Advanced Copy Reads (ARC or ACR) To Read Or Not To Read??????

Advanced copy reads?

To read or not to read, that is the question?

So, here’s my thing with ARCs… Publishing companies and authors are expecting too much for no pay or too little pay. They want bloggers and reviewers to spend hours reading their books and hours reviewing their books as well. Plus, they want you to post about it on your social media pages.

WTF!

I ain’t got time for that.

You see, I have this thing called a job. I also have two little people who need my time and attention. There is also a husband around here somewhere too.

Oh, I see. I get a free copy of your book. Why didn’t you open with that? I didn’t realize I was going to get a free $3.99 book for my troubles. Well, of course I will read your book now. I mean, who am I to turn down such a great offer.

Get the fuck out of here!

I see, I see… You’re going to tell other authors and publishers not to work with me?

img_3194

Let’s be honest here… What do people really get from ARC besides a book? Not a damn thing. So, what if you receive a copy before everyone else? All you’re doing is helping line the pockets of someone who couldn’t give a fuck about you.

img_3191

This might sound a little fucked up but it’s the truth and the truth fucking hurts sometimes.

If I have time to read and blog all day everyday without being paid for it, then I need to get a job. If I can’t afford a $3.99 book and am always looking for a free book to read, then I need to get a job. – Again, I am talking about me. I’ve got bills to pay, children to feed, clothes and shoes I need to buy. Let’s not forget I’m saving up for a Chanel bag 🙂

If an author or publishing company wants to buy me a $5,000 Chanel bag I will consider reading your books more often. Otherwise…

img_3193

I’m not saying I won’t read and/or review ARC, I will just do it when I feel like it. I will also ask an author if I can read and/or review their book. I’ve done it plenty of times and will continue to do so. I have no shame in asking.

I used to welcome the emails and DM’s from those asking me to review their books but now I just find it annoying. Companies that send out emails with pictures, summaries, Facebook and Twitter messages and more for me to post made me happy. That was until I realized they were just using me for my social platform. It was a lot to keep up with.

When to post, where to post, what time of day to post, links to post, etc. It was stressing me out.

In 2017 I will only be doing ARC with full review and social media posts for certain type of authors.

  • Authors who I like and have developed cool relationship with.
  • Books that have drawn my attention.
  • New authors, as I believe in supporting small business.
  • Authors I have previously reviewed for and enjoyed their books or style of writing.
  • Bloggers turned authors.

Everyone else, not so much. I am so sick of being used for my platform and reading shitty books.

I refuse to give my time and attention to books that only distract me from the things that I enjoy. I read for fun, not for someone else.

With that being said, I hope authors and reviewers don’t lump me in that category of those reviewers on Goodreads, my blog, social media sites and more who just give 4 or 5 stars all the time. Those bloggers and reviews get no respect from me and I have stopped reading their reviews because I know they are getting “paid for play” and can’t be trusted. Plus, they get on my damn nerves with that shit.

My friends and readers know what they can expect from me, the truth whether they agree with it or not.

If you are a new author, I welcome your books because I’m here to support!

Thanks for letting me get a little messy but it’s time to get pretty again. TTYL!

15 thoughts on “Advanced Copy Reads (ARC or ACR) To Read Or Not To Read??????

  1. Happily Ever After says:

    Fantastic post Danielle!! And unfortunately so very true. Like you, I’m at the point where I’m going to be extremely picky about my ARCs. I’m going to pick ARCs I know from the very beginning I’ll enjoy reading and reviewing.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. TJ Loves Books says:

    I’m rolling! This is a colorful critique of the process, D!
    Instead of Chanel though, I’m saving for another Louis Vuitton. LMAO

    There’s definitely good and bad with the process and like you, I have a lot going on at home.

    You definitely have to be selective to prevent stressful situations.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. ezinwanyi13 says:

    Let me add that they tell you, NOT to post your review if its less than a 3.5 star because they don’t want the bad press. DEAR Publisher, I spend time reading your book, I will speak my truth about MY experience with it.

    Liked by 2 people

  4. Thourya Osama says:

    You’re totally right. I started getting books from Netgalley this month and I’m so stressed no one actually is telling me to read it or review it right away or anything but I feel I should read it and review it as fast as I could.

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s
https://prettymessreading.com/2017/01/01/advanced-copy-reads-arc-to-read-or-not-to-read/
prettymessreading.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2017-34
200520
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:WDAZZHCZ4NGBWUYQQLJWBX57SAE2PSFF
<urn:uuid:3ce9fdb5-d128-4dc6-b653-f0b53a7f9d08>
2017-08-19T00:09:18Z
192.0.78.25
text/html
sha1:IXAOSWOCFNEK6B3M53RNZI7WCQC7L23M
<urn:uuid:7ad0e202-0bad-4b50-8745-d42759d91fd5>
https://prettymessreading.com/2017/01/01/advanced-copy-reads-arc-to-read-or-not-to-read/
length
response
<urn:uuid:7aab2bcd-e2ce-405d-88a4-6d87b89e3933>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-145-145-239.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2017-34
operator: Common Crawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for August 2017
publisher: Common Crawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf