My first ever Read-A-Thon is over, one manuscript, one middle reader, a picture book and a young adult memoir later. Here are a few things I learned to keep in mind for next time:

  • It’s really hard to read at the dog park. 
  • When your friends come over to read with you, it is a ton of fun, but very little reading actually gets done.
  • 24 hours is a really long time. 
  • When you think, “I’ll sit and read in bed,” you’re actually going to fall asleep, so read in a chair in the living room instead.
  • Being home alone reading to yourself all day makes you do silly things like read to the dog (or your blog readers), just to hear a human voice.
  • Being a cheerleader is a sweet deal. Sign me up for that next time!
  • You won’t actually have time to read as many blog posts and twitter feeds as you would like. 
  • Participate in lots of challenges. It’s a nice way to break up the reading. 
  • Your mom reading to you over the phone counts. It’s like an unofficial audio book. 

I wasn’t good about keeping track of my pages read, hours spent reading, etc, but I enjoyed it all the same. Next time, I definitely plan on being a cheerleader, mostly because I really wanted to have more time to look at and comment on other readers blogs about the various things they are reading. I plan on checking out some this week though. Is there anything you learned during your Read-A-Thon experience? Let me know!