My 2017 Challenge Sign-Up Post!

I've been looking forward to this post, though this year I'm not going to join so many challenges. I like to use them as a guide to help me pick my reads, but I was beginning to feel like they were dictating it a little too much last year, so I've picked some of my favourites but I'm planning to be a lot more relaxed about them.

The first I've picked is the 2017 Key Word Challenge.

I adored this challenge last year and there are some interesting new picks this year round, so I look forward to being involved!

Next up, the 2017 Monthly Motif Challenge.

Another book challenge that I participated in and enjoyed last year, and just like the Key Word challenge, it's received a bit of a new look. These challenges really help me to narrow down the book pile when I choose each month, so I wanted to keep them around!

Thirdly, I chose a challenge that helped me out a lot last year by allowing me to keep up with some newer reads rather than just sticking to the old ones: the 2017 New Release Challenge.

I have really enjoyed this challenge during 2016, as during the first two years of my blog's existence I've mostly been catching up with my TBR pile from years before. I've still a long way to go, but it's nice to board the hype train and read what everyone else is reading now!

I am going to aim for the Newbie level (1-30 Books) because I'm trying not to pressurise myself too much.

My next chosen challenge is the Netgalley & Edelweiss Reading challenge.

Again, this challenge has been a big help in increasing my Netgalley ratio and I'd like to use it to do so even more. I'm currently on 45% so I still need a lot of work!

My aim is to reach Silver level (25 Books) because that will be a good half of the books I currently have lined up to read. Phew!

I'm trying hard to become a more diverse reader too, so I'm joining a couple of challenges that will help me do that. The first is the LGBTQIA Challenge which I saw but didn't sign up for last year.

This is a challenge that I want to take part in because this year, I'm interested in reading more fiction that is representative of minorities, including the LGBTQ+ community. The few titles I managed last year I really enjoyed, so I'm hoping for more like that this year.

I'm aiming for at least Orange (6 - 12 Books) so that a good fifth of my average yearly reads will involve LGBTQ+ characters!

I'm also joining the 2017 Diverse Reads Challenge for similar reasons!

This challenge is aimed at promoting all kinds of diversity: ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and both physical and mental health. Challenges like this is what is going to get books containing these things noticed and help them to become more frequent. I am very excited.

And that about wraps it up for year-long challenges I'll be joining. I'm also excited to announce that the Story Sprites Challenge is back, which involves a three-monthly board being released and I am most certainly joining in, so here is the board for January - March (Round Six)!

Gorgeous, right? This is going to be a really great board, I can tell! I can't wait to see how many I manage!