Following is information about, and sign-up for, BA’s Free Reads Reading Challenge. This is for the 2013 challenge only. If you have any questions or issues you can’t find the answer to on this page, please visit the Challenge F.A.Q.s.
Challenge Quick Links
- Free Reads 2012 Sign-Ups
- Free Reads 2012 Reviews
- Free Reads 2012 Wrap-Up
- Challenge F.A.Q.s and Other Challenges
- Free Reads 2013 Reviews
- Free Reads 2013 Wrap-Up
- 2013 Review Round-Up
BA’s 2013 Free Reads Reading Challenge
About: The Free Reads Challenge is about all those books you’ve received for free, but haven’t been able to get to. Read books you’ve gotten via presents, review requests, prizes, or just found in the street. Does not include library books or other lending services. They must be books that have become part of your personal collection.
The Finer Deets
- The Main Rule: Read books you’ve received without purchasing and you haven’t read yet. Books include gifts, ARCs, prizes, rescue books, but does not include library or other loaned books, and yes you can read new releases.
- Running dates for all 2013 challenges: 1st of January – 31st of December 2013
- Sign-Ups are accepted until the 16th of December 2013.
- Formats: All BA Challenges are eBook, audio, short story, and graphic novel friendly.
- Crossovers: You’re welcome to crossover with BA’s challenges. Include as many books across all the challenges as you can, I always say.
How To Sign-Up and Join In
- Choose Your Level: Choose a challenge level listed below.
- Sign Up Post: Create a post on your blog, in a group, or on a forum (where possible) to let others see what you’re aiming for (a predefined list of books is optional).
- Grab The Badge: Download or grab the badge and place it in your sign up post. Then link back to
Bookish Ardour. - Link Up: Grab the direct URL to your sign up post, not your blog, click the Mr Linky graphic and enter your link.
- Blogless? Don’t worry, you can sign up with your social network profile (YouTube, Twitter, GoodReads, Shelfari included), just make sure you link to your review list, shelf, tweet, or category. If you don’t have any of those feel free to comment.
- Your Reviews: Reviewing is optional! But if you do review it would be great for you to share them by submitting them on the review page.
- Finished: When you’re done it’s completion post time and you can share these on the completion/wrap-up page.
Challenge Levels
- For Me? – Choose 5 books to read
- On The Cheap – Choose 15 books to read
- Bargain – Choose 30 books to read
- Presents – Choose 50 books to read
- So Free – Choose 75 books to read
- Gift Addict – Choose between 76-135 books to read
- Speechless – Choose between 136-200 books to read
Extra Challenges
If you feel like that extra kick to your reading challenges here’s a couple you can choose from.
- World: Choose a country as your theme, reading only books from that country or where it’s the setting. For how high you go you can choose more than one country;
- Level For Me? and On The Cheap: Choose one country
- Level Bargain and Presents: Choose two countries
- Level So Free to end of Gift Addict: Choose three countries
- Level Speechless: Choose four countries.
- Gender Battle: Read books only by female or male authors. Another alternative is to read equal amounts of both.
Sign Up
Click the Mr Linky and away you go!
Who Has Joined So Far
Powered by… Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets.
I completed my challenge of 15 free reads!! …and it`s only April… I guess I should have aimed higher! Oh well…next year!
I am delighted to discover your blog! I joined three of your reading challenges. I look forward to getting to know you this year!
Create With Joy
http://www.create-with-joy.com/2013/01/2013-reading-challenges.html
Thanks for hosting!
I’m in — just remind me….
Thank you for hosting. My announcement is here: http://cmashlovestoread.com/2012/12/21/2013-challenges-3/
I’m around 30 already and I initialy said 15. Can I raise my level?
You sure can. You can change it as many times as you need or want to, especially if it’s to raise the level. Nice work
This is an awesome challenge! Thanks.
Gift Addict for me. Most of the books that I read should be free, but I’m doing this to remember to read a lot!
Hi! I just found your challenge and I love it so I’m adding it to my list. Just a quick qustion before I create my post. Do books owned/ bought by other family members that I got to read count?
Hey Nina, not if they’re owned by other family members. If they’ve given them to you to own though, either as gifts or hand-me-downs, then they would count. It’s about the books you have in your collection. Sort of an Off the Shelf style challenge, but with a specification.
Thank you very much for the answer! Even so I have quite a pile of books fitting the challenge, I just hope I will have the time to read them all. At least I have more motivation now
I just signed up with my shelfari account! This is so great! I still have books from LAST Christmas that I haven’t read yet so this will motivate me to do so! I’m going to do For Me?
Hi there! Just signed up!
Just signed up! I’ve got tons of book from giveaways waiting to be read
Signed up to read at least 15 books.
It’s 2012! Now we can all start reading! Good luck everyone and I hope you have plenty of fun.
For those just signing up now, the limit to sign up is the end of this year so you can take your time. For those having trouble with badges and have let me know about them, I’ll be sending it out to you today.
Enjoy!
Another great challenge for 2012. I am all ready to read my 15 books this year!
All signed up! Time to tackle all those ebooks gathering imaginary dust in my Kindle!
Hello there!
I just found this, and as I’m starting a blog this month, I thought it would be a great challenge to join!
I just wanted to ask you a question: do ebooks owned by Project Gutenberg or available for free at amazon count?
Hey Mariana, thanks for showing an interest in the challenge. To be honest I hadn’t thought of those when I put the challenge together, and I have a bunch from PG too.
If you have a lot of them and you need motivation to read the ones you already have then I say yes, include them. However, if it’s getting the books after signing up in order to be included with the challenge, I think that might defeat the purpose.
How does that sound?
Makes sense to me!
As I have a few ones on my kindle already, I will only count those ones towards the challenge.
Oh, and by the way, I’ve already signed up
Makes perfect sense. Thanks for the clarification!
I’m already doing Off the Shelf, so I like that this one can be any new free reads! 
Thanks for the quick response! 
Quick question: Are these books received for free prior to 2012, or can books we receive for free during the year be counted, too?
Hey Heather, no I think it’s ok if you receive them the same year. Of course you can always make it so it’s only books before 2012, but we already have the Off The Shelf one for those as well.
Hope that helps
All signed up, this will help me get some winning books read. Thanks for hosting.
I’m entered! My blog post can be found here : http://engelsigh.blogspot.com/2011/12/free-reads-2012-reading-challenge.html
Do you have the html for the badge?
I saw the badge on your post so I figure you got it all sorted out
Thanks for hosting. Hopefully this will clean off my shelves.
Do books that provided by self pub authors for free in return for a blog review etc. count?
Yes they do David. It’s any books/eBooks that you’ve received without purchase, but as long as they’re part of your personal library and haven’t read them yet. All review ones are included whether they’re from self published authors publishing houses.
Signed up!
Yes! I need catch up on these! Thanks for hosting!
Thanks for joining in with this one too Heather
Just need a clarification before I choose a level;
Do library books count for this?
No they don’t Kim. It’s about those books you have in your personal library that you’ve received for free, for whatever reason, and haven’t gotten around to.
Thanks for the clarification!
You’re welcome Kim. Were you looking for a challenge only for library books or one that was also library friendly?