2012 Cozy Mystery Challenge - rules and sign-up form

It's that time of year again, time to sign up for the annual Cozy Mystery Challenge and start thinking about the books you'll want to read for the next 6 months.

Last year we had a great turn out and I hope we do just as well, if not better,  in 2012.

For those who might wonder what a cozy mystery is, here's a great website that explains it and is a great resource for series:  Cozy-Mystery.com   I also have the 2010 and 2011 list of read books still available on this blog, so feel free to browse through the list to see what members read last year.

Here are the rules:

1. The challenge runs April 1st, 2012 through September 30, 2012.

2. The goal is to read at least 6 cozy mysteries, one for each month.  You can choose to read more, but you must read 6 in order to complete this challenge. You don't have to read 1 each month, you can read them whenever you like, you just have to read at least six.

There are three participation levels for this challenge:

Only the required amount - 6

I think I can do better - 7-10

Feeling very ambitious - 11+

3. While you can overlap with other challenges, please try to have at least 2 of the books only count towards this challenge.  However, if you are doing a challenge where you are working towards a page count or book count, it's ok to count these books towards that challenge. 

4.Sign-up using Mr. Linky. While it would be great if you signed up before April 1st,  you can sign up anytime between now and September 1st.   Update: So it appears if you don't have a URL you can't use Mr. Linky to sign up.. Bummer!  So I think those of you with no blog have two options and you can do either one, whichever you prefer.  Either user Mr. Linky and just put in the URL to this blog or just leave a comment! 

5. You do NOT need a blog to participate.  If you do have a blog, I would love to see a dedicated post linking back this post, but that's not required either.

6. You do NOT have to list the books you plan to read ahead of time, although you can if you want to (and the list can change throughout the challenge).

One change for this year is that I won't be as active as I have in the past, not that I'm always incredibly up-to-date anyway.  I'm currently expecting my first child in early May so I'm going to have my hands full for the majority of this challenge.   I thought about skipping the challenge this year but I love cozies and I know a lot of you look forward to this challenge so I knew I had to do it.

I'm going to create a form for you to enter the books you've read and have it just list the books automatically on the site so others can see what people are reading without me having to re-type everything.    Hopefully things go smoothly with this challenge and I'll be sure to pop-in when I can!

Please let me know if you have any questions and most importantly....HAVE FUN!