Hi, I’m Pamela, and welcome to puffybooks.
Today, I want to bring to you a discussion video about the
ethics of ARCs and what people do with them. An Advance Reader Copy, or ARC is a final or
penultimate draft version of a book that is printed and bound, at an
approximate cost of $6 per book. These are then sent out to bloggers and
reviewers in the media and retail/library environments, so that bookshops and
libraries can decide if they want to stock the book, and so that reviewers can
read and prepare a review of the book prior to final publication, with the
intention of publishing that review in time for the book’s release date. If you’d like a little more information on
the actual time line between submission, ARC and final release, Ava Jae of
Bookish Pixie has made a video called ‘don’t be a (book) pirate on this topic,
which I will put the link for in the description box below.
On Friday morning, it was brought to my attention that an
individual had obtained a copy/ARC of New World Rising by Jennifer Wilson, and
had uploaded the book to the smashwords website using the original cover art of
the book as well. This was most likely done with an e-book ARC, under an
assumed pen-name and was being sold for $10 a pop. In this instance, copyright
infringement has occurred. Jennifer has since been successful at having the
book pulled from the smashwords website, but is still upset that a betrayal of
trust has occurred.
In this instance, a crime has occurred, but what of the
instances of where no money has exchanged hands or profit from single sale has
occurred.
The sale of ARCs, despite the fact they carry the disclaimer
‘not for sale’ on the cover is not a relatively new issue, but has become more
common with the increase in popularity of book events and the rise of ebay and
online sales. During my research for this video, I found references to ARCs by
popular authors such as Anne Rice being sold for hundreds of pounds. Anne
herself and her publishing team won’t have benefited from this sale of her ARC,
and as she is a well established and financially secure author, who may well
have received an advance for her manuscript, it could easily be argued from the
viewpoint of the person selling the ARC that this will not hurt her. I
personally disagree with this viewpoint on principle. But what of the authors
who are newer? The ones who are still working another job to help support
themselves as authors? In this instance, the person selling the ARC will have
profited from the author’s hard work before the author themselves has received
a single penny from their work. There has been in increase of this in recent
years, in some instances ARCs obtained at industry events such as BEA are
appearing up for sale on ebay before the plane has landed. One reason for this that I have come across is
that profit made from the selling of ARCs could finance the trip/cost of
attendance.
Another example of where an individual’s actions regarding
an ARC could potentially result in a huge financial and emotional loss for the
author is the sharing of e-book ARCs via torrent websites. In this instance,
the person sharing the e-book ARC won’t have gained financially through this as
no money has exchanged hands, however as they have now made the book available
for download for free, resulting in a huge loss of sales because who is going
to buy a book that they can have for free? This results in a betrayal of trust
between the author and reviewers, and a loss of money for both the author and
the publishing house.
It can easily be argued that once a printed ARC, as a
physical object, is in the hands of another person, it becomes their property
to do with as they see fit. In most cases, no contract concerning the ARC has
been signed, the ARC has been received and is now the property of the reviewer.
For most authors, the sale of ARCs after the final finished book has been
published does no real harm, the book has now been published, they have
received some money for their work, and the ARC itself is rendered useless,
becoming a collector’s item of sorts, of which their real fans may be
interested in if they wish to own different versions of the books in their own
collections.
It is the sale of ARCs and sharing of e-book ARCs via
torrent websites prior to publishing that to me, as a booktuber, is an ethical
issue, because not only are the authors I know and love the work of are being
hurt both emotionally and financially by this, their trust in the individuals
who request ARCs is also being gradually damaged over time.
At present, in order to receive a printed ARC from an
established publishing house, or an e-book ARC from a net galley or from the
author themselves in the case of indie/self-published books, certain
requirements must be met, such as subscriber count, age of channel and social
media presence. The standard is currently around 10,000 subscribers or more,
and blogs/channels need to be ideally over a year old to prove how serious the
reviewer/booktuber is. What I predict may happen in the future is that the
requirements will increase, which will make it harder for smaller channels to
build up unique content, and for the larger more established booktubers, the
level of trust between them, the authors and publishing houses will have been
damaged as well, because the relationship currently held now will be changed.
I do not know what can be done to help protect authors other
than making a personal pledge to never buy or sell an ARC prior final release
and to never download an illegally shared e-book, and to ask others to make
this same pledge with me.
Ava Jae of BookishPixie's video "how not to be a (book) pirate" -
https://youtu.be/1Q7mS0Rn-Qo
other articles of interest:
From a blogger's perspective:
https://thebooktrovert.com/2016/05/16/the-great-arc-theft-of-2016/
From an author's perspective:
