This has been an ongoing problem for a long time, but I felt like I needed to put my two cents out there about it.
The selling of ARC's (or Advanced Reader Copies).
Publishers, authors, tour hosts, publicists, etc., give out ARC's all the time. The point is to get it in a readers hands who will read and review it. That is the main point of ARC's. They want to drum up early excitement, and what is more exciting than getting a book before it even comes out to the public?
As you can see from the picture above of some of my ARC's, they all clearly say "NOT FOR SALE", and yet still people sell them.
One year while attending BEA, I went to the Blogger Conference and sat in a session about ARC's, and they discussed proper protocol for them. You are allowed to read them, review them, keep them, and give them away. You are not, however, allowed to sell them. Even the giving away part can be tricky.
Most publishers would rather you wait until after the release date before you give the ARC away, because they would rather make sales first. They are totally fine with you sharing them and giving them to someone who might not be able or want to purchase it, because at the end of the day, the book is being read and loved, and that is the point of making a book.
You can sometimes even donate them to a library, but most won't accept them. They are uncorrected copies, which means most libraries don't want to foster books that have editing issues, because it could send the wrong message to the reader. They want perfectly edited and spelled books, but some are desperate so, it doesn't hurt to try.
Yet, there are still those trying to make a profit on something they had nothing to do with and have no right to earn a profit on.
This issue has always aggravated me, but it really made me angry while attending BEA this past May. In 2015, during BEA Leigh Bardugo came and signed ARC's of her newest book and series, Six of Crows. It was one of the biggest books that year. Everyone had to have it. This year at BEA Leigh Bardugo was supposed to attend and sign ARC's of the second book in that same series called, Crooked Kingdom. This did not happen. Leigh showed up, she signed, but she only signed a sneak peek copy.
Now, this is fine. Authors do this all the time, again to drum up early excitement, but it is what I heard in line that got me upset. I need to be clear that I have no idea if this is true or gossip, but I heard that initially Leigh Bardugo was going to sign ARC's of Crooked Kingdom, but since so many of the signed ARC's of Six of Crows ended up on Ebay last year, they decided against it. Again, this could be totally not true and she could just not be done with editing the book so they only did a sampler, but even the idea that someone would have to choose not to give an ARC out because of shitty people just grinds my gears.
I even looked up to see if anyone is selling the sampler from this year and of course there is. Lucky it's only one person, but come on!
And on top of it, they want almost $70 for a sampler! A sampler, people! It's maybe 5 chapters tops, but I bet it's only 1 or 2. How ridiculous.
Anyways, I think my rant is over. I feel much more calm about the subject now lol. I just wanted to be another person complaining about it, because maybe if enough of us say something, people will listen and learn. I feel like there are way less ARC's on Ebay than there used to be so, maybe it's working.
Just remember: Read ARC's, don't sell them!
*mic dropped*
