So Who's Doing the #AtoZChallenge This Year?

So Who's Doing the AtoZChallenge This Year?

Just in case there are readers who have no idea what I'm taking about, the AtoZChallenge runs every year during April. It is a challenge for any bloggers who wish to enter. The idea is to make a blog post every day, except Sundays, inspired by the letter of the alphabet that goes with that day, 1st=A, 3rd=B (because 2nd is a Sunday) etc.

The lovely banners/badges were created by Jeremy from Hollywood Nuts. You can find all of them over at the AtoZChallenge blog.

Many blogs have a theme running through all their posts, but some just do individual posts as they go along.

This is my fifth year taking part.

I was having so much trouble coming up with a theme for this year. I just had no clue, but I finally figured it out. I'm not going to tell you not, because there is a theme reveal day on March 20th, so it's a secret until then ;).

Just in case you are interested here are my themes from previous years:

2013 - no theme

2014 - Vampires

2015 - Fictional Deities and Demons

2016 - Fictional Phantoms

2017 - ???

Reasons to do the challenge:

• We get to meet loads of bloggers also doing the challenge and make friends.
• We have lots of visitors from people who aren't doing the challenge, but are using it to find interesting blogs to read.
• It's good for our discipline having to post every day and makes the rest of the blogging year look like a dream.
• We find loads of blogs to check out we never would have looked at otherwise.
• It's fun!

Reasons to have a theme:

• It gives visitors something to look forward to and come back for if they know what kind of thing we will be posting.
• It helps visitors remember your blog.
• It really helps with deciding what to post every day because we're not just picking something out of the air.
• We get to take part in the theme reveal day, which some people use to decide which blogs to visit first.

Tips on How Not to Go Insane During April:

• Prepare in advance. I cannot stress how much this takes the pain out of the challenge and just makes it fun. I try to have at least half my posts done before April even begins, preferably all of them.
• Make a note of the blogs you visit and their URLs - I use Google sheets. I also note which ones I really want to go back to so I can find them again. With the new format this year and no linked list I think this will really help so you don't lose the blogs you want to revisit. You could just bookmark them in their own folder, but I like to be able to sort things, hence Google sheets :)
• Make a note of all the bloggers who visit you so you can return the favour.
• Have a signature to go with your comments when you visit other blogs so they don't have to search around to visit you back:
  Tasha Tasha's Thinkings 
  or if the blog doesn't allow HTML, just put in the URL
  Tasha https://tashasthinkings.blogspot.co.uk/

Things I have learned over the years:

• The more people you visit, the more people will visit you - but there will be people who don't bother. Don't take it personally :). Sometimes they might no gel with your blog, or real life may be kicking their behind and stressing about it takes more energy than it is worth ;).
• Don't make your entries too long. There are rules for every day blog posts and rules for AtoZ posts. People often like a lot of meat to every day posts, but during the AtoZ people are trying to visit lots of blogs, so to the point, dynamic posts are the way to go.
• Images always help to keep people entertained and make a post more eye catching.

So who plans to take part this year? Have you thought of a theme?