Announcing: The 2017 Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! #atozchallenge

From reading your blogs and what we've seen on Facebook and Twitter, people are really looking forward to the 2017 Blogging from A to Z April Challenge, and we're sure those of you who are veterans of the Challenge know that it's about this time that we make The List available for people to sign up so that everyone knows they plan on doing the challenge this year.
Those of us on the A to Z Team have been talking about preparations for this year's challenge, and one of the things we've discussed is The List. The truth is, The List is a lot of work, and we have fewer people to check the list and maintain it so that the only people who are on it are the ones actively participating. Our focus changes from the people who are actively participating to those who aren't, and that isn't fair.
We came up with a great solution to this:

• Each day of the Challenge, we'll add a post with the letter of the day to the A to Z Challenge blog. When you've posted your entry to your blog, post a comment to the Challenge blog with a link to that day's post on your blog.
• We'll also add a status update to our Facebook page each day with that day's letter. You may also post a link to your daily post as a comment to the latter post, either in addition to or instead of posting the link to the Challenge blog.
• And, we encourage you to post a tweet to Twitter with a link to your blog post. Be sure you add the hashtag #atozchallenge to your tweet, so we can find you.

The advantage to this, for us, is that we don't have The List to maintain. The advantage to you is that you'll only see the people who are actually participating in the Challenge that day, so you won't waste your time going to blogs that said they would participate when they signed up in February or March, but who have changed their minds by April first, or who have had to leave the Challenge because life got in the way.
"But wait," you say, "what about the theme reveal?"
The Theme Reveal will start on March 20. We'll add a post on that day to which you can comment with the link to your theme reveal post. Again, no sign-up list, just add your links to the blog, the FB page, and use the hashtag #AtoZReveal on Twitter to share.

Important Links

• Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/atozchallenge/
• Our Twitter handle: @AprilAtoZ
• Our Twitter hashtag: #atozchallenge
• A to Z Team Email: contactatozteam@gmail.com

Since this April has five Sundays, April 30 will be a posting day. The letter for each day is:

1 - A

3 - B
4 - C
5 - D
6 - E
7 - F
8 - G

10 - H
11 - I
12 - J
13 - K
14 - L
15 - M

17 - N
18 - O
19 - P
20 - Q
21 - R
22 - S

24 - T
25 - U
26 - V
27 - W
28 - X
29 - Y
30 - Z

The A to Z Challenge is a great opportunity for you to find new blogs and meet new bloggers, and we want to make commenting as simple as possible, so we'd like to make a couple of requests:

1. Please disable comment moderation for the duration of the Challenge, including the theme reveal. We understand it's a way to prevent spammers from posting comments, but a commenter might see the message that their comment will be visible after approval as a sign that you don't trust them.
2. Also, please disable word verification (CAPTCHA) for the duration of the Challenge. Some visitors might have trouble reading the characters and decide leaving a comment isn't worth the effort.

We're looking forward to this year's A to Z Challenge, and we're happy you're looking forward to it, too! We think the changes we've made will make it more fun and easier to participate in. If you have any questions or concerns, leave us a comment.