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Read-a-Thon: Comic Winner and Five Lessons Learned

read-a-thonFirst of all, I have to announce the winner of my Draw-a-Comic Mini-Challenge. With 24% of the vote, the winner is The Brain Lair! Congrats, and send me an e-mail so I can get you your e-gift certificate!

Every comic got at least a few votes, and the top three comics were very close. I Heart Monster came in second with 18%, and Alex came in third with 13%. So really, congrats to everyone who participated and voted — the comics were totally awesome.

Here are five quick lessons I learned from this year’s Read-a-Thon, before I go read and do my homework for the day (I didn’t read at all yesterday, weird?).

1. Turn off word verification for the day. I understand if you have a lot of spam, but if you can, turning this feature off makes visiting and commenting on blogs a million times either.  Thanks for those who were able to.

2. Making a Blogger profile was the best idea ever! I probably won’t use it much after this, but it saved me so much time while I was cheerleading.

3. It’s a ton of work to blog and read and cheer, so thank you to everyone who took the time to do that. Getting comments yesterday really kept me going!

4. My next mini-challenge will be less complicated. No voting or anything, just a random number generator for the winner. This will be especially important if I decide to read next time instead of cheerlead.

5. I want to read! I loved cheerleading for two Read-a-Thons, but next time I want to get to read! I didn’t pick up a book at all yesterday, which seems so strange to me. So, October, if school is looking manageable, I am going to be a Reader, at least for part of the day.

So that’s that. Great Read-a-Thon everyone, I had such a great time! You can catch up on my progress throughout the day by reading these posts: Introduction, My Comic!, Afternoon Update, Early Evening Update, and Bedtime Update.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • I Heart Monster April 19, 2009, 3:07 pm

    Thanks again for the challenge! It was a really really fun one :o)

  • Nymeth April 19, 2009, 3:17 pm

    You (and all the cheerleaders) were AWESOME. And you’re so right about word verification…that tip should be in the FAQ next time.

    Thank you, Kim!

  • Jessi April 19, 2009, 3:26 pm

    I didn’t get to participate this time around, but I enjoyed reading everyone’s updates. Your comic challenged seemed really fun! Enjoy the rest of your weekend. 🙂

  • BiblioMom April 19, 2009, 6:11 pm

    I have a blogger profile just so that it’s easier to comment on Blogger blogs. On my blog I usually have the first comment someone leaves moderated and then all subsequent comments are automatically approved but to help me out a bit I turned that off and since WordPress had a pretty good spam catcher I think I’ll leave it like that from now on.

    Thank you for your time spent cheerleading. I had fun doing a little bit of everything.

  • BiblioMom April 19, 2009, 6:12 pm

    Oh and I’m from Wisconsin too!

  • Kristi April 19, 2009, 7:17 pm

    I didn’t get to participate in this read-a-thon, but I’m desperately hoping to make the October. Thanks for the tips, hopefully I’ll get to use them in the fall. Some of the comics this time around were really great!

  • christina April 19, 2009, 8:13 pm

    I think that you totally rocked! Cheering & reading.

    Im-pres-sive! 🙂

  • Kim L April 19, 2009, 8:20 pm

    I was also a cheerleader for this one and I didn’t get to do any reading until later in the evening, and I didn’t make much progress because I was getting tired by then. Next time I think I will try to do both. One hour reading, one hour cheering or something like that.

    Congrats to the winner of your contest! I enjoyed seeing the results of these contests, but I didn’t participate in the ones requiring creativity. I just didn’t have the energy, although they all seemed like fun. I did vote though 🙂

  • Lenore April 20, 2009, 2:10 am

    I wish people would turn off word verification ALL the time. If you get a little spam, delete it. If you get a lot of spam then turn on the feature where you check the comments before they post.

    Glad you enjoyed cheerleading!

  • Jodie April 20, 2009, 9:48 am

    I agree with the first and the last point so much. I hate word verification now whereas before I wasn’t so bothered. I also think I want to read next year, but how will that work with a mini challenge?

  • Margot April 20, 2009, 5:56 pm

    Thank you for a great Read-a-Thon. I know you weren’t The Sponsor but Cheerleading meant a lot to me. This was my first experience and I didn’t know what to expect. Seeing the Cheerleader’s comments was a very pleasant surprise. It was great to see your friendly face in my comment section in the early morning hours. Next time I have decided to spend several hours just cheerleading because I saw personally how helpful it was.

    I am with you on the Blogger profile. I have one too and for some people (including many on BIP) that is the only way I am known. I guess those folks think that everyone is on Blogger. It cuts down on what blogs I comment on. It would probably be an effective strategy for the BIP people to examine their own blog’s ability to receive comments. Some blogs are not comment friendly for more than one reason. Maybe that is how they wish it. But it’s frustrating.

  • Fyrefly April 20, 2009, 9:09 pm

    We always appreciate our cheerleaders, but if you get the chance to read, it’s so very much fun!