Feb 23, 2013

No ARCycling Tomorrow, 2/24/13

Hey, everyone!

So, I'm really sorry to say that there will be no ARCycling tomorrow Sunday the 24th of February, 2013.

Why, you may ask? Well, Jennifer's out house hunting in Los Angeles, so I was supposed to be the only one running ARCycling this week. However, I think we all know that I can totally handle it and all would be well! But I've been really sick lately. And by that I mean that I've not been part of the land of the living for the past 6 days and to get over this huge sickness my doctors have decided to knock me out with medications until tomorrow. Alas, there will be no ARCycling because my health is really important.

As Jennifer would say, I hope ya'll will understand.

DONATORS: All current donations will be pushed to next week.

REQUESTERS: All questions about when ARCycling is tomorrow on Twitter will be ignored. Neither Jennifer or myself are going to be near a computer because we have slightly more important things to worry about and I'd really love to rejoin the land of the living.

EVERYONE ON TWO WEEK TIME OUT: This week does not count towards two week time out. So, that means if you were to get off this week, you get off next week. If you were to get off next week, you actually get off the week after. Wherever you currently are in your time outs, push it back a week.

If you have any questions, we'll answer them during the week! I hope everyone is doing better than I am.
- Lili

Feb 10, 2013

A giveaway you didn't even know was happening...

So unless you're not reading my tweets/ posts or unless you're really not paying attention, I have hinted that when we hit 100 (or more) reviews in the Review Archive I was going to do a giveaway. Now that we've hit that goal (and more), it's time to spell this out a little more.

But! But! But! Lili mentioned something to me, (y'all should be thankful for her, even if she reams you on Time Out) she said I should thank the donors cause, well, without them, this program would have died as soon as it started (how I thought it would happen!).

My reaction:


Then:


THEN. We hit 500 (+) followers and that kind of sealed the deal.

So all of that led to this: (sorry, this is not a gif, but you might recognize the closet space!)

WHAT IS IN IT?!?!?!?!?
I DON'T KNOW!!!
Actually, I do, but I'm pretending I don't.
The better part is that YOU don't know. And you're not gonna know.

You:


Yeah, I said it.

Here's what's going to happen:
Three prizes. (Mysterious box x3 - Jennifer didn't get enough boxes in time for the picture)
Three winners.
A Russian roulette of giveaways.

*I sifted through a lot of disturbing entries for Russian roulette. You're lucky I found this.

Unmarked Box 1 will go to one of 100 (and some) reviewers listed here: http://arcycling.blogspot.com/p/review-archive.html
That much has been obvious for a while. Every review is one entry.

Unmarked Box 2 will go to a random donor who has donated over 3 books.

Unmarked Box 3 will go to a random GFC follower since we broke 500 followers.

Now. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU ARE STILL WONDERING:
WHAT IS *IN* THOSE BOXES?!
Well, I'll give you this much:
1. Each box has 12 books (blend of hardcover and paperback, new and older).
2. Each box is primarily YA with a balance of genres.
3. While most are ARCs, there are finished copies (both paperback and hardcover) in both boxes.
4. Most these came from my personal collection, cuts, etc because I still have WAY too many books.

So what's super-di-duper unique about this giveaway?
THE BALLOTS ARE ALREADY IN.

More audience reaction shots:


Me:


Means this is like the SAT, you go in knowing what you know. It's not something you cram for, this is an accumulation. Which is this. Your entry (or lack-of entry) is already in. As of this second, no more donations will get you an entry. They will count to the NEXT goal giveaway. Whenever that will be.

Believe me, this saves me a lot of kerfuffle. No fussin' or fightin' or Rafflecopter or nothin'. It saves me even more kerfuffle that I already have my winners picked and going to announce them... right... now...

Random Reviewer: Heather at SPEW You Voldemort
Random Donator: Sara at Forever 17 Books 
Random Follower: Melissa at Melissa's Eclectic Bookshelf 

Winners check your inboxes and thanks for being your awesome selves! 

And now to end this on a gif that made me laugh for like, 8 hours.
Really, it's the falling guitar and the completely uncaring cat that kills me. I mean, it doesn't even look over!
 

Feb 2, 2013

A fireside chat.

So, it's happened. Through the mouth of a friend I had to hear about someone hating on my lovely little program. The hate in and of itself, I don't mind. Hey, things had been going too smoothly. My ego was getting over-stroked. However, while I won't drag their name in here like they did me, I would like to address their argument. And since this is a pretty serious post, I am going to lighten it with as many gifs as I could make sense of. As always.

What they say:
ARCs should never be distributed to others than who they were intended for by the publisher. Ever. Like, ever, ever. So if you don't keep them, they should be destroyed. And we are wrong and ignorant for doing this.

My response:
Point #1
Okay, okay, okay, let's start simple. Imagine for a second that some huge blogger, who has been blogging for years, were to keep every ARC ever. I imagine it would be something like this:

*Yes, I realize this is not a gif. Sorry. No gif of something like this exists.

Yeah, rooms like this make us book nerds (theoretically) ecstatic. But here's the downright, honest truth. Ain't nobody got space for that. What about a book you read and were totally MEH about? *I* don't keep it. Why? I'm not gonna read it again! I'd rather clear it off for a book I love.*
*I can't speak for everyone, but if I read an ARC, love it, I go and buy the book. Cause it looks prettier on my shelf, they last longer than ARCs and it supports the author/ publisher. So there.

Let's just agree that keeping every book you read (even if you don't want it) is insane. I read over 100 books a year, I'd be dead under the weight of them if I kept them all. Enter factors of earthquakes or fires and deadest dead that ever deaded.

Point #2
As per unnamed person, if you have you've ever gotten an ARC from a publisher and given it away on your blog (to anyone), then you are on the naughty list. Which means like 90% of bloggers are on the naughty list already. Which makes me think we all need to get together and have a big ole bad kids party.


And, uh, not to point out the insanely obvious, but publishers aren't stupid. They aren't unaware of the happenings of what we do on our little Blogger and Word Press-run sites. They know we do giveaways. If it was a problem, we would have heard about instances by now. Just saying.

And for the record, I've never used Amazon Vine. Honestly, I'd never even heard of it before. I also hate Amazon and won't use it if it can at all be avoided, but that's an entirely different story.

The day the blogging community stops all giveaways, maybe unnamed person will have a point, until then, I am going to disregard this as ridiculous as Ptolemaic epicycles in the 21st century.

Point #3
This is a big baddie point. But it's true. Ugly, ugly truth.
I know people who sell ARCs. The chain Half Price Books is a used book store around Texas and other areas and I see ARCs there ALL. THE. TIME. Specific case: I saw Malinda Lo's Adaptation (9/12) there all the way back in April. I've heard cases of librarians selling them when they do their sales of extra books cause they can't actually use them and they get too many. There are even those bloggers that sell them on eBay.
So, all of this is happening and yet I'm getting ragged on for spending my own money to mail them out while others (many others) don't give a flip about the no-sell thing?

Me:


Me at the haterade:

I try not to cuss here, but I feel like if I am going to offend people's sensibilities, it's going to be with such a classic teen film as this. Plus, it perfectly illustrates my thinking.

But, seriously, attack them first and make them stop, then come back to me.

Point #4
What unnamed person would (I guess) like me to do would be to contact every publisher for every title I ARCycle.


Are you cracked?
First of all, by the time most of the ARCs get to me they are "expired" which means they are already out. So the chance of "leaking" is minimal.
Now I feel is a good time to bring up how expensive ARCs are to produce. They actually cost more than finished hardbacks. Didn't know that? Well, they do. I've always felt it's ridiculous that a book that expensive gets used once. But if 2 bloggers read it, then it's like $10 per read, times the amount of people their stellar review and go out and buy it from that.
I am both a bookseller and a reviewer and through reviewing and hand selling, I've earned my weight in the ARC world and anyone to try and tell me otherwise is going to see what a fierce ginger I can be. Oddly, this is something unnamed person mentioned in their post... so... there's that awkward piece of common ground.

Summary:
Here's the wicked truth: ultimately, I don't really care what unnamed person thinks. I'm going to keep rocking it like I do.


*Yes, this is a Percy Jackson gif. Finally having a reason to use it makes my life.

If a publisher should contact me about a title or even their whole line of books, then sure. I'm respectful enough to not take that title(s) anymore.

What frustrates me is that this unnamed person bad-mouthed me behind my back. If you're going to spread around incorrect or incomplete information about this program, have the guts to do it to my face. Oh, and don't condescend to me like I'm some noob. I've been in this community for years, even if this blog is new. Any future whining or finger-pointing at me or this blog project from bloggers who need to deflate their britches is gonna get a

in response. Yeah, no seriously. I have this gif saved. I will use it all of the time.

Lastly, to end my essay off, I remind you this: I provide an option to the masses on how to get rid of  their unwanted books. I don't go out of my way to acquire these ARCs to pass out to peeps. Mainly 'cause I don't got time for that. We get what we get and are grateful for it. No more. There's no wink-wink-nudge-nudge-secret handshake in back alleys to get them. If you don't agree with this project, don't participate and go burn your ARCs in defiance. I don't care. They are yours to do with what you will. Keep that in mind for the people donating here. This is a judge-free zone. As well as a drama-free zone.

And now... peace out.