You may have noticed a pretty massive trend on booktube at the moment is
24-hour readathons. And it turns out this is not a new thing,
and also wasn't originally a booktube thing.
The earliest official 24 hour readathon event was Dewey's 24 hour read-a-thon which
was founded in 2007 and is still going. And the idea here is for people all over
the world to read together for 24 hours. So depending on what time zone you're in,
you're given a start and stop time, so that everyone is reading all together. And
there are little micro challenges along the way, there are chances to win prizes,
it's a whole amazing event. But recently these have become a booktube phenomenon.
So readbyzoe has done a ton of 24-hour readathons, and she actually does
stay awake for the full 24 hours - which is not a prerequisite in doing one of
these, we will get to that in a minute. BasicallyBritt hosts some 24-hour
readathons that people are invited to join in with her. I've actually done four
of these myself, so I've got some insider tips for you if you want to join in and
do a 24 hour readathon. How do you marathon read like that? First things
first, like I said, you do not have to stay up
for 24 hours. In fact this is not very good for you so I recommend that you do
get some sleep. Listen to what your body needs. But it's still a massive challenge
having a 24 hour period where basically all you're doing while you're awake is
reading. And often people set themselves goals of how many books they want to
read, so you have to read quite fast, it's a challenge! So I've got some useful tips.
So I divided these up into tips for preparing for your readathon, versus
tips on the day. So let's start with what you need to think about in advance. Tip
number one is to choose your books wisely. So I've done this quite a few
times with book series and I think that works really well because you're not
having to learn new characters and worlds every time you move to a new book.
Rereading books you've already read before helps because it feels really
lovely and comforting and you know what's coming a bit so you will read
them a little bit faster. Or you might want to pick just one really big book
that you've always wanted to read, so readbyzoe for example did a 24 hour
readathon where she read the entirety of It by Stephen King all in one go. I
would also think quite carefully about the genre. So comedy is great because if
it keeps you laughing you're going to be having a good time for 24 hours. Or
thrillers could be fun, something really fast paced and page-turning.
I probably wouldn't recommend just for this
reading a slow-moving sad book. Tip number two is to plan out your 24 hours.
If you're someone like me who likes to be hyper-organised, I found this really
helpful. So for example when I read this entire series I literally - this is very
nerdy - counted out the pages, calculated how many pages I needed to read in every
hour, and then I had a schedule so that I knew at what time I was supposed to
start each next book. However don't take this too seriously, it obviously doesn't
matter at all if you don't reach your goals. I've failed my goals on half of
the readathons that I've done, it's just quite fun having a schedule so that you
know if you're on track or not. Tip number three is to choose your timing wisely. So
traditionally a 24 hour readathon goes from midnight to midnight, but you
might not want to wake yourself up at midnight to start reading because you
won't have had much sleep before then anyway. I've done them before where I've
done 3 a.m. to 3 a.m. It's quite exciting waking yourself up early to
start it, but the same time maybe you want to do midday to midday with a full
night's sleep in between so that you're always reading in the daylight. It's
totally up to you, just have a think about what time of day you want to be
reading, what you know your sleep patterns are like, and plan it based on
that. Tip number 4, buy your favourite snacks.
You will need lots and lots of snacks and caffeine, this really helps with
helping you feel awake, but also helps with making you feel motivated if you
can reward yourself with your favourite snacks along the way. Tip number 5, think
about whether you want to do it on your own or with a friend. And doing it with a
friend might mean somebody that you actually
live with, or might mean doing it remotely with somebody else and just
keeping in touch via FaceTime or messages. Either way is really fun, I
think there's pros and cons to both, so again just think about which you'll
prefer. Having a friend does help you stay motivated, but on the other hand
having a friend can be a bit of a distraction. So it depends how ambitious
you're being with your goal. And then tip number 6, the final thing to prepare, get
lots of sleep. Yes, go to bed early the night before, but you
should also probably think about going to bed early before that as well. You
want to be really well rested because whether or not you're staying up for 24
hours, reading all day is tiring work, get some sleep.
OK so you're feeling ready. Let's go into my tips for the day itself. Tip
number one, get dressed. Like if you're waking up at 3 in the morning then yes
you might want to stay in your pyjamas for a while, but if you stay in your
pyjamas all day I find that I feel a bit gross, plus it helps you feel motivated if
you've put on an outfit. It might just be trackies though, that's totally fine. The
second thing that will help is to keep moving around. Find a few different
reading spots that are comfy or even just different positions if you don't have
that much space, and keep switching between them, because this will really
help you not just fall asleep. And then take some breaks. Your eyes do not want
to be just staring at the page all day so get up, get moving, get some fresh air,
even if that's just sticking your head out the window, having a bit of sunlight
and fresh air helps. And then as you're going, post your progress somewhere. So I
like to post a picture of each book as I finish it on Instagram, so that gives me
that little boost of achievement that I finished something, and also then you get
some responses coming in from people saying well done, or saying what on earth
is wrong with you, but either of those are quite fun to receive. If you can I
would also recommend switching formats, so switching between audiobooks and
physical books or ebooks. If you switch to the audiobook it means that you've
got time to do something else for a bit while you're still reading, so you could
be preparing your next snack for example or even doing a little bit of exercise
which also really helps you feel more energetic. It also just helps the day
stay interesting if you feel like you're changing it up a bit.
Tip number six is to eat regular meals. So I know I just told you to stock up on
loads of snacks, but as well as that I would make sure your day has some
structure. Try and eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at the normal times, and then
finally tip number seven is play some games. So I mean this both in terms of
take five-minute breaks every now and then to play a game with somebody, but
also you can turn the reading into a game. So I've played little games with
myself like every time you finish a chapter you stand up and do ten squats,
and then as you get more tired it might just be every time you finish the
chapter you stand up, or every time you finish a chapter you stay lying down but
kick your leg in the air. Every little helps! So that was all the tips that I
could think of. They've helped me when I've done these but I'm sure other
people who've done 24-hour readathons will have loads of binge reading tips of
their own. So do leave your advice in the comments so that other people could try
this for themselves. And I will link to loads of 24 hour
readathon vlogs in the description box, you can check them out. We also made a
video recently that was all about booktube trends, including 24 hour
readathons, so I'll link to that, do check it out and let us know if there are any
other booktube trends you'd like us to deep dive into. And if you're doing a
reading marathon good luck with it and let me know how it goes! See you next time.