A crack down. Kinda.

I've spent the last 4 days going over the Review Archive and my long, long, LONG list of Requesters. I mean, the entire thing. Admittedly, I'd let this go too long, but whatever, life is busy. However, what I discovered didn't make me a happy monkey. I knew the review return rate was bad, better than it used to be, but I wasn't looking at concrete numbers. Now I have.

What was I doing? Stalking the crap out of you all. Basically.
But more specifically, if you've ever requested and gotten a book, I went to your blog, looked in your Review Archive or searched (if you had a search bar) for whatever book you got to if you happened to have the review and merely forgot to tell us.
This accrued about 10 reviews. So kudos to you lot for telling us about the reviews! However, less kudos to the kajillion more times I didn't find the book. It got a little painful to see all of the "IMM"s and "STS"s, therefore acknowledging you got the book, but then no review (and I'm not talking from last week. I mean, like from September).
Anyway, I suffered searching through very easily 200 blogs. All of this turned my brain in pudding.

I have suffered, so I'm going to make all of you suffer. A little. Nothing martyr-like.
Let's go over some basic reminders. These should be obvious, but ya know, if I have one piece of sage advice from my close to a quarter of a century on this planet, it is this: never assume anything.

1. The books available here are NOT for blind grabbing. Yes, I know they go fast, but there's a reason we list books like: Catching Fire (#2), then over to the right it would say Hunger Games #2. That means it's a sequel. That means if you haven't read the first, why would you want the sequel? Same goes for the genre and other obvious reasons, if you don't like dystopias and you look up Hunger Games on The Goodreads and it says dystopia, don't pick it. This means:
   • Saying you confused the book you got with another book and therefore not wanting to read it, is not going to fly. I'm going to say 'you've made your bed, now you must lie in it'. Like some kind of Disney villain.
   • Getting a sequel and saying you didn't realize it and therefore won't review it, is not going to fly. Like... HOW? The series number is right next to the title. How do you miss that?!
2. The books available here are NOT for you to NOT review then giveaway on your site. Guys, I went to college, I'm not stupid. If I know you got an ARC of Matched and a few weeks later you're giving away an ARC of Matched, I mean come on. I can put two and two together. I hardly ever (never) ban people myself, but when I saw this (yes, this actually happened) -  INSTA-BAN. If you review it, I could not care less what you do with it after, but that? That's just insulting to me and my hardwork.
3. The books available here are NOT just so you can have the physical version of a book you read on NetGalley. No. If I go to your blog, search for the book and find you thank NetGalley (especially if your review is dated from before you got the book from me), I will take your review, put the link on my site as though it were meant for me. You're cheating my system, so I will use your review to up stats. So there. You want a physical book to own? Go to a freaking Barnes and Noble! This might also end in a banning if I see it happen much more.

All of that being said, I hate changing rules. It's a headache even for me and it just sucks. So we aren't going to change the rules... YET. But I have decided to do something I've debated for a long time.
Public humiliation.

As the rules stand now, Requesters can get up to five books with no reviews before going on a temporary ban until something gets reviewed. If I'm being honest, I'd love to tell you all that I want to shorten that to 3 books. I do. But first I guess I'd have to discuss that with Lili first. Boo.

What the below spreadsheet shows is everyone who has 3 or more reviews pending.
If you have 3 titles next to your name: This is more of a warning shot.
If you have 4 titles next to your name: A warning shot across your nose.
If you have 5+ titles next to your name: You are temporarily banned. Most of you guys who have 5 titles already know this.

The list is sorted by first name, then blog name. Titles are arranged by date received, earliest on the bottom.*
*Only exception is one group blog that has accrued 7 books with no reviews, that one is by blog name with the individuals listed.
PLEASE NOTE: THERE ARE NO REQUESTS FROM AFTER THE END OF JANUARY. Why? Because I'm not a monster. There's a 2 month window to allow for delivery and reading time. Even if you requested a book from February until this last Sunday, it's not on there because it's not 'due'.



Now I'm sure you big Requesters are all, well, excuse me, but why aren't you going after the small time Requesters? Oh, oh I will. Over the next few weeks gentle 'reminder emails' are going to start floating around. If I was to list everyone here, that would take me many, many, many more hours and guys, I like to pretend I have a life even if I don't.

If ANYONE has questions about books they got, reviews or if you think you're supposed to be here and aren't, feel free to email me! ARCycling@gmail.com I'm pretty nice in emails even if I seem mean here.

Well that was a bunch of depressing crap wasn't it? How about for some good information and some gifs?!

First of all, review return rate is now up to 26%!! Up from 18% in December! That's awesome! Happy Muppet gif time!