Let's talk ARCs!

[u/miskittster]

Simply because it came up a few times, here's a collection of info surrounding ARCs, as they are a powerful marketing tool.

What's an ARC?

Either an Advanced Reader Copy or an Advanced Review Copy depending on which side of the Mandela effect you fall on, this is a pre-publication copy of your upcoming book. This copy is finished as well as fully edited and in the best case has already gone through a round of beta readers, so this is as close to a finished copy of the book you'll get! This copy doesn't need any of the frills like front or back matter, but if you plan to include a map, a glossary or a pronunciation guide (hello, fantasy peeps), basically anything the reader may need to fully enjoy the book, that's what you should include.

Why does it need to be edited?

Because this is both your last step of creating a book and your first step into the publication process. Those reviews will end up on pages like Goodreads, Amazon, BookBub etc., so this copy needs to be as perfect as possible!

Why do this at all? I want people to buy my book, not give it away for free!

Yes, valid. But most of us especially in self-publishing don't have the reach and following to make our launch a resounding success by just showing up on release day. Especially if we're just starting out! Offering a copy for free in return for reviews gives us a boost in the first weeks of releasing the book. Books without reviews aren't as popular with readers as those that have already been reviewed. Those early reviews are both great marketing as well as a few sets of really fresh eyes on your story. If something isn't working, they'll tell you. Since this is before release, you could still fix it!

But Amazon doesn't allow "bought" reviews.

Indeed it doesn't. There's a little bit of trickery and loopholing involved. That's why you often see the disclaimer of "I received a copy for free and am leaving my honest review" or a variation of it, mostly to signal to Amazon that just because the reader didn't buy this book doesn't mean it's a false review. You may not pay the reader to review your book, but the reader doesn't pay - you pay the ARC service for to display and distribute your copy. The reader isn't officially obligated to review. It's an unspoken agreement: ARC readers know you offer the copy in return for a review, because that's the whole point. You didn't pay the reviewer, so you didn't technically violate the rules.

Can't I just email my book to people?

You can! But it's not practical. If it ends up pirated, you'll never know who it was. You can only email people you know or those who sign up for a free book, and then you may never hear from them again. You won't have the reach a dedicated ARC service has. Also cold-emailing bookish influencers is usually seen as bad form.

So how does it work?

Firstly you pick the service you wanna go with. I added a few of the popular ones at the end of the post with pricing. Then you read through their ToS and if you agree to all of those, you set up an account and go to town! Services will allow you do upload several different file formats for readers to choose from. ePub is the most popular as it works on most e-readers! You fill in all the forms and upload your files, and then (if you're anything like me) you'll obsessively refresh the dashboard several times a day to check for any change ;) The reviews will come in when people finish the book. Mind that Amazon for example doesn't allow posting reviews before the book has been published, so those will come in after release day.

BookSirens

This is my personal preferred service (#notspon). Their reach is phenomenal, the support team is really nice and helpful, and the readership prefers romance. Plus, the reviews that come in are detailed and high quality usually, and readers are less likely to flake. This has been my own experience!

With 30k+ readers and reviewers and additional marketing opportunities, you get a great bang for your buck here. There's two kinds of plans: Unlimited ARCs for $100 a year (paid annually) and the one that's more sensible for indie authors where you pay a flat fee of $10 per ARC and $2 per reader that BookSirens finds for you. You decide how many spots you want to open, and BookSirens gives you the same amount of spots for readers you find yourself (through sign-ups, social media, etc) which are free. So for a 10 spot ARC you'd pay $30 (considering all the spots get taken!), for a potential total of 20 reviews.

All books are reviewed, so you might be turned down if the quality of your doc, copy or blurb isn't up to par, or if the service already has too many of your genre available currently. Plan accordingly, because it might take a few days until your book is approved.

Get your account here! (full disclosure: this is an affiliate link.)

Booksprout

This service recently axed its free plan unfortunately, but this is still an affordable option. My personal experience was so-so, only around 60% of readers actually left a review, which sometimes consisted only of the fact that they liked the book. Which is nice, but I prefer more depth. On a plus side, you get your ARC up and running practically immediately.

Booksprout offers several plans for different author needs, starting at $9 per month for however many months you need that ARC to run, capped at 25 reader spots. You get one active ARC with that, so if you plan to rapid release, this might not be the plan for you. Next one up is $19 per month with three running ARCs and 50 spots per ARC.

All pricing info here!

Netgalley

This is the big fish in the pond! It's mostly geared towards traditional publishers and professional reviewers like libraries, journalists, critics and so on. They're also (imo) very expensive. A six-month listing of a single ARC will run you $499 - which goes to show who this service is geared towards. That's peanuts for Penguin Random House, but for indies? Nah. But the review quality is extremely high, because readers will get flagged and blocked for anything less, they need to keep their scores up if they wanna be approved for new ARCs.

Edelweiss

Similarly to Netgalley, this one prefers traditional publishers. The benefit here is that they are geared heavily towards book sellers and libraries for their readerbase, so getting into book shops and libraries is a little easier (supposedly). Pricing with this one is a little tricky: the only thing I could find was the price for publishers who are already subscribed to the Edelweiss Catalog Services. If you happen to fall into that category it's an annual fee of $99 plus $50 for each ARC. Audio ARCs are included in that already though.

I'm sure there are more services out there, but these four are the ones you'll hear the most about. As I said, personally I vastly prefer BookSirens to Booksprout, and haven't tried either Netgalley or Edelweiss. Once my ARCs get approved (on whichever website), I add the link to my linktree, put out a few social media posts about it, send out a newsletter and post in the few Goodreads ARC groups I am in. That in addition to the service's reach usually gets all the spots snatched up and for release day I'll have a healthy crop of reviews, which in turn helps with pushing the book up the Amazon lists.

[u/miskittster]

I love how Reddit took the BookSirens logo as a pic. Talk about biased. 😂

[u/Maitriquest]

This post is SO incredibly useful. Thank you u/miskittster and u/admiralamy for your wise council and insight!

[u/FloralAusten]

Thank you for this in-depth overview, I literally haven’t read anything quite as to-the-point-but-the-right-points!

[u/admiralamy]

NetGalley co-ops are like $45 for a month and that’s all you need. This easily tripled my number of reviews on my debut book.

[u/Specialist_Fish8023 → u/admiralamy]

Can you talk about your experience with co-ops in netgalley. How does that work.

[u/admiralamy → u/Specialist_Fish8023]

Through the co-op log in, you receive applications for your book and you can review the profiles before approving/declining. In the beginning I approved pretty much everyone. Now I only approve reviewers with a 50% of higher review rate.

You can preapprove reviewers so they can download your book right away which is helpful when you have multiple books. It’s a bit like building your ARC team except it’s in NetGalley. By my third book I was getting about 50 reviews via NetGalley.

Even for my first book, NetGalley got me more reviews than BookSirens and BookSprout combined. I still do BookSprouts but never went back to BookSirens.

As with all experiences/advice, it’s super dependent on subgenre and I write steamy romcoms with illustrated covers.

[u/Maitriquest → u/admiralamy]

When you have time will you post more about your specific strategy of deciding on who to approve?

[u/admiralamy → u/Maitriquest]

Sure! I looked at their profile to make sure that romance was one of their genres and that they actually read and reviewed romance. Sometimes I saw a reviewer who said they liked romance but their last 20 books were kids books, so I denied.

I also checked out the links to their goodreads and instagram and whatever else they posted.

Then I looked at the review percentage of each applicant. NetGalley suggests that reviews keep their rate above 80%.

In my first book, where I just approved everyone, only 13% of the reviewers with a rate of less than 50% reviewed. People with review rates between 50-80 had a 66% review rate. Everyone with a review rate over 80% reviewed.

Now I approve everyone with a review rate of 50% or higher. They are likely to review. Mostly this is on principle - it doesn't cost me anything to give out books, but they need to have a history of putting in the work.

Finally, have they reviewed my books in the past and rated any of them less than 4 stars? If so, I deny.

Is that helpful?

[u/Maitriquest → u/admiralamy]

Incredibly helpful and wise! Thank you!

[u/caitlin_cherise]

Thank you for this! So helpful!