Book Battle: Vote for our theme!

A few days ago I asked readers to submit their ideas for our theme for the 2012 Book Battle.  The ideas are in and now it's time for everyone to vote on their favorites.  Thank you to everyone who submitted ideas!

For those of you who are new to the battle, here's an introduction post I wrote in it's first year.  But basically, it's a bracket-style elmination competition for books.  I organize the event, but I don't have any hand in the judging or determining the winner.  Judges are selected from volunteer book bloggers, YA lit enthusiasts, and blog readers.  Each bracket is judged by a new set of volunteers, who choose which book will move on, and which book does not.  This is the 3rd battle at The Shady Glade, and each year has had a different theme. 

So, with that quick intro out of the way, it's time to detail out the options for this year's battle.  There's a form at the bottom of this post (or you can find it here).  Please fill it out to pick your favorite ideas.  It's really short, only takes a minute, and I count on as much participation as possible to do this!  Voting will remain open until Saturday, April 15th at midnight PDT (or earlier if particpation slacks off). 
The winning ideas determines how many volunteers we will need, and the other organizations I have to set up behind the scenes, so once we know our winner I will be sending out a call for volunteers. 

Here are descriptions of each option detailed in the poll.  You can pick no more than 2 favorites (since we have several new suggestions this year).  If you have any questions, please ask. 

Let the games begin!

Best Debut Author Title of 2011 - This would mark the return of 2010's theme for another year.  This battle features books by authors whose first book was published during 2011. 

Mythology retellings - With the surge of books that are based on fairy tales, legends, and various mythology, this battle will pit these types of books against each other to determine an ultimate winner.

Good books with horrible covers - You know how you always hear "don't judge a book by it's cover"?  This battle gives those books that you would never think to pick up off the shelf a chance.  What gems are hidden beneath the horrendous cover art?  And which book is best of them all?   

Book Academy Awards - This takes the idea of the Academy Awards to the YA book market.  Several categories including best male character, best female character, best supporting character will battle it out for a winner, similiar to our Readers' Choice Awards this past year.  This will feature several "mini brackets" with several winners, one for each category.


Best of the Genre - In this battle, books will be broken up by genre to battle for the best of their kind in 2011. What was the best fantasy published last year? Best historical? Best parnormal? This will feature several "mini brackets" with several winners, one for each category.

Best sequel - Know of a book in a series that was better than the first?  Which recently published book outshines it's predessessor.  This theme will require judges to read 4 books, the original and the sequel for both sides of the bracket. 

Read-alike Versus Battles - This idea will shake up the bracket system used in previous years. Instead, books will be nominated in read-alike pairs. Vampire Academy VS. House of Night, Hush Hush VS. Fallen, etc. You pick two very similar books to battle it out to see which is the best of the pair. One winner will be declared for each pair, so for this battle no ultimate winner will be chosen.

Best Standalone book - Are you sick of all the sequels and series coming out?  Why does it seem like every new book is part of a series?  This battle will choose only those books of 2011 that stand on their own, without any sequels or series. 

Best series - With the aforementioned increased in series books, which series is best overall?  So many have great introductory books and then seem to flatten out as the series drags on.  This battle will determine a winner where the book stay strong and finish strong.  This battle will have lots of reading for our judges, and so it will greatly increase the timeline for the battle, and the lag between bracket winner announcements. 


In addition to a battle theme, I am also opening up voting to determine the structure of the judging. Last year we had a two round judging process, and the year before was one round of judging.

One Round Bracket Judging (from 2010 battle) - All the books nominated are narrowed down to a set number of slots in a short list. This list is divided up into 5 rounds brackets and judges are paired up to determine the winner of each bracket. This style of judging takes less time, but means less volunteers can participate.

Two Round Judging/Elimination (from 2011 battle) - All books are checked for eligbility and added to a "long list". Round 1 Judges have approximately a month to read as many nominated books as they can. At the end of Round 1, each judge submits a list of the Top 10 books they think should move on to the next round. The books with the most votes are used to compile the short list that moves onto bracket judging in Round 2. This process takes a little longer, but allows more reader submitted nominations to be considered and more volunteers to participate in the judging process.

So there you have it, all the choices explained. Don't forget to choose your favorite by filling out the form below: