Sunday, October 25, 2009

Readathon Wrap Up Post


The October Read-a-Thon has been over for about 45 minutes, and I bet a lot of you are now soundly sleeping or at least taking a serious reading and/or computer break. I have been having hours of sleep in the middle of it all, so I am online still and not feeling tired. I will take a break in less than 40 minutes though where I will be watching some of the TV I missed last night.

First of all I want to thank all the organizers of this major event. Without your skills and encouragement the Read-a-Thon would not run as smoothly as it has done these past 24 hours. You deserve a big HOORAAAAAY (and a ton of exclamationpoints after that as well)!!!!!!!!!!

There are so many people working behind the scenes for a Read-a-Thon, and I am not even sure I know them all. I've been cheerleading for the Read-a-Thon and have therefore had most contact with Eva. I know that many  more are behind it all, so my thanks go out to all of you and not just Eva. THANKS!!!!

I was cheering from the very first minutes of the Read-a-Thon and was happy to have a system to work from. Otherwise it would have been hard with almost 400 readers participating (although I did happen upon blogs which were clearly not updated for a long time now and then). But it all went like a dream, and I must have left close to 500 cheering comments during my 12 hours of cheering. I found that the first 4-5 hours went by very fast without me getting to all the blogs I wanted, but the next couple of hours were equally fast and I was now into the whole cheering thing and managed to work my way through all those fantastic blogs faster than during the first couple of hours.

I was on Twitter on and off. When #readathon began trending it attracted a lot of idiotic haters and trolls and they sort of got to me. I was in no mood whatsoever to read that "reading is for morons" and stuff that was worse than that, so I had to stay off Twitter for most of the time. When #readathon was no longer trending, the haters also disappeared, though, and things became way cosier there. That was the only thing I did not like about the event (and I am not normally taking any notice of internet trolls whatsoever).

The other thing I was not quite so fond of (but which had nothing to do with the Read-a-Thon as such) was that we went from Summer Daylight Saving Times to Winter Daylight Saving Times during the night. That sort of threw me off balance, and I didn't get back online again after my rest until 3 hours before it was over. I would have liked to be there more.

Next time there is a Read-a-Thon I am signing up again. I don't know if I will sign up as a reader or a cheerleader, but I know that no matter what, I will only sign up for one thing. I cannot do both and am in awe of those who can!


Thanks to all for participating. Its been so much fun.

24 comments:

Beth F said...

You were an awesome cheerleader! I learned my lesson, I cannot be both a reader and a cheerleader. I ended up doing neither very well. But still had TONS of fun.

Megan said...

I definitely could not manage to be both a reader and a cheerleader at the same time either. I think next year perhaps I'll do the same thing I did this year and cheer in the spring and read in the fall (or vice versa?), because I found that I love both aspects of it!

Great job on the cheerleading! Every time I took a few minutes to cheerlead, you'd already been to the blogs I went to. You were everywhere! =D

Krissi said...

500 cheers. You go girl!

Richard said...

Thanks for cheers and posts!!

Esme said...

I am sure everyone appreciated you cheers.

Beth(bookaholicmom) said...

Thanks for the cheers! You were an awesome cheerleader! I don't think I could cheer and read either. I could barely keep up reading, doing challenges, and posting updates.

tanabata said...

Thanks again for stopping by to cheer me on! I'm in awe of those who can both read and cheer too! Next time I'm thinking of doing half and half, 12 hours of one, 12 hours of the other.

Anonymous said...

Yes, the trolls were SO rude...I don't understand why people have to be like that. :-(

Anonymous said...

Thank you for stopping by my blog. I really appreciated the comments.

I'm thinking about cheering next time. I'm pretty sure I couldn't do both!

serendipity_viv said...

Well done on being such a fantastic cheerleader.

Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity said...

Louise, you did such a fantastic job of cheerleading and should be so proud of all that you did for the readers! Over 500 comments is outstanding and it's cheerleaders like you who really make this event the special one that it is. Can't wait to cheer with you again in April!

Esme said...

Thanks for coming by again-it was fun meeting you and I will stop by to say hello again-I will participate again-however I am a fairweather person-if the weather is nice-I like to be outdoors-I was hoping that they do this on a miserably cold winter day .

Trisha said...

Awesome job cheering! I am so glad I missed the Twitter fiasco. I didn't join in the Twitter conversation until like hour 20, so I missed all of that.

Eva said...

I'm glad the system helped you-thanks for the shoutout! :)

I didn't realise there was drama on Twitter-that's too bad!

Sheila (bookjourney) said...

Way to go! I wasnt on Twitter at all during the read a thon but sounds like I didnt miss anything :)

Anonymous said...

Hey thanks for cheering yesterday, you did a great job :)

(Diane) Bibliophile By the Sea said...

You did great Louise cheering us on and losing sleep. Did you have a massive headache like me yesterday from lack of sleep? LOL I'm good today though. Went to bed at 8pm and slept until 6:30 am...LOL

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog and leaving sweet messages during the read-a-thon. I had a ton of fun and the cheerleaders helped make ut that way :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog and leaving sweet messages during the read-a-thon. I had a ton of fun and the cheerleaders helped make ut that way :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for stopping by my blog, too. I really appreciated all the cheerleaders. I think I'll try to split my time next time.

Jenners said...

You were a wonderful cheerleader! I was just popping over to thank you for your visit and cheer!

I'm impressed with all the cheering you did. I was thinking of trying it from that perspective on the next one.

And that is sad about the ugly comments on Twitter. But there are always people like that in the world.

And I agree with you 100% -- the Read-A-Thon was very well-organized.

thanks again for your support.

Care said...

wow - I missed the reader-hater thing. I'm glad! You WERE an awesome cheer-er! I prefer cheering but I find the reading only to be too hard. what am I saying?! I have never even tried to just be a reader, ha!

bermudaonion said...

Wow, I know everyone appreciated it your comments more than you'll ever know.

Heidenkind said...

You were an excellent cheerleader! Thank you so much. :)