Welcome to the 100 Books Club 2005!

Some of us have a goal (or dream) of reading 100 books (or 25,000 pages, for those of us who tend to read thick books) in a year.
The rest of us are just curious about how many books we (and other people) actually read in a year.

The requirements for membership are very simple. Actually, I think I just listed them!

This is what I'm talking about... 100 Books Club

If you'd like to join, shoot me an e-mail at: writergal @ bookwyrm.us
Give me the following information:
The name you want me to use for your listing. (Your choice, but first come, first served if there are duplicates.)

A link if you wish, preferably to your book list or book reviews if you have such a page, but a link to a bio or your online journal/blog is also OK. (No link is required, though. I will list just your nickname if you want.)
Would there be interest in changing this to a link to a bio page instead? You would write me a little bio--with link/s if you wanted--and I would put it on a separate generic page. Stuff like, what kind of books you read, who your favorite writers are, a little about who you are (if you want).  The catch is, this would involve more effort on your part, to write the bio and e-mail it to me, and it would be no bio, no link. On the other hand, you would not be limited to one link. You could put all the links you want in the bio. Also, if you don't have an online presence, this would still allow you to "introduce" yourself. Here is the form I would offer to make the process easier: Bio Questions. How about a vote? Anybody who signs up by the end of January gets a say. Vote for either "one link" (no change) or "bio page" when you sign up. If a lot of members have an opinion, majority rules. If very few have an opinion, I'll decide by myself, seeing as how it is my site!

The number of books and/or pages you've read so far this year. (If you haven't been keeping count of pages but would like to, Barnes and Noble gives the number of pages in a book. I assume Amazon.com does as well.)
Note: If you are part way through a book when the year changes over, you can only count books in the year they are finished, but if you are keeping a page count, you can divide the pages and give me the page count for each year.

Change from 2004: Some members seem to feel like they've "failed" if they can't read 100 books. Something new that I think would make it more fun for those of us who can't hit the 100 books mark... (In case you haven't noticed, I didn't get an Official Bookwyrm award myself!) I would like you to set a reading goal (number of books and/or pages) for the year, and I will post it with your name, so you can have a realistic goal for you and your life. I will come up with a brag award similar to the "Official Bookwyrm" but along the lines of "I reached my reading goal for 2005!" There will still be one for reading 100 books/25,000 pages, of course. If your goal is higher than 100 books/25,000 pages and you reach it, you'll get both awards.
I only ask two things if you choose to do this:
1. You consider setting the goal higher than whatever you reached this year. (Even just one more book is fine! But if you honestly don't think you will be able to read as many books in 2005 as you did in 2004, I won't question any goal you feel is reasonable.)
2. You set a realistic goal (that is, realistic for you; don't set yourself up for failure!), but not a "cheat" goal that's too easy.
This is not a requirement!!! I still encourage you to set a reading goal, but you do not have to share it with us.

Then you contact me when you finish a book and have me update your count. (It helps if you include your username, especially if you don't update often.) Change from 2004: I will only accept updates sent to the above e-mail address! I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I've discovered that it's just too hard to keep track of stats coming in from several different sources, and I'd like to have them all in one place. Of course, if you're super-lazy, nothing will happen if you don't update your count. But what's the point of joining if you don't keep score? If you don't want to show off your count, there's nothing stopping you from coming back here to read other people's counts even if you don't join.

For the record, Talking Books or books on tape users are welcome! Whether you are reading or being read to, you are still consuming books.

I would prefer that you count only books you actually read cover to cover, not just skim for certain information, but I am not going to be the Book Police and question what you tell me you've read. (Remember, even if you don't read an entire book, you can count the pages you did read!)

Also for the record, I always enjoy hearing about what you're reading, but you aren't required to "prove" what you've read by listing the titles.
I will still accept either just your updated totals or the number of books/pages you want me to add to your recorded total. (I'm lazy--I prefer it if you just give me your updated totals, but some people enjoy letting me do the math and just seeing the new count appear by their name. That's fine, too.) 

Notice!

The 2004 list will remain up for a little while into the new year to give everybody a chance to get in their final counts and have them showing for awhile and to give me time to get the 2005 page set up. I figure the final numbers for 2004 are going to be more interesting to everybody than the beginning numbers for 2005 anyway. Right now it looks as though my work schedule is going to be insane for awhile, so I may not have time to deal with it for a couple weeks. Please go ahead and sign up anyway and start sending updates as soon as you want in 2005. They will still be recorded and when the page comes up, it will have your current numbers, and there will be a link to the 2004 page, which will be archived.

Also... I am not going to assume anybody wants to stay with this, so I'm asking the existing members to e-mail me and let me know if they want to continue. You can keep the same username (still first come, first served) or change it to something else, but if you want people to know how you did in 2004, you might want to consider either keeping it or changing your 2004 username before the end of the year, because I will not be making any username changes to the 2004 list after the end of the year (though I will remove links if requested). (As with 2004, I will make 2005 username and/or link changes upon request at any time during the year.)