Note: This post has been cross-posted from the AWW Blogger site.

For some time, it has been obvious that the AWW challenge has been a victim of its own success. Signing up and adding reviews has become so impractical that some challenge participants have stopped adding their reviews. Even so, the challenge has generated nearly 1100 reviews.

In anticipation of continuing the AWW challenge into 2013, a group of book bloggers has been discussing how to create a better system. As a result of these discussions, the AWW challenge will shift to WordPress for 2013. A better way of signing up, linking to reviews, and indicating completion of the challenge will be implemented: instead of the awkward Mr Linky, Google forms will be adopted.

Apart from making it much easier to find and upload reviews, the new forms will automatically enter relevant data on spreadsheets on the new AWW site.

The team of bookbloggers who have agreed to help with next year’s challenge will be able to sort the reviews into genres and special interest areas, and post monthly “round-ups” of reviews. Subscribers will be able to subscribe to the new blog, if they wish, via specific categories, such as “literary”, “crime”, “YA” etc. (If you like, you can start subscribing to the new site straightaway, as all posts here will be cross-posted there. You might just need to be patient while we bring the different components of the site together. The subscription via category will be available once the domain name is sorted.)

In 2013, the challenge will have all the features of this year’s challenge, and it will also include a “read only” component. This will enable people who don’t have blogs or GoodReads pages to join in the conversation. It will also encourage book groups to sign up to the challenge – pledging to have at least a few books by Australian women on their 2013 reading lists. (If you have an existing book group you want to promote, or would like to join a book group, see here.)

With the new improved site, we hope to continue with the mission to “support and promote” books by Australian women, and to contribute to the excitement surrounding writing by Australian women in the lead up to next year’s inaugural Stella Prize.

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If you’re a regular AWW challenge participant still uploading reviews, you’ll notice that the AWW Blogger Challenge page now incorporates a Google form for linking your reviews. If you’re happy to start using this form straightaway to upload your review, please go ahead. It will mean one less data entry for the archive.

If you strike any problems with the new system, please let me know. Comments on the challenge page have been reopened for that purpose.