked on, as I keep buying books, and not getting to them because of all the reviews I also sign up for.  Not to mention many ARCs I've picked up at past book conventions that I still need to read.

3.  Writing - So, I'm really, really stoked about trying to take one of my stories I've started and get it finished up enough to be able to submit it to be part of the SmartyPants Romance Green Valley world of Penny Reid.  While I know there's probably no way to finish the story and get it all ready to go by the spring submission dates, I want to be getting close to ready with my story by April.  However, I've got my short story, and I feel like over the next couple of months I really want to get it finally ready to just submit as a self-publish title on Amazon.  I'm going to set a word count goal of having 50,000 words by April in my SmartyPants Romance idea though.  I think there was a way to do that on the new NaNoWriMo website, so I'm going to try to keep myself accountable with that.

If you want to sign up for this one, you can go HERE.


Those are my two challenges for the year, are you participating in either?  What Challenges have you signed up for?