Helene, the letter wasn’t about ARCs, but about final copies being sent for review use. Which, yes, still has the potential to hurt sales — even more so, perhaps, if reviewers sell them. Reviewing from ARCs, the difference between it and the final copy, that’s a whole separate post in itself! I did a series on ARCs a few years back. One set of comments in the twitter/blogosphere that concerns me (it sounds like it would concern you, also) are those who say “if they sent me the ARC, why send me the final book?” (um, so you have the real copy not the one with typs?) or those who say “I wanted the ARC and they sent the final book” (um, isn’t that better?). And I agree that there is a very real question publishers have to ask themselves, about how many ARCs and what to do with them. A publisher who shall be unnamed sent me books to review (not requested.) Great, maybe I’ll be able to read them. TWO WEEKS LATER THEY SENT ME ARCS OF THE SAME BOOKS. I was so puzzled by the flip, by the waste of money, etc.

Do you have a link (public) for the Yancey series sales figures? Thanks!

Publishers will send review copies of the finished book, too, you know. And if you’re not going to get around review books until after they’re out, authors would appreciate if you review from the finished novel. You know, the one where they fix the mistakes that people complain about in reviews, like missing words, or paragraphs that don’t make sense. There’s a reason every ADVANCE reader copy admonishes people to check the finished book before quoting- the book changes!

Not to mention, those ADVANCE reader copies come out of an author’s profit & loss sheet. If the publisher send out 1000 ADVANCE review copies, the publisher has spent $20,000 dollars marketing that book. (And that may be the only money they spend promoting a book.)

If bloggers don’t bother to review the books during the sales window, that’s $20,000 wasted. And $20,000 that the publisher will have to think long and hard about when deciding if they want to buy the author’s next book. Finished copies get printed on a larger scale, so they’re LESS expensive to give to reviewers. (8-12 dollars as opposed to 17-22.)

The constant demand for ADVANCE reader copies is hurting authors- and not the big, bestselling authors. They earn enough money, they’re not hurting.

But the midlist authors. The literary authors. The people who write the smart, quiet books that never get enough attention, that you champion for awards and handsell and booktalk because they’re quality books- those are the authors you’re hurting when you ask for ADVANCE reader copies that you never bother to review.

You can still get review copies. But you don’t need ADVANCE review copies, and I wish somebody would point that out.

Unlike you, I review everything I read, whether review books from publishers or books I buy or get from the library. This is because I like to tell my readers that a book is worth reading, or that they might as well not bother. I also review books that I haven’t read all the way through (with the necessary caveats, page number I reached, etc.). Why not? I read for pleasure and if the book is not pleasurable, I won’t read the rest. But I do want my readers to know what I thought of the bit that I read so they can make their own judgement.

So, with that in mind, I WILL always review a book that I requested.

But if you don’t always review everything, and there’s no reason why you should, then I can see that the letter is asking things of you that you are not happy doing. Whether you still want to deal with that publisher is then the question.

Annie, I always try to mix it up with what I post — library, review copies, personal, and I also try to pay attention to publishers to make sure I’m not being overly-reviewy of one above the other. And YES to the marketing assistant comment.