Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: thoughtful
  • Music: Thea Gilmore, "Contessa."

Noah's ARC, or, reviews and readers, two by two.

I am in the fascinating position right now of having two books in the ARC stage—A Local Habitation (Toby two) and Feed (Newsflesh one)—at the same time. This means there are ARCs all over my house, making people feel that I have an extravagent number of the things. My care and caution with giving them away is hence viewed as channeling my inner Scrooge, rather than conserving limited natural resources. (This makes me think of ARCs as some sort of rare bird. The migratory North American ARC, majestic in flight, aerodynamic like a brick.) The cats view them as natural enemies which Mommy Likes Better, and stalk them with ears flat and whiskers in full threat position. My mother attempts to steal them. And, occasionally, reviewers request them or contest entries win them. Right now, they're worth their weight in kittens, and as the window of their usefulness is narrow, I'm enjoying them while I can. Reviews of A Local Habitation are starting to appear, and various bloggers are starting to announce that they've received their copies of Feed, which means reviews of that should start appearing right about when I get my equilibrium back. Fun!

People periodically ask me* how ARCs get out into the wild. Well, there are three main ways, not counting contests. Namely...

1) You are already on a list, which is in the possession of my publisher, and they will send you one automatically. Most large review outlets are in this category. Feed is being sent to Fangoria Magazine, which is sort of like saying "Seanan, we're going to dip you in chocolate, roll you in selected pages from the script of Night of the Living Dead, and deliver you to James Gunn with a gift tag."

2) You contact my publisher and request an ARC. You probably need to prove that you have a review site or an affiliation with a legitimate review outlet. Your Livejournal is unlikely to count, I'm afraid. I'm sure there are exceptions, but you'll need a readership the size of like, Ohio.

3) You contact me through my website and request an ARC. I go through a lot of the same vetting steps as my publisher—I'll go read your blog, I'll look up the magazine you say you're affiliated with, I'll ask the magical moon ponies whether they've really seen you dancing naked at midnight in the middle of Mare Imbrium—before I decide one way or another.

Be aware that any time you elect for an option that includes the word "ask," you may get told "I'm sorry, no." ARCs are an extremely limited commodity, and just to make things more fun, the number printed tends to decline with each book. It's reasonable math. Your first book, you want to spread it as widely as possible. So you give more copies away, trying to create as much early excitement as possible. Your second book, well, some of that buzz already exists, right? So you don't need quite as many free copies out there, circulating and being read before the actual release date. As the number of people asking for ARCs goes up, the number of ARCs to be had goes down. This isn't the author being mean, or the publisher being dumb. This is using your promotional dollars as sensibly as possible.

What do ARCs have to do with promotional budgets? A lot. Page for page, making an ARC costs more than printing a hardcover. The print runs are small enough that they never tip over into bulk pricing, and since ARCs have no resale value (people selling them on eBay and earning my eternal annoyance aside), there's no way to recover the cost, beyond praying that sending the ARCs out into the world will result in positive reviews and higher sales. So as the "spread the word" value of the individual ARC goes down, the number of overall ARCs printed will also decline, putting those dollars back into the promo budget. I've been very lucky, and have received a decent number of ARCs for all three books to date. The definition of "decent" will continue to shift as days go by.

As a secondary note, if you ask me for an ARC, and I say "yeah, okay," and the ARC then shows up on eBay, I'm afraid I won't be sending you any further books. I can't afford the copies or the postage.

Hope this helps.

(*For values of "me" that mean "the Internet at large, only they use my name, so my Google spiders pick up the post and bring it back to me.")
Tags: a local habitation, book promotion, common questions, contemplation, feed
  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    switch
    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    Help
  • 42 comments

I hate to say it...

nimitzbrood

January 27 2010, 22:31:59 UTC 7 years ago

...but I think this links to the mistaken impression "Authors have a ton of money and can afford to give away freebies!".

Economics of course falls on deaf ears as most people don't understand that while you write for pleasure (so I'm learning - I don't have anything published or even close to it. me <--noob) they forget that you have to run the published end like the business it is. And that sometimes means being that nasty person who has to say no even when they want to say yes.

People love freebies unfortunately. And even more-so when times are tough as they are now. :-/

Re: I hate to say it...

seanan_mcguire

January 27 2010, 22:35:05 UTC 7 years ago

People absolutely love freebies, and I'm no exception. Dude, you want to give me a free book, I'm not going to say no! But if I seek you out and request it, I'm promising you a review. Not necessarily a positive one—I'm still going to be honest—but a review.

I hate saying no. I still have to do it. :(

Re: I hate to say it...

nimitzbrood

January 27 2010, 23:04:16 UTC 7 years ago

*nod* Totally the way the universe works.

Interestingly it's not just authors that this happens to - it's almost everybody.

As an example I turn down a ton of people who want me to "just have a look" at their computer every year unless we can work out a trade or payment. I don't want to but I have to just for sanity's sake. My buddy who does home construction on the side has similar issues.

I hate to say it because it's corny but "equivalent exchange" is a lot more common and necessary than people think.

Just my $0.02 worth. ;-)

Re: I hate to say it...

seanan_mcguire

January 28 2010, 05:09:14 UTC 7 years ago

Oh, totally. I have people get pissed at me because I charge for art cards. And I'm like, look, if you pay ten dollars for this (which is less than five dollars an hour on the average card), you will respect it more, and I will not have to kill you when you ruin it.

Re: I hate to say it...

keristor

January 28 2010, 09:38:22 UTC 7 years ago

Especially they do it with things which seem to be "in your spare time", hobbies and the like. Any sort of writing or art or music (or even cooking) 'obviously' doesn't cost you anything, so 'of course' you are willing to do it free for someone else. You aren't? You selfish person.

This came up else-LJ, with a person being contacted by a stranger from a church who expected music and even website construction and publicity for free -- just because it was for a church (and not even the one to which the victim went). Yes, there are things I will do 'free' for friends and family, but they will sometimes be refused because I have other things to do.