the w5h of ARCs
wading a little into the ongoing ARC discourse and busting a few myths
I think the discourse around ARCs is one that rears its ugly head no matter the platform, time and again. Over on Threads, it’s been the majority of my feed the past week1. So, I’m going to take a bit of a scientific approach to this and give you my two cents on the best way to use ARCs in your marketing journey.
You may be saying: ARCs - why are they the way they are? To quote the incomparable Elyse Myers: great question, I’d love to tell you. Let’s make my high school English teacher proud and take the W5H approach2.
WHAT - (the heck) are ARCs:
ARC stands for Advance Reading/Review Copy. It’s a marketing tool3 meant to drive excitement for your book and get readers wanting to preorder. These are free copies (physical, digital or audio) of your book that are sent to readers who publicly review books. The expectation is that, in exchange for an honest review, these readers get to read your book before the general public4. The hope is that they read it, love it, rave about it, and that gets you some new readers and sales.
When you’re sending out ARCs, there are a couple of trains of thought:
Send a few so they are more exciting/alluring/mysterious (or that good ol’ economic principle of scarcity), OR
Send a ton of them so more people hype it up and get even more reach and engagement.
There is no right answer to this - authors have had success with both paths. That being said, if you’re an indie putting out a debut and you’re not confident that your marketing alone has done enough to drive excitement, I’d err on the side of sending more out for that first book.
WHEN - (the heck) should you be sending these things out?:
If you’re a trad author, your publisher will send ARCs out when they see fit5. Normally, this will be about 4-6 months out from release day, after you’ve finished your final edits and pass pages.
If you’re indie, though, this all rests on your shoulders. My general rule of thumb is you want to find that sweet spot of sending ARCs with enough time for people to read and talk about your book, but not so early that you get lost in the shuffle of TBRs - in my experience, that’s about 3 weeks out from release day.
You want your book to be as close as possible to the finished product. Sure, there may be spelling errors or an errant comma here and there (,) but you want to make sure you’re giving readers something they can use to pull quotes from or get excited about sharing.
WHERE - (the heck) can you even send these?:
The most common way of distributing ARCs is BookFunnel. Our trusty friend in sending ARCs, tracking opens and downloads, AND reminding your ARC team that they need to review. BookFunnel is great and you can sign up for a number of monthly or annual subscriptions. One thing I would strongly recommend if it’s in the budget: their mid-tier package includes watermarked ARCs, meaning each ARC will be personalized with that reader’s email. So…if you’re ever concerned about piracy…
If you don’t want to go it alone and instead want a little help with distribution and management, there are a lot of companies out there that can help you - both big and small. When working with any of these, make sure they know what you need and what you want and that your philosophies line up. Check their stance on AI, or how they show up for marginalized voices, or if they have a reputation that may or may not align with your brand, or if they regularly work with authors that write in your genre.
At a minimum, these companies should support you by:
Vetting ARC readers (all have different ways they do this. Some will look at follower counts, some will look at engagement, others will give it to anyone that expresses interest as long as they have valid links for the sign up form)
They should advertise your book, proactively talk about your release, and source readers for you (at large and from a base they have built up)
They should provide support to your ARC readers, usually in the form of assets (graphics6, your book cover, etc) as well as field any inquiries
Make sure you have some basic conversations about what you’re expecting out of your ARC program. Ideally, you will look for a certain percentage of people to download the ARC (in and around the 60% range is usually good) and then a percentage on that to actually leave a review (ideally more than half). Understand that this is a tactic that should have a return on investment for you - you should see sales coming out of this, otherwise you need to change what you’re doing for next time. A great way to track sales coming out of your ARC pool is to send a special discount code for your ARC readers - even something like 10% off your new release when purchased from your site can help!
Need some help managing your ARC journey? Here are (a few) of the companies that offer these services:
Valentine PR Love Notes PR PenPal PR Luna Literary Management Good Girls PR Ember Literary Novel and Cove FlyingPig PR …or hire a PA if that’s your journey!
WHO - (the heck) should I even give these ARCs to?:
You can decide to send ARCs to anyone! My biggest suggestion is to focus both on number of followers AND engagement. Smaller accounts are often great en masse to get hype. They’re passionate, have usually decently strong engagement, and will be the hype team you need. Larger accounts can be hit or miss - if you’re thinking of going to large influencers, do it in a personalized way. Connect with them in the method they prefer (they normally have this in their bio), and be respectful, personalize your note to them, let them know what you’re offering and why you think they would love your book.
Then wait. And don’t get discouraged if you don’t hear back or the answer is a polite “no thank you”. This is a job to so many people and, if they’re anything like me in my day job, their email box gets overwhelmed and their brain does too.
That being said, don’t be Odysseus and get lured by the siren call of tens of thousands of followers. You won’t always get a good return on the mental, emotional, and dollar effort you put into sending your book that way. Find people that you KNOW DEEP DOWN IN YOUR BONES will love your book and be annoying about it - follower count be damned.
WHY - (the heck) am I putting myself through this?
I think ARCs have become an expected, if necessary, evil in the book community. On the one hand, it’s exciting to have your book out in the world with people that will hopefully be your first rave reviewers. On the other hand, you’re opening yourself WAY up to early criticism, too. Which, like, super sucks.
Listen, there are no right ways to do any of this. I’ve seen authors send 500 ARCs out into the world (Chelsea Curto swears by this method for growth!), I’ve seen authors be incredibly selective about who gets an ARC (based on criteria that can be as personal as “I don’t vibe with the kinds books you review” to as broad as “I’m only selecting people I’ve engaged with”), and I’ve seen authors not do ARCs at all (looking at you, Becka Mack). It really does depend on where you are in your author journey, and how much you value reader feedback as a way to get sales.
TO WHAT EXTENT - (the heck does this even mean, Ada?!)
Here’s where I take creative liberties and change this a bit to say “to what extent do ARCs open up the author/reader relationship”. Well, again, say it with me: it depends!
Ultimately, I think there are two key rules we should all just…follow:
Authors should stay out of reader spaces they haven’t been invited into. That means, don’t go trolling GoodReads for reviews (seriously, block that shit), don’t seek out your hashtag to see what people are saying, don’t engage if you haven’t been invited
Readers should not invite authors into their space for anything negative or constructive or whatever other buzzword we want to use for “I have thoughts”. This one is very simple and it amounts to don’t tag or DM an author anything that isn’t overwhelmingly positive. Think of it this way: providing unsolicited criticism directly to an author is the same as someone coming up to you at work and telling you what they thought you did wrong on your last project…and this person is just a random employee you’ve never interacted with and you don’t even work on the same team. It’s unhelpful, there’s nothing you can do to change it now, and you had your manager and three peers already review it before you presented.
Oh and another thing…do you need PR boxes? The short answer is: no. The long answer is: not even a little bit.
You can have an immensely successful ARC campaign without sending a single physical copy out. If you do have the budget and want to send PR, it can be as simple as a signed copy of your book and your preorder swag (stickers go a long way). Sending out PR boxes will not make or break your release, I promise!
HOW - (the heck) do I do this without crashing out?
A final thought on ARCs for authors: if you reframe your ARCs as a marketing investment, it will help you make the right decisions for you based on your goals and your budget. Whether you go it alone, hire a company, or do a hybrid. Whether you send your ARCs out early, or wait until close to release, or don’t send them at all. Whether you ask for reviews to be sent your way, or prefer not to follow up, or ask that you get tagged in everything positive only please. There is no right way to do it, only the way that works best for YOU. This is but one of many many many tools in your marketing toolkit…that’s all, that’s it.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have about 50 ARCs sitting on my Kindle that I need to get to. I have a problem.
xoAda
I haven’t even engaged and it’s everywhere!
I don’t even know if they teach this anymore? I think they do? But if they don’t and you’re like…what the hell are you smoking, Ada. Well, buckle up, I’m about to (slightly) blow your minds.
A lot of people call it PR. PR is meant to drive brand perception. Marketing is meant to drive sales. I am very passionate about this. Probably more than I should be.
I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: I’m not a lawyer. HOWEVER, if you’re an ARC reviewer and publicly sharing your reviews, you have to follow FTC guidelines that indicate you must disclose that you were provided a free copy for the book in exchange for a review.
And they might even tell you about it in advance!
Using ONLY stock images, because…well…not a lawyer, but, you know.