thoughtful
trektone had a question. Namely:"I'd be interested to know (in your spare time, of course) your opinion of the buying/selling/trading/etc. of ARCs & book proofs. If they are by favorite authors, I love them. ... Regarding your stated urge in #6 above, is it because the official book has yet to hit the shelves? Or because you're not getting your nickel or whatever from the sale? Both? Something else?"
Now, in my spare time, I'm going to provide an answer. Because I can.
The buying/selling/trading/rendering into art installations of ARCs actually makes me happy...after the official book has hit shelves. Beforehand, it both seems like a rather pointed way of taking advantage of people with poor impulse control—look! You don't have to wait, if you're just willing to pay three times the cover price!—and sort of counter to what ARCs are for. I guess I see the "R" as standing primarily for "review" where ARCs are concerned. (While I'm not going to say "oh, sure, re-sell that ARC when you're done with it" to every reviewer on the planet, I'm also not silly enough to think that every person who receives an ARC is going to love it and treasure it and call it George. Lo, I am a slightly smarter blonde than that.)
The giving away of ARCs, or the re-selling of ARCs after they have been read, strikes me as a totally natural part of the book's life cycle. I mean, I don't "get my nickel" from used bookstore sales, and I believe that used bookstores are quite possibly proof of the divine. I don't "get my nickel" from the reviewers and bookstores and con goers and contest winners who receive ARCs through normal channels. Instead, I get reviews, early readers, and people talking about the book...which, if the book is worth talking about, is a good thing. (Presumably, a book could be bad enough that the author would want to collect and burn all the available ARCs. I'm trying to avoid becoming so neurotic that I worry about this particular issue, and I'm worrying about sensible things, instead. Like the idea of Godzilla eating New York, and hence, my publisher, before book two can come out.)
I guess I'm just not all that sanguine with the idea of ARCs showing up on sites like eBay, totally unread and unreviewed, because a) my publisher isn't getting paid for it, b) my publisher, in fact, paid to have it printed, and is hence losing money if the person who buys the ARC doesn't proceed to buy the official version, and c) it didn't get the chance to do its job before it was ripped from the nest and thrown to the wolves.
trektone also says:"I'm aware "Not for Sale" is typically printed/stamped on the ARC cover. I've obtained ARCs in many ways: free from authors/book folks, purchased from used book stores, winning bidder in charity auctions. For most of the many ARCs I own I have purchased multiple copies of the official version(s)."
And see, as far as I'm concerned, all these are totally understandable and legitimate ways to obtain ARCs. As I've said before, they have a limited but vital shelf-life: until the official versions of the book comes out, they're worth their weight in kittens (mew), but after the "real" books are available, they're interesting paperweights, collector's items, and things for the cats to sleep on.
In the end, I suppose my feelings on ARCs are very convoluted things, I should go find something shiny to distract me, because now my brain hurts. Hope that helps.
May 20 2009, 21:18:35 UTC 8 years ago
I'm capable of waking up from a sound sleep five days later and having Yet Another Argh moment over the fact that a book was actually printed with a homophone error. If I like an author, I'd much rather wait for the actual copy-edited book, so that I see the best, most polished baby they can hand me to read.
But then, I'm strange.
May 20 2009, 21:45:38 UTC 8 years ago
The other is the book collecting audience, which likes ARCs because they amount to the first "state" of a book. Now, the collectibility of ARCs has changed somewhat over time as publishers have begun to print larger numbers of them (print runs for ARCs can vary greatly, from numbers in the dozens to the high end of three figures). This audience remains interested in ARCs long after publication date.
May 21 2009, 03:13:15 UTC 8 years ago
May 21 2009, 13:03:59 UTC 8 years ago
(Yes, 'proff-readnig' was deliberate, on the basis that every net-post criticising or commenting on mistakes must itself contain an error. This is a Law of the Medes and Persians which shall never be revoked...)
May 21 2009, 18:01:38 UTC 8 years ago