What to do with Advanced Reader Copies

Congratulations, you scored an Advanced Reader Copy (or ARC) of a book you've been dying to read! But after you finished reading and posted a review, you might be wondering: What, exactly, can be done with the ARC? It's a more complicated question than you might think.

First, it will help to understand exactly what an ARC is, and why they're made available. Advance Readers Copies, sometimes called galleys or bound galleys or AREs---Advance Readers Editions---are uncorrected proofs of the book released before the book is published, to begin building publicity buzz around that book. As literary agent Holly Root explained in her post, On ARCs:

They are expensive for houses to make, because they do not benefit from the economies of scale of finished editions, so much so that each ARC produced actually costs the publisher far more than the amount it costs to print final books. For many titles, the ARCs will represent one of the biggest outlays of marketing money the book will receive.

Usually, ARCs are provided to booksellers, librarians, and reviewers for books or magazines. In the last few years, though, publishing houses have made ARCs more available to book bloggers and other readers, in the hopes that they would turn to their blogs, Twitter, Tumblr, etc., to build that pivotal buzz. Publishers aren't doing that out of the kindness of their hearts; ARCs are, above all, marketing tools used to sell more books. That's why what you do with an ARC when you're done reading it is actually an ethical question.

Before the book is published, many marketers encourage book bloggers to share ARCs with friends, or give them away in contests or giveaways. Eileen Rothschild, who works in the marketing department for St. Martin's Press, told YA Highway recently:

One of the best (and often hardest to get) marketing tools is word of mouth. Readers are the absolute best when it comes to word of mouth; if they love a book they scream it from rooftops. In my opinion it is okay to give away ARCs. Once I give it to you it is yours, and by giving away the ARC you are helping spread the word.

But there are some ways of dealing with ARCs that are ethically questionable, because they hurt people who write books, and people who sell them.

Selling (or buying) an ARC is unethical. As Holly explained, publishers actually take a loss when they produce ARCs. They give them away for free based on a goodwill understanding that the ARC will not then be sold on Ebay, Craigslist, or to a used book store. If you like books and authors, you will understand why profiting on a free ARC---and therefore not benefiting the author or the publisher in any way---is an unethical violation of that goodwill understanding. This is especially true once the book is published, and available for everyone to buy.

Every book purchase matters in the success of a title, and an author. A book does not need to sell as many copies as you might think to make a national bestselling list. According to a 2004 Stanford study*, a book must sell an average of about 18,700 copies to make the New York Times bestseller list. But books have made the list selling just over 2,000. Those sales numbers directly reflect whether authors make back their advance, are trusted with larger advances in the future, or even get the chance to write and sell more books. So, if you care about books and authors, you have to understand that downloading even one book on-line, or selling one ARC, has a huge negative impact.

Don't drop them off as donations to your local library. Most libraries will not accept ARC donations. As Liz Burns with the Young Adult Library Services Association points out, providing ARCs instead of the final published book for library patrons comes with its own ethical quandaries, and libraries cannot sell ARCs to raise money (for all the reasons listed above).

There are some good, ethical ways you can get an ARC off your shelf. 

Donate the book to a local teacher. Texas language arts teacher and author of The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child, Donalyn Miller, wrote:

Teachers and librarians spend an outrageous amount of our personal money on books for students each year. ... With budget cuts and reduced funding for schools and libraries, it is difficult to purchase new titles for our students. Students enjoy reading books before the rest of the world sees them, and the buzz these new books create encourages my students to read. Keeping abreast of new titles helps me suggest books to our librarian and other teachers, too. Reading advance copies of books helps teachers and librarians decide how to spend our limited funding by discovering new, high-quality books that our students might like to read. One free book can turn into several book purchases for a school.

Programs like Reach a Reader are great for finding a local teacher who would love to share your ARC with his or her students.

Donate it to a prison. Prisons use libraries as part of ongoing education, which reduces recidivism, but they're underfunded and understaffed. According to Books Behind Bars, most prisons do not allow family and friends to send books into prisons; they must come from a bookstore or publisher. And, unlike traditional libraries, prisons can't hold book sales to raise funds, so they'll keep your ARC in circulation. There's a list of additional, regional, programs here.

Donate the book to charity. Causes like Books for Soliders and First Book are nation-wide. You might have to do some Google searching to find charities local to you, but here are some major ones we found:

• New York City: The bookstore for Housing Works provides job training and medical care for the city's homeless.
• Austin, Texas: Safe Place Austin is a shelter and charity working to end sexual and domestic violence.
• Washington, D.C.: Books for America helps bolster the libraries of local schools, shelters and prisons.
• Chicago: Open Books helps promote literacy, and runs its own bookstore.
• Seattle: Seattle7Writers organizes "pocket libraries" at places like the YMCA, women's shelters, and emergency care centers.

And if all else fails, it isn't wrong to recycle an ARC if the book has already been published. We promise!

What do you think? Are there other ways to get rid of old ARCs that you've heard of? Any other regional charities you think should be included? Leave them in comments!

* Providing citation for the delight of Kate Hart: Sorensen, Alan T., Bestseller Lists and Product Variety. The Journal of Industrial Economics, Vol. 55, Issue 4, pp. 715-738, December 2007. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1070298 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6451.2007.00327.x

ARCs charity ethics Sarah Enni Sunday, March 18, 2012