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ARC Question

NRuhwald

Scribe
So if you send out ARCs to your beta reader team, or whoever, where do they leave a review if the book isn't out yet? Obviously a book blogger you send an ARC to will post it on their blog or where ever. But what about the regular folks? Thanks.
 

Chasejxyz

Inkling
An ARC is a (mostly) finished version of your book. There might be final line edits to do or the cover might need some tweaks, but it is 90%+ complete. This is to get reviews, it is a review copy.

A beta reader is reading your, well, "beta release" of your book. It is absolutely not finished. It is not even ready to go out to agents or publishers at this point. Beta readers are to give you feedback to improve your story. If you're sending ARCs to your beta readers looking for "you did a good job :) " and nothing else, then you're doing it wrong.
 

NRuhwald

Scribe
I think maybe I used the wrong term. I don't mean beta readers in that sense. I mean if you have a "review team" of fans who get ARCs in exchange for reviews, where do they post the review if the book isn't out yet? Do they post the review later, or can they really only post a review if you have your book up for preorder.
 
As Chase mentions, they're two separate things. Beta readers provide feedback to the writer about what they did and did not like in the book with the goal of making the book better.

the ARC readers read the book with the goal of providing a review to bookshops (usually Amazon / Goodreads) or their channel (blog, instagram, youtube, whatever). For the latter case, your books doesn't need to be anywhere. They have the platform, they'll put it up there. Of course, it does help to have the book up for preorder already, since then they can link to it, which makes it easy to find if people like the review and want to buy it.

For bookshops reviews, you need to have it online. I think people reading in the Amazon app will get a prompt at the end of the book for a review and I think in many cases you need to spend more than $50 a year to be able to do so.

Of course, actually getting the preorder up is not that hard. You can do so up to a year in advance in most places, and you only need the final files something like 5 days in advance.
 

Jac Buchanan

Dreamer
Hi mate, I can see what you're getting at. The beta's have done their part, but you then send them the ARC so they can leave you a review, as well as other people who didn't beta-read. Very normal.

Amazon et al: If you are not yet published (any book - not just this one) Amazon will allow you pre-order. They will also allow you to do this if you have a good pre-ordering track record from other books. Other online retailers are similar. Once its up for pre-order, reviews can be left.

Goodreads: Once you have at least 1 book published or available for pre-order (anything with a registered ISBN or equivalent, usually) it can then be listed on Goodreads, and reviews left. Once you have claimed the author page, you can then add other upcoming books to Goodreads, so long as you have an ISBN (or equivalent) which then allows readers to leave reviews.

Personal Website: This one is less reputable, however, if you link the person's social media profile, it gains credibility. You will want to leave the review in full for that credibility to pay off (albeit summarised and hyperlinked from a promo page). Because it's under your control, you can update this as the reviews are provided.

These are the cost-effective means, though there may be more out there.
 
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