Thank you to everyone that voted in the 2020 YA Debut Madness Bracket! We hope you all had fun! We will be returning in 2021 for the next debut madness bracket!

Welcome, welcome, to our second YA Debut Madness Bracket! We are proud to present to you…

We are SO excited to bring all you lovely bookworms this fun mini-game! This event will be filled with so many Young Adult 2021 debuts, giveaways, fun, and more! We hope you all like this event and participate! And thank you to everyone that participated in our first annual YA Debut Madness – we hope you enjoy this one just as much!

What is the YA Bookish Bracket?

Have you heard of NCAA? It stands for National Collegiate Athletic Association and it’s also a basketball tournament that takes place in March over a few weeks, known as March Madness. NCAA hosts a bracket each year for people to predict which basketball team will come out on top; many people bet money and many do this just for fun. Each week is a new round with the basketball teams that move on.

But, here’s the twist! Instead of a basketball bracket, this is a YA Bookish bracket! So, we’re here to celebrate books while having fun and entering giveaways hosted by us! Some of you may know that we did something like this last year, but didn’t really do anything but host Twitter polls. This year, we wanted to revamp this event and make it more fun for everyone! And the theme for this year is 2020 YA Debuts! One debut will come out on top this year, and it’s all based on your votes! Which debut will be the most anticipated YA debut of 2020?

What books qualify for this competition?

• A new author that is joining the bookish world with their first ever book, and it happens to be YA 😀
• A published author that dabbled in adult or children’s, but is now publishing their first YA book, which qualifies as a YA debut. How does this qualify? These authors may already be published authors, but brand new to the YA world, which means they’re new to the YA age group and reaching a whole new audience.

But there’s so many 2021 YA debuts this year!

We know, and that’s absolutely amazing! We’ve counted over 140 books coming out this year from new authors and authors new to YA. So, to make it fair (because, let’s be honest, we all have some debuts we’re excited for but also some we’ve never heard of before), all debuts will participate in the bracket this year! Last year, it was 64 randomly drawn debuts, but this year we’re going to feature all the debuts! Nikole will be randomly drawing book titles from a jar and posting the competitors picked on social media this weekend. This drawing is to determine which YA books will face off in the YA Debut Madness bracket. We want to make this fun for us and for our voters and also provide some awesome coverage for this year’s debuts.

Will you have a list of all the 2021 YA debuts?

Definitely! You can find that page here. And if you see any missing, please reach out to Nikole (acourtofcoffeeandbooksblog@gmail.com; or on Twitter at @BiblioStacks), so she can add them to the Goodreads list and the drawing (to qualify for the drawing, please reach out before Sunday, March 6, 8:30 p.m. CST). We will also create a page that alphabetically lists out the debuts and their release dates (this will come out closer to the start of the event).

When is YA Debut Madness taking place?

March 8 – April 3, 2020; there will  be 64 YA debut books in the running.

How many rounds are there?

There will be 5 rounds. Each round will last 4 days and will close at 11:59 p.m. CDT on the 4th day; the breakdown for the rounds are:

• Round 1: March 9 – 12
• Round 2: March 14 – 17
• Round 3: March 19 – 22
• Round 4: March 24 – 27
• Round 5: March 29 – April 1
• Round 6 (final round): April 2 – April 5
• Winner will be announced April 6

You mentioned giveaways above!

We did, and we’re so glad you caught that! As our way of saying thank you for participating in our event, we’re hosting a giveaway for each round. That’s correct, there will be 6 giveaways! We will be giving away ARCs and preorders of 2021 YA debut books! See below for the breakdown of each giveaway for each round. But please note: ARCs will not be announced until this Sunday, so keep a watch on Nikole’s Twitter account (@BiblioStacks) to see which ARCs will be up for grabs!

Each round will also have a giveaway! 

• Round 1: ARC of Hunted by the Sky by Tanaz Bhathena (US Only) or debut Preorder of your choice ($16 USD limit, open international)
• Round 2: ARC of Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles (US Only) or debut Preorder of your choice ($16 USD limit, open international)
• Round 3: Preorder of two YA debuts you’re super excited for! ($30 USD limit; open international)
• Round 4: ARC of The Kinder Poison (US Only) or debut Preorder of your choice ($16 USD limit, open international)
• Round 5: A preorder of a YA debut you’re excited for ($16 USD limit, open international)
• Round 6: $25 gift card to an Indie Bookstore of your choice (Indie Bookstore is US only, if International winner, it will be Amazon or Book Depository)
• Bonus Round: For anyone that correctly guessed the 2021 Most Anticipated YA Debut, you will be entered into another drawing! Prize: ARC of A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow (US Only) or debut Preorder of your choice ($16 USD limit, open international)

Are the giveaways open internationally?

Yes and no. The ARC giveaways are US only. We’re so sorry! International shipping rates went up and we, unfortunately, can’t afford to cover the costs. To (hopefully) make up for that, if someone international wins one of the rounds where an ARC is being given away, then they will win a preorder of a debut of their choice (up to $16 USD value and through Book Depository). We are so sorry about this, international friends! But we still wanted to offer an incentive for participating, and we think a preorder of a debut book is a great idea!

And if an international person does win, the ARC will be raffled off again until a US winner is picked.

Please note: all winners will have 24 hours to respond to @Bibliostacks or else they forfeit their winnings.

When will the giveaways be mailed/purchased?

Preorders will be placed right away, after the winner responds back. A photo of the confirmation receipt will be sent to the winner. All ARCs will be sent in 2-3 business days from the day the winner responds.

Now, onto the fun part! The rules! We know, not always exciting.

What are the rules?

• For each round, you can only vote once. Voting more than once does not get you another entry into the drawings.
• We ask that you please be 14 years of age or older to enter, unless granted permission by a parent/guardian.
• This competition and giveaway is not affiliated with Twitter, Typeform, Instagram, WordPress, and any publishing houses.
• HAVE FUN!

How will the voting work?

The voting will be done through Typeform, this way we can capture all the votes anonymously and get your information (i.e. name and Twitter/Instagram handle, so we have a way to reach you if you win). I know a Twitter poll would be easier but we wouldn’t be able to see who voted and we want to make sure everyone who votes is entered into the giveaway. Please note that your information will not be shared with anyone. Your information will not be publicized or used for distribution. The results will be used as aggregated data to determine which YA debuts will move onto the next round.

Whew! That’s a lot of information and thank you to everyone that read it all and that will participate! We are so excited to host this event and we hope you all decide to participate. Keep watch on our Twitter and Instagram pages for any YA Debut Madness announcements!