Arcs
Something every book blogger loves to get. New bloggers wonder how to get them, intermediate bloggers work on balancing them and experienced bloggers seem to take them in stride and are the envy of other bloggers when they get a books others wish they received.
This seems to be how it goes. If different for you let me know.
So lets go over the levels more:
New bloggers: I know when I started blogging I'd see all these people with arc copies of the book weeks-months before the release and I remember wishing I could be like that one day. So I started off with Netgalley. Then after a few months, I learned of Edelweiss. These two sites are great to start up a collection if eArcs.
After awhile I started wishing I could get some print books. Sometimes I get offers from Independent authors but otherwise print arcs were a mystery. Although I had heard a bit about contacting publishers and just asking about them. I must be honest here, I still am not sure how to go about this. I feel selfish and greedy asking for a book as is and then when I get up the nerve to reach out, I don't know who to contact at the publishing company. Any tips there?
So now I am more an intermediate level, I get offers once in a while and have requested and occassionally recieved a few print books and I have a nearly limitless outlet for ebooks. In fact I got in a bit over my head with the ebooks. Now I am at the point of attempting to balance review books versus older books (or even newly purchased) that I am reading primarily for pleasure.
For those of you who to a lot of review offers/requests, how do you handle them? Do you have a limit? How many books is too many. What is your balance?
Then I get requests for things I don't want (or sometimes the book just shows up with a letter from the author expecting a review by a certain date) Well what if I don't want to read the book or what if I have too much on my plate to meet the deadline? What then?
Then there are those bloggers who seem to take it all in stride, the ones with the hot release titles from the top publishers and authors. And they get extra copies and/or swag sometimes too! And I can't help but wonder how to get to the expert level as a review blogger. Please do not misunderstand this as being the most important part of a reviewer or blogger. It it's but it is like a fancy trophy. You still want it. Even if I never got a single review book I would still review and have this blog. In fact, when I started blogging, I was oblivious to arcs/galleys for the most part. But my 'competative' side wants that near sacred recognition.
So to those who have obtained it, what are your secrets that you are willing to share?
Or in general, how many review books do you read (monthly, yearly or whatever)?
Do you know of other sites besides the ones I mentioned? Are you a new blogger with questions? If so, feel free to ask? This is just an open platform to share questions, tips, ideas, experience, etc.
This is the best discussion post ever! I've been wondering about a lot of these as well. NG and EW seem to both hate me so I rarely get accepted to review any books. I've had a little bit of luck with sending requests to publishers for physical ARCs. I got my fist two last week :D Generally though most of them tell me they don't have any ARCs of the books I'm looking for but they'll keep me in mind for future ones. I guess I'm still too new?
ReplyDeleteI think you have all thoughts... and I mean every single one..... about arcs combined into one fancy little post! This is amazing! I don't get many print arcs and just started asking publishers for print arcs, which I do feel is a bit annoying, but sometimes I feel like there are so many bloggers out there fighting for books! It really doesn't matter if ur a professional or not, it really depends on how many views you have got! Love the post and keep bringing some. These are awesome :D
ReplyDeleteAlex @ The Book's Buzz
About getting ARC copies from authors with a date that they want a review published, if you didn't ask for the copy and they didn't get in contact with you first its called an unsolicited review copy, and from what I'm aware you're generally not on the spot to have to review it at all! You didn't ask for it or agree to review it by that date, it just showed up.
ReplyDeleteIf you get request for books that you don't want you're allowed to turn them down, it doesn't reflect badly on you! It's just not your cup of tea, and you're under no obligation to accept it when you know you're more than likely not going to even like it.
But if you have too much on your plate, I think it would be best for you to post the review as soon as you can. Unless it's unsolicited, because then you are under no real obligation to review it.
I hope that answers your questions! <3
I am not a blogger but I have gotten and continue to get ARC's. Some I actually enter for on sites like Goodreads and LibraryThing while others are just random.
ReplyDeleteSome sites I regularly request ARC's and/or enter giveaways :
. The Books Machine(eARC's)
. Shelf Awareness(print)
. Bookreporter(print)
. BookTrib(print)
. First-to-Read
I am more picky now than I used to be but I still can't resist the allure of a shiny new book, especially one that is yet to published. Although I prefer print, I am no longer as averse to ebooks as I used to be. I understand the advantages of ebooks, economical and otherwise.
First-to-Read is for ebooks -- forgot to mention in previous comment.
ReplyDeleteI have maybe 5 ARCs total, and I feel totally overwhelmed! They're all for books I really wanted, which is nice, but I feel like there's all of a sudden a lot of pressure to read them. I don't like the feeling of something hanging over my head, especially since I tend to be a bit of a mood reader.
ReplyDeleteAs a semi-new blogger, this is something that I absolutely relate with. I love to blog, and talk about books, and that is and always will be my main reason for blogging. It is too much effort to put into something if you just do it for the ARC's. You have to love it. But like you, I am a competitive person, and I want to be one of those hard-core bloggers, who have publishers calling on them. Not for the free stuff, not really, f=but for the pride in knowing that I am doing something right, and getting the names of all of those authors that I love out there.
ReplyDeleteI'm a intermediate blogger and I totally agree with you about the deadlines and everything! The first time I requested a bunch of copies on netgalley and actually got accepted for all of them I panicked and ended up reviewing books almost 3 months late... but now that I've learned from my mistakes I use a calendar to plan when I'm going to schedule my arc reviews, and when I'm requesting I try not to request too many books with a similar due date just so that theres a range.
ReplyDeleteAs for print ARC's I've only gotten 2, most of the time publishers don't even get back to me. I fee like this could be because I live in Canada, but I wish everyone else the best of luck getting ARC's :)
I definitely know what you mean. I still haven't really requested any print ARCs because I didn't really feel like I needed them. I've had PLENTY to read between NetGalley and the print ARCs that I got from BEA. I have a received a few ARCs from publishers who've contacted me, but not many really. And there's still that little part of me that wants to get more print ARCs because ... well, because you can. It's hard not to want it when they're out there, right? :-)
ReplyDeleteNicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction
I was doing a lot of release party's and getting eARC's that way but I took on too much at once and got way in over my head. I haven't touched my blog in over a year. I think it's time to start again.
ReplyDelete