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Welcome to Reading Under the Covers, a romance novel podcast
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where we chat, fangirl, and maybe
even swoon over our latest reads.
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I'm Francesca from Under the Covers
Book Blog and today I am so excited
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to finally announce our 2025
Romanceopoly yearly reading challenge.
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I've been hinting at some changes that
we've been planning for Romanceopoly for
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2025 and whether this is your first time
hearing about this challenge or if you've
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been with us from the very beginning, this
is going to feel like a brand new reading
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adventure for 2025 and I hope that you
join us for it and you have a ton of fun.
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So what is the Romanceopoly
Reading Challenge?
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Over the years, our challenge has
basically been structured as a monopoly
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board, hence the name Romanceopoly,
but it was also always themed around
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places that you can find in a town,
and we used to call this Romanceopolis.
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So for 2025, we decided to really
play on the fact that you are going
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to be traveling through a town
and you will actually have a map
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instead of a monopoly board as your
reading challenge board for:
2025
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I'm going to give you a quick peek at
what that board looks like right here.
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And I am so excited.
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Again, if you've been with us for a few
years, you may recognize the same girl as
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we've been using for the past few years.
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And you guys will be able to download this
board to either print or use digitally.
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And we also have many different skin
tones and hair colors so that you can
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pick the one that fits best for you.
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But before we talk about all of the
printables or any of the resources
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that we have available for you to use,
let's talk about the challenge itself.
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So in 2025, the Romanceopoly board
will have you traveling through four
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quadrants that are basically designed
prompt wise in a seasonal way.
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Each one of those seasonal
quadrants has a town's name.
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So for winter, we have Frostwood Village.
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For spring, we have Blossom Falls.
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For summer, we have Sunset Bay.
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And for fall, we have Amber Heights.
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We've also designed those towns so that
they have their own unique feel and vibe.
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Frostwood Village is a mountain town,
Blossom Falls is a small rural town,
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sunset Bay is a quaint seaside town, and
Amber Heights is a big bustling city.
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Each one of those towns has five
reading prompts and those are
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basically landmarks in the town.
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That will give you 20 prompts
that are part of this reading
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challenge for the year.
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So in order to complete this challenge
throughout the whole year of:
2025
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would have to read a minimum of 20 books.
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And I say minimum because there are
different components to Romanceopoly
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in 2025, which are optional.
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So if you choose to participate or
just participate a little extra than
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those 20, it's entirely up to you.
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So those are your core base prompts and
landmarks that you're going to be moving
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through in terms of the board in 2025.
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And we will get to those
optional challenges in a second.
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But the first thing I wanted to address
is how do you move across the board?
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So in the years past, we've given you
guys the option to either go in order
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or roll the dice and see where you
land and that is still the case even
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though the prompts are a little bit
seasonally themed if you wanted to you
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can still roll the dice and see what
prompt you land on so that is entirely
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up to you if you choose to do these by
the season or if you choose to roll the
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dice and just see where that lands you.
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Now, I've also been giving you guys some
sneak peeks of this challenge inside of
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our Substack community and I've had the
question of if you live, for example, in
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Australia and the seasons are completely
reversed, would you still be able to
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do the prompts that actually match
your season, even though those are not
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necessarily the dates and that is correct.
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You can do exactly as.
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You want so that it fits your season?
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It doesn't make sense for you guys to
be reading a snowbound book if you're
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in the middle of summer there's a lot
of room to play with in terms of when
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you're going to be reading the book.
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So again, make that entirely work for you.
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There are no set rules as far as us.
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There's only one thing that is
specifically dated, and those are
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going to be optional seasonal events.
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Those will work a little bit more like
a readathon or something like that,
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and we will get to those in a second.
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But now that we've talked about the 20
prompts or the 20 challenges that are
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part of the main Romanceopoly board,
and how you move across the board.
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Let's talk about the optionals of
how you can expand on the challenge.
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So the first thing are the holidates.
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Every season has four holidates that
are completely optional, so those
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are four prompts that you can read.
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Those are not on the board.
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Again, those are optional.
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There's four per quadrant or per season.
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So that will add another 16 books
if you choose to do all of them.
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You may actually decide that you're
just going to read a couple of the
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holidates here and there as it fits
your mood or maybe you do them for
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one season and not for another one.
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So those again, completely
optional how you want to do it.
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And they don't have any weight on whether
you complete the challenge or not.
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And we call them holidates because
those are basically themed around.
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Celebrations for each of those seasons.
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And then the other optional thing that
you have for:
2025
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So what those are, are a week
long, basically a readathon, we're
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going to give you six prompts
for reading during that week.
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Now you don't have to read six books.
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This is the only part of the Romanceopoly
challenge where you can double or
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triple up the prompts, meaning that
you can read one book that fits
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maybe three prompts during that week.
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And it will qualify for completing
those challenges we do have set
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dates for those week long challenges
and we have all of the information
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if you head to romanceopoly.
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com or to the links that i'm going to
leave in the description down below.
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I will be making another announcement
video a little bit closer to the
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start of that event and give you
guys all of the printables and
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downloadables and what the prompts are.
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So you're going to have to stay
tuned for that so that you can see
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what's coming up for the first one.
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But I will tell you what those events
actually are called because you're going
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to see those on your romanceopoly board.
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Now, when you see those on the
Romanceopoly Board, those are
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not prompts that you have to
land on and read something for.
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Those are just the events.
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And if you notice on the board,
there is no road that leads up to
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those particular spots on the map.
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They're just there as a reminder
of the event that's coming up.
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So, that's going to be for
the Winter Market Square.
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The spring renaissance fair, camp
firefly, and urban legends nights.
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So those four spots that you're going to
see on the board, remember those are not
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for you to land on or read anything for.
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Those are special one week events
that we're going to be announcing
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as the dates get closer and you can
mark those dates on your calendar.
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We have all of that information on the
website so you can check all of that out.
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And during the week of the event,
we're going to be hosting some live
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reading sprints and we're also going
to have a live recap event on the
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Saturday at the end of that week.
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Now in terms of how many books you're
going to end up reading for those seasonal
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events, that is entirely up to you because
you can double and triple up the books
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for those, so there is no set amount.
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But if you are reading the 20
core challenge books in all of the
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holidays, you're already at 36.
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And then however many more you
decide to add on by reading during
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the events, and you don't have to
participate in all the events either.
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Again, like I mentioned before, the events
are entirely optional, so you don't have
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to participate in any of those events.
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And also if you want to participate in
those events but you don't want to do
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the whole Romanceopoly challenge that
is also something that you can do.
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So lots of room for you to
participate in Romanceopoly
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however you feel that fits for you.
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Now comes the fun part which is all
the goodies and resources that we have
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put together for you guys to be able
to track the Romanceopoly challenge.
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If you head to the website, which
I'm going to leave everything
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linked down below, you'll be able
to download all of the boards.
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Again, I mentioned that we have
them available with different skin
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tones and different hair colors.
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So download the one
that works best for you.
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We have two options available.
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You can download the graphic image
alone, so you can print that however
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you want, or you can add that on
anything digitally that you would like.
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Or you can also download a PDF
that's basically printer ready for
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a letter sized document, which I
think will also be okay if you want
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to print it on an A4 piece of paper.
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We also have available a printer
friendly version of all of the prompts.
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And everything that you're going to be
able to download right now is just going
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to be for the main core challenge and
the holidates we're going to be releasing
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all the information for the first
seasonal event which is winter market
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square closer to the date of that event
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now because we've always had the tradition
of giving you guys cards for you to
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print out we also have included that
this year as well you can download either
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the images alone or you can download
a printer ready file with the cards,
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so you can get those printed out and
write all of your ideas on the back.
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My suggestion is you try to find a little
bit thicker cardstock to print these
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in, so that they don't get damaged right
away but if you download the card image
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alone, that in your digital journals.
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or on any blog post or social media
images that you want to create.
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And speaking of social media, don't
forget to engage with the community
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by tagging your post with the hashtag
#romanceopoly, so that we can all
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communicate and chat with each other
and see what we're all reading.
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The next thing that we have available
is our guidebook, Which is basically a
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PDF kind of booklet that has all of the
information that I just talked about, plus
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all the rules, and also tons of little
details and information about each of the
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towns and each of the prompts as well.
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To give you a little bit more
of a backstory about what each
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town is all about, and what each
of the prompts actually is doing
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in relation to the town itself.
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Plus, you can also use this guidebook
as a digital planner as well.
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You can import that PDF into
any note taking app on a tablet.
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And there is space on there for you
to write down your ideas that you
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may have for every single prompt,
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as well as tracking which
ones you've completed.
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So now for the tracking, there are a few
ways that you can track the Romanceopoly
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challenge this year that we are providing,
a little bit less than we usually do.
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So we're keeping it simple.
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With the guidebook, you can
track right in the section where
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you can write down your ideas.
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There is a checkbox for you to
mark each one of those complete
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Or you can choose to track using
the prompts page and color in the
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squares for each of those prompts.
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But you can also just
simply use the map itself.
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The name of each prompt in the map itself
has a little bit of a white background
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so you can use that area to color that
in when you've completed the prompt.
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And that will work for both
digital tracking or printing.
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in terms of the PDFs and the
downloadables that we provide for you.
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However, there are two other ways that
we're going to give you for you to be able
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to track your progress with the challenge.
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One is StoryGraph.
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So we have created the Romanceopoly
:
2025
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So you can simply join there
and track your progress.
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It has the core 20 challenges
plus the 16 holidates as well.
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The holidates are on there as bonus
or optional so if you don't complete
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any of them it will still mark that
you've completed the challenge.
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Each of the seasonal events will be
released as a separate StoryGraph
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challenge so we will give you links
to those when we give you all of the
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details for each of the seasonal events.
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And then the last way that we're giving
you to track the challenge is right on
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our website under the covers book blog.
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com.
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I will leave a link down below
where you can join the tracker on
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our website and you can keep some
notes of what you want to read.
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You can track the ones that
you've completed and it will
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automatically give you achievements
when you complete sections.
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And here's the last important
component of Romanceopoly:
2025
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that you can actually win prizes
as you read and complete sections.
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When you head to the website where you
can see more information, you can see
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all the details on this, but basically
as you complete either each of the
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towns or the towns and the holidates,
or you complete one of the seasonal
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events, or even when you complete the
whole board, you'll be able to claim
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prizes along the way you will win
access to our Substack paid community
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as you complete each of these sections.
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So there's a whole schedule where you
can see what you need to complete in
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order to win one month, three months,
six months, and one year access.
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There's a form that you'll have to fill
out when you complete those requirements.
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Send that in.
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You don't have to wait until you've
completed the whole board to send it in.
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The only thing that you have to
do is you have to be tracking your
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progress either on StoryGraph or on
our website so that we can confirm
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that you have in fact finish the
requirements for that particular prize.
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And lastly, we do want to invite you to
come and join our Substack community.
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You don't have to be a paid member,
but we're going to be making that
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kind of our Romanceopoly hub for 2025.
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Every single month, I'm going to
be sending out a free newsletter
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that has all of the information
for Romanceopoly for the month.
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I'm going to give you some ideas for books
that you can read for some of the prompts
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on Kindle Unlimited with also new releases
that fit some of the prompts as well.
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And I'm going to be bringing on guests
and other kind of fun activities
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throughout the year with even more and
more recommendations that will help you
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complete the Romanceopoly Challenge if
you are a paid member of our Substack
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community, you'll also be able to join
in on the Substack chat so you can ask
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for recommendations and we can kind
of all cheer each other on to complete
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the challenge and read all the books.
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If you do want to join our Substack
community and be a paid member,
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we are still running a promotion
between now and the end of the year.
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December 31st will be the last day.
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We are running a 20 percent
off an annual membership.
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And if you sign up now with that discount,
that will be your price as long as
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you stay subscribed to our community.
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know that I've thrown a lot of stuff
out at you, and I really hope that you
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guys come and check out the challenge.
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details that you need to know about it
are on the website, so be sure to check
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the links down in the description box.
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If you're going to be joining
the challenge, I would love for
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you guys to post on social media.
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Tell us what you love about it.
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Show us what are your plans and don't
forget to tag us and use the hashtag
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#romanceopoly to join in the fun.
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I hope that you guys love the prompts
and love the challenge and all the
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changes that we've made this year and
if this is your first time joining us
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I hope that you have a ton of fun, you
get to discover maybe some new subgenres
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that you might have not tried before
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And hopefully you'll find some
new authors that you'll love
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and some favorite books as well.
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Again, for all the details,
you can head to romanceopoly..
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com and you can always go to the
blog at underthecoversbookblog.
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com.
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All the information is
always handy for you there.
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And always reach out to us
if you have any questions.
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It's at UTC Book Blog on Instagram,
TikTok, Pinterest, Twitter,
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or X, threads and Blue Sky.
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And on Facebook you can find us at under
the covers book blog as well as YouTube.
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So I think that about covers all of the
changes and all of the information that
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you need to know for Romanceopoly 2025.
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I hope you join us and
I'll see you next year.