Clarifying things

Some of you might remember the old days. The days of when all of this *motions to blog* was on a Google Doc. And there were no hand-drawn stick figures, no spreadsheets (le gasp!) and most of the books were my own. They were also the days of fewer rules and regulations, cause, well, we didn't need them. ARCycling was black-and-white-TV simple.

It is less so now.
Now I get people asking me all of these complicated questions that I don't know and I look to the boss for answers... only to remember *I* am the boss. Oh dear.
So after some hashing out and getting opinions, here are the clarifications. They are not rule changes, exactly. Just clarifications.

1) The Two Week Time Out. This is important, guys. During an ARCycling session a blogger, teacher, librarian, etc. gets the option of getting TWO books. When you are confirmed for those two titles, you go into Time Out. Time Out means you are suspended for the next two rounds of ARCycling. This is to give other bloggers, teachers, librarians a chance at the goodies AND to make sure no one is just grabbing blindly and not reading what they get, because that entirely defeats the purpose of this program.

2) Two Session Time Out and the getting of one book.
After MUCH hashing out and mental debate, this is what I've come up with. If in one session, you only get one book, you are available to get a book the following session. If you don't find anything you want in the second session, then you automatically get put on Two Session Time Out, after which, you are free and clear to get 2 more.
Basically, we need to have some kind of expiration date here. Cause this whole "I got a book three weeks ago, does that mean I can get one or two now?" question was baffling my brain. And it's one tired brain that not even multiple spreadsheets can sometimes advise.

Half-Requesters from the August 12th session still have the next session to get one more.
HOWEVER, since it's my bad I didn't figure this out sooner, there are 4 people from the August 5th session that this will not apply retroactively for. You will get the August 19th session as your last chance and then you will go on the Two Week Time Out. If you think you are one of those four but unsure, PLEASE email me or tweet me!!
Those of you from July 29th are in the clear anyway.

I know, this is all so confusing, but it has to be done. If you read through this and actually understood it, go get yourself a cookie or something!

3) #3 is not a "rule", so it is a general note.
And it lightly alludes to the no "blindly grabbing" mentioned in #1. But the whole purpose of this blog is to continue promotion of a book. And if no reviews are produced from this effort, then I'm wasting my time and money. So while I can't really require everyone to review the book they get, I'm sure happy when you do. It'll automatically get you listed on the front page of this blog FOREVER (no, really) AND I will tweet it a lot. However, if I happen to notice you are a faithful ARC Requester and receiver, but have never reviewed anything, that will make me very not happy. I can't quite say what will happen when I become not happy over this because so far no one is in danger of it (and we've only done three sessions on the blog!), but I feel like I should go ahead and mention it while I'm talking rules and clarifications and such.

4) Actually, #4 is a note/update and not a rule either.
Package deals! What are they? They are two books that cannot be requested separately and they count as your two books for the session.
This and more questions are answered in the newly acquired FAQ section that you can find at the bottom of the page here.
There's also a super small FAQ for Donators at the bottom of the page here.

Okay. That's all I got for now. If you have ANY questions, which OMG, you really shouldn't, but if you should see through my woven logic and find THE ONE THING I didn't answer, please comment on this post and after I get done smacking my head, I will answer it.