Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

Please read the rules first and ask for clarifications/questions in this thread. :)

1. The 10-month season starts on January 1 and ends on October 31. The winner will be announced around November 11th, so make sure to update the spreadsheet by 10th. The sheets are designed to only count points through Halloween towards Main Page team points, and are safe to continue using in November/December, only adding to a secondary 12 month totals row at the top.

2. Books started in the previous year may be counted if you finish them after January 1st. We trust that you will not take advantage of this and start a bunch of books in December so that you can add them right on January 1st.

***if you really want to, you can include books you didn't finish by October 31st at midnight, using DNF rules, as described in addendums to Rule 3, but I don't think that's worth it unless your team is neck and neck in the competition and it changes the rankings. I'd just count it as a November Read for yearlong tracking.

3. When adding the page count, you may use any of the top 5 English versions* unless you're actually reading the non-English version. For the same reason, large print editions will also not be allowed. The rationale is there were some 300K-word books counting for less than a third of that size because of the edition posted first by Goodreads. It's imperfect, but there isn't a better way unless we have a word count for every book out there.

*For books listed on Goodreads with only Audio format (no page count available) - 30 pages/hr, or a page every 2 minutes, is the average book narration rate at 1x speed
Example: 8-hour book - 240 pages

*** For books you DNF, you can include the pages you read/listened to. You'll need to do a bit of math to figure out a page count for audio DNFs, based on percent finished.

4. Point system:

Audio: 1:1
Read: 1.25/1 = 5/4
Graphic: 1/4

For example, an audiobook with 300 pages will be worth 3.0 points. A 300-page e/print book will be 3.8 points. A 300-page graphic novel will be 0.8 points.

BR: 1/3 bonus
For Buddy Reads points to count, you can start reading the book one week before the BR start date or join in within 2 weeks after the start date. These bonus points are to encourage discussion, so you may only get the BR bonus if you participate in the discussion, not just simply reading at the same time.

***Special Book of the Month rules are used for Spooktober reads, and if we create threads for book award nominees (Hugo Awards). This would also apply to Cozy November/December and the Goodreads Choice Awards threads, if those didn't take place during the November/December competition hiatus every holiday season... with these months/threads, reading during the applicable month and participating in discussions in the thread or specific book threads (for books with 3+ readers) counts as a Buddy Read for BR points.

Challenge: 1/10 bonus
For challenge points to count, you can use any challenge that you have a tracker set up in this group.

A spreadsheet to input and track points will be posted when Timelord Iain starts getting antsy to track his books for next year (sometime between Thanksgiving & Christmas), and will have team assignments sorted out the day they're announced (sometime between Christmas & New Years).

5. New group members who wish to join need to have a minimum of 100 posts in this group. We want to welcome new people to the competition, but this is to ensure you will not disappear shortly after signing up.

6. For people signing up later than the initial draft, once you are added to the challenge, you may include points starting from the day you signed up for the challenge. If you started a book a few days before signing up for the challenge and are still reading when you sign up, you may also include those books.

Announcements will be posted whenever necessary.

Sections with *** are things I added to the comment 1 rules this year, based on discussions in the Year 8 Rules thread, and minor things that felt missing from the rules that people asked for clarifications on, in years past.