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Romanceopoly 2025 Reading Challenge Announcement

Episode 159 • 7th December 2024 • Reading Under the Covers: A Romance Novel Podcast • Under the Covers Book Blog

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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.

More Episodes

159. Romanceopoly 2025 Reading Challenge Announcement