STACKED

books

Competition, Envy, & The Fine Print

|

The last day or so has brought a great amount of fodder for blogging. The more that came up, the more these things felt connected and the more I knew I had to say something.

I’m a fine print reader. I’m one of those people that does read the contest rules and regulations for anything. I read through all 100-some pages of my mortgage before signing the dotted line, and I had no problem calling my realtor and lender for every single question I had. I like to know what I’m getting myself into.

So last night, when I checked out the contest going on by GoodReads and the Independent Book Bloggers that gives book bloggers the chance to win a free trip to BEA (including airfare, hotel, and convention access), I read the fine print. And I tweeted about being a little nervous reading the fine print for this contest because it mentioned that the sponsors could use my entry, including my post content, without credit or compensation. There are any number of reasons this makes me nervous, but I ran the wording by someone who is savvier about legalese than myself, and I was informed this was fairly standard wording. Except — she couldn’t see what I was seeing. The terms I copy/pasted to her weren’t the ones on the website. In the few minutes between mentioning something on Twitter (and having a couple other people mention it), the terms changed. I’m not going to talk about what they say because that’s been addressed right here.

Honestly, they’re not that different than any other contest terms. The thing is, so few people READ the terms that when you do read them and see something like that, it’s jarring and makes you stop and think a little bit.

After thinking about the way the terms were now laid out, I decided to go ahead and enter the contest. I’d love to head to New York City and BEA for free. I love the networking aspect of the event, even if the show floor does little to nothing for me. As soon as I hit “submit” on the entry, though, I began to feel weird about doing it. I scrolled through a number of the other entries, and I began doubting more and more my decision to enter.

The contest is set up in two rounds: the first allows anyone to vote through their favorite blogs. Starting April 10, bloggers can campaign to earn votes, and the top 15 entries in each of the four categories will then be judged by a panel on a number of criteria, including writing quality, analysis quality, design, tone, and reader impact.

In short: it’s a popularity contest to start, followed by a real evaluation.

I sat on my entry for a few more hours, thinking about the work involved in promoting my blog among the other hundreds of YA blogs that entered. I sat on my entry thinking about having to spam my readers and my Twitter followers and whoever the heck else I could think about to vote for me. I sat on my entry looking at the other bloggers who have far greater followings than I do.

I took my entry out of the contest.

The only thing I could think about was the impending drama to come from this sort of set up. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t think that the things which come up in the blogging world are necessarily drama, and addressing it that way belittles some of the legitimate issues worth talking about when it comes to blogging. But I’m not going to lie: my chest got tense thinking about how my Twitter and my Google Reader will look starting April 10 as people begin begging for votes in this contest. And why wouldn’t people try to get them? It’s a free trip to BEA and to NYC.

This leads me to talking about the bigger issue, which is envy. I sort of addressed this in my post about blogging stats and how it’s important to remember you’re doing what you’re doing because you’re passionate about it, whatever the reason behind it is. It’s hard to remember that sometimes, though, especially when you’re so eager to be a part of something big.

Being a part of a big promotional event is neat. It feels like you’ve been chosen because of something that makes your blog special and unique (even if sometimes it’s simply stats). When you’re not selected to be a part of something, it feels like you’re not good enough. It’s easy to find yourself envious of those who were picked, and it’s way too easy with social media to not only find yourself obsessing over who did get to be a part of something, but to also find yourself lamenting and devaluing your own work because you weren’t. Where one blogger gets something exciting — whether they asked for it or it just happened — another one doesn’t. It’s not fair, and there are going to be feelings on both sides of the equation.

I invited everyone to read Sarah’s post about this topic where it comes to the In My Mailbox meme because she hits it perfectly. While I do think In My Mailbox has a genuine and good purpose behind it, it does get people worked up quite a bit.

I’m not comfortable begging people to choose STACKED over another, equally worthy blog. I’m not comfortable, either, when we’re given an opportunity — one we may not have chosen to be a part of but were instead selected to be part of by some reasoning beyond our knowledge — and people find themselves judging us or themselves as more or less worthy. Because the truth is, we’re all here doing something good and we’re all doing something different.

Even though I’ve pulled my entry for the BEA contest, the anxiety of it hasn’t left me because I know there will be hurt feelings all over the place. It’s the same kind of hurt people have when they don’t get the latest ARC or promotion. What makes it challenging to keep doing what we’re doing with camaraderie and without the hurt feelings is that we ARE all working toward a common goal (spreading the word of great books) and sometimes, the rules and decisions are ones completely out of our hands. The decision makers don’t always take the implications of their contests or their promotions into consideration before they put them out there.

And the thing is, they don’t have to.

It’s our responsibility as bloggers to stand up and choose whether or not we participate. It’s our responsibility to decide whether or not we’re going to let ourselves get anxious or nervous about them, too. It’s our responsibility to speak up and speak out.

We blog because of the freedom it allows us. The only way to keep it free is to remember we have the right to say no thanks and we have the right to step out when we’re not comfortable with how things are going.

That’s the fine print, and we get to write it ourselves.

Let’s talk about stats, baby

|

I have been sitting on this topic for a long, long time, and after seeing it become an issue earlier today on Twitter, I thought there was no better time than now!

Stats: we’ve all got ’em. They tell us all kinds of useful things, like how many people subscribe to our blogs, how many hits our blog gets, how many page views we have, where our viewers are reading from, and so on. They’re like circulation numbers in print media: stats give a good idea on how much and how many things are going on on a blog. In addition to stats as useful numbers, there’s also commenting numbers that can provide some interesting information.

These numbers can be passed along to publishers in exchange for, say, receiving advanced copies of titles — those numbers can show your reach and your ability to spread the word about a title — and they can be used if you’re seeking out advertising and revenue for your blog. Stats are important because they help separate out and help file bloggers into different categories. Bloggers who get a lot of comments and a lot of hits appear to have bigger reaches in the blogging world, and they then are more entitled to receiving certain “high interest” galleys and receiving some of the perks and promotional opportunities that can come with working with publishers or publicity agencies. These are the bloggers making bigger impressions, and they’re the ones who’ll give the most exposure to the most people. It makes sense. Numbers can say a lot!

When bloggers approach publishers seeking ARCs, sometimes they will lay out their stats for the publisher, and sometimes they publisher will ask directly. There are some publishers on Netgalley who have in their requirements that bloggers wishing to receiving an egalley put their information right in their bios, so that the publisher can make an easier decision on whether the blogger’s numbers match what their ideal numbers are. If a blogger meets that number, they have a better chance at receiving one of the limited number of ARCs available (it’s not guaranteed, but it’s a plus point to them).

Bloggers work exceptionally hard to make sure they’re getting good numbers — they blog regularly, write features that garner traffic, spread the word about their posts in any social media outlet possible, teach themselves search engine optimization to ensure their posts are among the first results popping up when people Google a book. They check their stats daily, weekly, monthly, and they note trends they’re seeing and work to ensure it’s an upward, not downward, movement.

Honestly, it’s at times mind blowing to see how much work bloggers put into their blog — they’re impassioned, they’re loyal, they’re dedicated, and they’re always looking for the next opportunity. Those who work hard SEE the rewards, through not only stats, but also through commenting, through their posts being spread wide and far, through being asked to take part in a huge promotional push on a big title (which then helps their blog’s exposure, the stats, and so on and so forth). But my question is this, and it will continue to be this: what does it even mean? What value does it have? Is there a value at all?

There aren’t answers and there never will be. That right there is why stats, in my mind, are not at all a useful means of measuring a blogger’s worth.

Here’s a screen shot of our stats from the last month (February 20 – March 20), as provided by blogger. As you can see, we’ve had almost 500 hits today, and we’ve had over 22,000 hits in the last month. It’s pretty astounding, considering these numbers do not take into account our readers who subscribe via RSS (I’ll get there in a second). This is only people who go to stackedbooks.org.

And here’s a comparative screen grab of what Google Analytics says our stats are in the same time frame. We’ve had somewhere between 4,100 and 6,800 visitors, and we’ve had 11,300 page views. As you can see, our traffic patterns vary, depending on the day and depending on the content. I can tell you that the peaks are when we have guest posts and when we have posts that elicit conversation, and our valleys are when we post book reviews (the bread and butter of what we do garners the least amount of traffic – go figure!). We also know we get more hits on weekdays as opposed to weekends, and during holidays and during conference seasons (ALA, etc.) we have declines in our readership. The traffic pattern information is useful to us when we’re planning our posts, so that we don’t post something we want people to read when we know our readership will be lower.

 

One more statistical compilation to look at — this is what sitemeter (the little button at the very bottom of our blog and many other blogs) says about our blog. We have far fewer hits per day and week according to this site than we do account to either Blogger or Analytics’s numbers. It also has our overall page views much lower than the other two.

Now those numbers all show the information for how many people are going to our blog directly and interacting with it at stackedbooksblog’s worth on these numbers at all. As both Kimberly and Jen can attest to, this is probably the first time they’ve actually SEEN all of these numbers in one place. Same here. We have them but we never pay attention. We pay attention to writing strong reviews, interesting features, and doing so on a consistent schedule.

So, when we’re asked for our stats, we average out the numbers and get a good idea of what our page views are.

In theory.

We have never once been asked to provide our stats for anything. Never. Once.

I mentioned earlier that these numbers do not take into account readers who subscribe by RSS. But that’s a number that’s always changing and inconsistent, much like the stats listed above. We can, however, get a bit of an idea thanks to Feedburner and thanks to the stats feature in Google Reader (which only gives information about GoogleReader subscribers).

Here’s our Feedburner readout:

Here’s what Google Reader says for our feed:

These two numbers are reading our feeds by different addresses but I know that FeedReader shows our GoogleReader subscribers as much higher than GoogleReader shows our GoogleReader subscribers. But these are two wildly different numbers! And then there’s the complication of numbers of people who are “following,” rather than “subscribing” to our blog.

I’ve talked before about readership and about critical reviews and about different types of bloggers, and that conversation is worth thinking about when we look at stats.  Different bloggers are going to garner different readerships and different stats. They reach different audiences and have different goals. I’ve believed for a long time this is something people were aware of, but I know the case is that that’s not true. There are bloggers who have astronomical stats because they’re promoting titles and they’re working as publicity for titles, rather than as reviewers for titles. Then there are bloggers who only review popular titles. Then there are bloggers who seek out lesser-known titles or bloggers who work primarily backlist titles. Their stats are going to be much different than those who are, say, doing cover reveals (and racking up hits that way) or those who are the first to review a very popular title (say Bitterblue). And that is okay. It is okay. Everyone reaches a different audience and everyone has different goals, and the entire beauty of the blogging world is that everyone can coexist like this.

One of the things we know about our readership is that the bulk are librarians or educators. It’s not our entire audience by any means, but a good chunk are. These are people who are gatekeepers to other readers. They spread information by word of mouth and, often, by opening their budget, too. We have readers who tell us they purchase books because we’ve given it a positive (or critical!) review. We know we have readers who look to us to find out what book they can next hand to a teen who loved x-titled book and needs something similar.

And that — that right there — is exactly why we do this.

We don’t do it for the stats, and we don’t do it to see our numbers explode. We don’t do it so we can get the next greatest promotion nor the next biggest title. We can get them from the library or purchase them ourselves when they’re available. Sure, being the first to review an exciting title is neat, but it’s never our goal here. That’s not to say the folks who do do those things are wrong. It’s just that their goals are much different than ours. And that. is. okay.

So why the long and detailed discussion of stats?

Stats tell us NOTHING.

They tell us absolutely NOTHING about a blog.

The truth of the matter is that while blogs certainly have a role in buzz marketing and in helping sell books and in putting books on people’s radars, we are only hitting certain audiences. Each blog hits different audiences and different readers, and those readers do different things with that information. They pass it along to colleagues or teens, they use it to buy books or avoid buying books, they use it to keep up-to-date on what’s coming out. But do we, as bloggers, know what they’re doing?

The answer is no. We don’t. We have ideas, and we can be told, but the truth is, unless we’re the ones buying a title, we don’t know how many titles we’re selling of certain books. We don’t know our true REACH. We never can and we probably never will.

All these stats do is give us a number. They give us something to look at and to pass along, something that can feel good or feel bad, depending on the day the blogger looks at it. But the truth is, these stats don’t tell us about content or quality of content. It just tells us something was looked at a lot or not looked at at all. It tells us when things are looked at more and when they’re looked at less. They’re a tool for the blogger to plan and think through what they’re doing. And if you take our numbers at their value, our biggest days come when we aren’t reviewing books, which is what we like doing most here. Which is what publishers provide ARCs for — the review. Our stats aren’t useful except to ourselves and whatever meaning we ascribe to it; they’re not useful for publishers because for them, it’s a raw number without meaning behind it.

Stats, as interesting as they are, really don’t tell us anything. They don’t tell us the true impact of what we’re doing. They don’t tell us whether what we said made someone buy a book. They don’t tell us how many people added a book to their GoodReads to-read shelf (sure you could extrapolate, but that’s giving yourself a lot of credit). They don’t tell us anything about ourselves except that we exist and, in some cases, we should be paid attention to. Because we ARE reaching someone. Just . . . we can’t know more than that.

Back to an earlier point: we have never been asked to provide our stats for anything, and I’ve laid them out right here for you to look at because as much as people are protective of their own, they’re also perversely interested in other people’s numbers. Publishers often talk about bloggers providing stats but they’ve not — as far as I know — given any indication of what good stats are. They haven’t laid out publicly what they’re looking for in terms of numbers or reach. At Kid Lit Con in 2010, there was a discussion about this very topic, and the response from the publishers was that they look at quality of work, they look at stats, and they look at comments. To which savvy bloggers cried precisely what I have said — numbers. mean. nothing. Reviews get the lowest views. Reviews get the fewest comments. But it doesn’t make the work any less valued or valuable or worthwhile.

There’s a lot of interest in comparing one another in the blogging world (and in the greater book world, too). But the truth is, comparing yourself to anyone else is pointless. Looking at your stats and seeing they’re better than or worse than ours says absolutely nothing about the quality of what you’re doing nor does it say anything about what your readers are taking away from your work.

A cheat sheet to critical reviews

|

Back in January, I talked a bit about why being critical matters. I’m still thinking about the things in that post and I’m always going to be an advocate for being critical and being classy.

As you know, we’re critical reviewers here. We like to look at books in depth and talk about the things that do and don’t work in a story. Something I’ve been asked often — and even more so after posting about the topic of being critical — is how I approach reading and reviewing a book. More specifically, what elements do I think about and how do I think about them then take those considerations and write a review.

This was sort of what inspired the original KidLitCon presentation last year, and when we build our presentation, one of the elements was a cheat sheet to review writing. In all honesty, I sort of forgot about it until the other night, and I thought it would be worth sharing. This was a collaborative effort, with help and insight from Abby, Janssen, and Julia. You’re welcome to borrow it, share it, and any insights you may have you’re welcome to add, as well. I hope it’s helpful not only in giving insight into what goes into a critical review, but I hope it’s helpful in shedding insight into critical reading and critical blogging, as well.

Critical review cheat sheet
If you’re looking to freshen your content or are just getting started in blogging, here are some “big” things worth considering. These can assist in blog consistency or in helping establish your voice in the blogosphere, and they help when you fall into one of those sticky situations when it comes to comments or feedback you may get from readers.
– Summary vs. Publisher Copy: Do you want to write your own summary or rely on publisher copy? Your interpretation may differ from the publishers, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is essential, though, if you do borrow publisher copy that you cite your source (i.e., publisher’s copy, GoodReads summary, Amazon summary).
– Substance vs. length: How much you write in your review doesn’t matter. There are good short reviews and there are weak long reviews. It’s about substance, not length. Finding your own reviewing voice will guide you to this.
– Spoilers and content concerns: Do you write your review with acknowledgment to spoilers? Do you warn your readers when spoilers appear? What’s the length of time when spoiler warnings are not necessary? What about content – do you discuss issues of language or situations which may make readers uncomfortable?
– Your readership: Do you blog to be a resource for teachers/educators? For causal readers? To keep a record of what you read for yourself? For book publicity/as a means of PR for books and authors? Consider this when structuring your reviews. What’s your end goal? Write and review toward that. And remember: this can change. Nothing’s set in stone.
If you’re looking for some ideas of what to do when critically reviewing, here are a few suggestions. Not all reviews need all of these. In fact, you might find it worthwhile to talk in depth about only one of these issues or none of these issues. This is meant to be a helpful cheat sheet for those times when a book is simply a “meh” book — one you are struggling to review because it wasn’t great and it wasn’t terrible — and you need to find words to put to that feeling. The list below is certainly not exhaustive.
– Character Development: Do you find them fully-fleshed or lacking in development (is there an arc)? How does the main character interact with secondary characters? Are relationships believable? Does the dialog aid in their development?
– Story Pacing: Is the story consistent in pacing or uneven? Is it a quick read or a slow read? Did some parts become weak because of the pacing?
– Cohesion and Flow: Does the storyline work? Is it fluid? Is it rocky? Does it flow right, whether it’s meant to be a linear story or not? In short, does it make sense or does it leave the reader confused? Is that intentional within the story or a fault of the writing/characters/dialog?
– Language and Writing: Is it a literary masterpiece? Are the metaphors smooth like honey or are they distracting like flies? Is it poorly written? This is an opportunity to talk about things like length, too, as well as editing. Could it have been tightened or lengthened? Did the writing heighten the story or was it merely serviceable?
 – Authenticity (to the character, to the story, to the setting, to the time period, to the intended audience): Do you believe it? This is especially helpful in non-contemporary works. Did you believe the world building? The mystery? The characters? The situations? Was the setting developed or was it forgotten about? Are historical elements authentic? Is this book going to meet the expectations of the intended audience? Does the book feel real? Are the teenagers/middle schoolers/preschoolers depicted believable or are they inauthentic? This is trust in the story and trust in the writing and, over time, perhaps trust in the author him/her self.
– Voice: Does the story have a voice? A feeling to it? Does the character have a voice? It’s not an easy topic to talk about, especially with the “meh” book, because often, that’s the problem with the “meh” book: there’s NOT a voice. A voice is the tone of the book, the feeling underscoring the story, and the thing that can ultimately be what is most memorable about a story or a character.
– Reader Appeal: This one is dependent on your blog’s goals. Who will the book appeal to? Does it appeal to fans of other authors? To certain genre readers? This is a fun but challenging aspect of critical reviews because it requires removing your own biases about the critical elements listed above and thinking about big picture readership.

So there it is — I hope it’s helpful or insightful, and if there’s anything you consider in reading/writing critically, share away.

Doing Our Part: Nominate Titles for YALSA’s Lists & Awards

|

Remember last week I talked about angst and being regretful about not doing my part in nominating a title I loved for YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults list?

Field nomination forms are now open, including the nomination form for BFYA.

I’m planning on spending the next day or two thinking about the titles that have stood out to me, published after September 1, 2011 and the ones I’ve started in on with 2012 copyright dates, and I’m planning on writing up the nominations. As I mentioned in my original post on this topic, field nominations need to meet the designated list or award’s guidelines, and those are all spelled out on the individual websites (accessible here and here). It’s crucial you do your research on the particular award or list before you nominate, to make sure your nomination is actually heard.

Other things to consider when you nominate: write out a well-reasoned, thoughtful, and purposeful reason why that particular book or media fits the list or award for which you’re nominating it. For BFYA, for example, explain why that particular book is one you think is about the BEST fiction for young adults, as well as how or why it should be considered on a list for librarians who use those lists to develop their collections and provide reader’s advisory. Reference appeal of the book, why or how it’s particularly well written, what makes it better than average. You don’t have to write a novel for your nomination, but you do have to nail key aspects of the book that make it good. So, for the title I’ve already nominated (because yes! I’ve already submitted a title), I emphasized pacing, effective use of subtle detail for character development, and how the writer’s ability to bend genres to tell an effective and powerful story makes it one that will stand out and resonate with readers.

In other words, really think through why you think a book is worthy and emphasize those key points in your nomination form. The better job you do, the easier the job is on the part of the committee. You want your nomination to be taken seriously, and you want the committee to read the book, as well as discuss it.

If you’re nominating a title that was published between September 2011 and December 31, 2011, make sure you check the previous year’s list to ensure you’re not nominating a title that has already been added to a list.

Remember that anyone can nominate titles for consideration, as long as they meet the criteria (and as long as you’re not the author, publisher, or editor of that particular title because yes, the committee will check). I hope you join me in spending time this year offering up thoughtful, well-reasoned nominations for the different award and list considerations.

On ARCs, Ethics, & Speaking Up

|

I’ve talked this week about how I use ARCs, and the reaction was about what I expected. Most librarians who come in contact with ARCs tend to do similar things. Over the last couple of days, though, the lid’s been lifted on how other people use their ARCs, too.

Before I go on, I’ve pulled up an example of what an ARC looks like, for those who might not be entirely familiar with them. The picture on the left is a good example of what an ARC from a publisher may look like. It’s usually paperback (though there are electronic ARCs too) and each of these ARCs comes with a disclaimer right on the cover — and on the back flap and usually inside, too — that these books are not for sale. That’s not to say they’re not to be shared, but that they’re not meant to be sold. There should be absolutely no monetary exchange with an ARC, either between the publisher and the reviewer, the reviewer and other reviews, or reviewers and, say, teens who may get a copy as a prize during a summer reading club.

Let me repeat: there is no monetary value in ARCs at all at any level. This means that the publisher makes no money off them (and in fact, they’re more costly to produce than a finished copy of a book). Authors make no money off them. Reviewers make no money off them. And they are not, not, not to be sold.

However, they are sold. Regularly.

Hop onto Ebay and do a search for ARC under the “Books” category (or just click here). These things are being sold left and right — some are books that aren’t available yet and they’re truly advanced copies of the book and sometimes, the books have been out and the ARCs are still being sold, often at some really discounted price or because they have a signature or any other number of reasons. It seems after big industry conventions or meetings like ALA or BEA, the number of books making their way onto Ebay increases and a lot of times, they’re books people are really looking forward to or that were perceived as hard-to-get ARCs at the convention. Just this week, I saw an ARC of Bitterblue up on Ebay for a cool $51 (you can pre-order the same book — one that’ll in fact be a finished, complete copy in hard cover and without error — for about $14 right now). That’s not to say that ARCs aren’t sold via Ebay and other similar sites all the time nor that they aren’t sometimes sold in indie bookstores, but the fact becomes more apparent and appalling following these events.

It’s questionable whether selling and buying ARCs is a legal issue, but that’s not what I want to delve into. I want to talk about ethics.

Selling and buying ARCs — when there is money exchanged — is unethical at any and every level.

Now that’s not to say doing an ARC trade or giveaway or donation is unethical. I don’t think it is. There are, in fact, ARC tours meant to help bloggers and librarians get their hands on ARCs to read and review, and the only requirements are time frames for reading and posting a review, as well as paying for shipping of the ARC to the next person in line. The problem emerges when ARCs show up with a price tag attached. When one person puts a price tag on a book that’s clearly an unfinished copy, that clearly has a note on it saying the item is not meant for sale, they’re practicing something that is unethical.

But the blame isn’t just on the person who sells the ARC. It’s also on the person who buys it, especially if it’s someone who knows better than that. It sort of sounds like a no duh moment, but the fact is, it happens, and it’s not as hidden as people think it is. Buying and selling of ARCs is much more common than we like to believe it is.

When someone purchases an ARC, rather than a finished copy of the book, they rob the book of a sale. The author and the publisher and the agent and the editor and everyone else involved in the production of a book sees nothing. The money spent on the ARC goes to the person unethically selling it, rather than to those who worked hard to put together the best finished version of that story.

Something that scares me a little bit about this practice, aside from the unethical nature of it and the fact it takes profit away from those who deserve it for their art, is how easy it is to track down those who are doing it. When I saw the Bitterblue ARC up on Ebay, I was also able to see other ARCs that particular seller had sold, as well as those people who’d purchased ARCs from that seller. One of those who purchased from the seller happened to be a book blogger, whose blog I was able to track down by their user name.  The ease of being able to do that is itself scary, but it’s scarier that the very people working toward promoting reading and books are participating in something they know is unethical.

Let me step back a second and return to a couple earlier points I’ve made here and in my post about how I use ARCs — though it’s not entirely easy to gauge the impact on actually selling copies, my giving the book to a kid doesn’t rob the book of a sale. It’s entirely possible the book is being sold in some way. More importantly, though, I’m not making a profit from giving the book away. No one loses money in this exchange, and there is only opportunity for it to be made (see: purchasing a finished copy for my library to lend).

When a blogger borrows an ARC from another blogger or participates in an ARC tour, they presumably review and build buzz for it. Again, impossible to gauge sales on this, but that’s sort of moot. The blogger isn’t profiting, though, in the exchange and sharing.

But when a blogger buys an ARC, they’re participating in an unethical exchange of cash for goods. They’re not helping spread the word. They’re taking away a potential sale. And when a blogger sells an ARC, they’re profiting from someone else’s work, too.

It sounds extremely hokey to say, but the fact is, books are exciting, and there are times when it feels impossible to wait to read something. When someone unethically lists such a coveted book on a site like Ebay, the temptation to purchase it — especially at what can sometimes be a really, really cheap price — may be huge. If the true goal of blogging, though, is to spread the word about books, to help promote those books worth promoting, to help sell books, the only way to be taken seriously is to behave ethically. That means not only holding off on purchasing an ARC unethically, selling an ARC unethically, and it means doing your part in reporting these things when you see them. It means holding fellow bloggers to a high standard of ethics, and it means calling them out when necessary. It’s a scary idea, to call someone out, but the fact is, people who do these things aren’t necessarily covering their tracks.

You can report these sales via Ebay, and you can forward on these sorts of links on to the marketing folks at relevant pubs.

I don’t have a whole lot more to talk about on the topic, other than to say the value in an ARC is the value in what it does for the book. An ARC and a book aren’t the same thing — the ARC precedes the book, and the ARC can help push sales of the book through early buzz. That’s why they exist and why bloggers have become part of the publicity machine. If you’re truly invested in helping promote books and reading, then you promote the purchase of the book, and you work toward halting the buying and selling of ARCs.

For what it’s worth, bloggers who practice the unethical buying and selling of ARCs are harming, rather than helping, everything that bloggers are working toward doing. They’re tarnishing the image of the role a blogger can play in sales and in promotion and in buzz. They’re also stealing from those who work to produce the content, narrowing, rather than expanding, the experiences the book world can bring.

Anyone curious to learn more about ARCs and the role they play, please take the time to read through Liz Burns’s posts here, here, and here.