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.