On Twitter today, Katiebabs brought up an Amazon kerfuffle, in which among many other things, one commenter criticized reviewer Harriet Klausner for selling her ARCs. Let’s assume (which I think is the truth) that reviewers’ ARCs are owned by the reviewer, and that legally, a reviewer may do what she likes with her ARC. So, to put it bluntly: this is not a legal issue.
Is there anything ethically questionable about the practice?
Well, one obvious issue would be selling uncorrected proofs. I think putting such a thing into circulation is not ok. Why? Hmmm… maybe because it could harm the author, if the work is judged by an unfinished product. Also, I am guessing reviewers who take an uncorrected proof get a letter or some indication that they are not supposed to let others read it.
How about selling a final product prior to the release date? Each of my husband’s books ended up at Powell’s and EBay prior to their availability to the general public. I know he was a bit put out by that. Is it wrong? Maybe, again, it harms the author in some way. I am not sure exactly how.
How about selling a finished copy on or after the release date? It’s hard to see what might be wrong about this, and yet a part of me feels that even doing this is … not quite the best choice. One argument might be that it harms the author who is not making royalties. But that argument would turn all used bookstores into dens of thieves, so it can’t be right.
Is there perhaps an agreement, implicit or otherwise, between the reviewer and publisher that the reviewer will not sell the book? If yes, then selling it would be breaking an agreement. People have lots of agreements with each other. The vast majority of these are not legal agreements. I agree to pick up the dogs at 5:00 if my husband agrees to drop them off. Being a party to an agreement gives you a prima facie obligation to discharge your duties relative to that agreement. But if it turns out that I can’t pick up the dogs because one of my children is ill and needs my immediate attention, I think everyone would allow that a stronger duty has overridden the duty generated by the agreement about the dogs.
I don’t take ARCs so I cannot answer the empirical question of whether there is any agreement, explicit or implied, between reviewers and publishers, such that the reviewer agrees not to profit from the sale of the free book. Anyone care to clue me in?
And, following from the dog example, even if such an agreement exists, there may be cases where the reviewer has a stronger duty that requires breaking the agreement (for example, selling the ARC to put food on the table).
How about this: Is there something ethically questionable about profiting from something you got for free? I doubt it. My friends won a car they didn’t want or need, and they sold it for the cash. It seemed very sensible and ethically ok to everyone.
Maybe it’s that you already got your “freebie” in the form of a free book, usually in advance. To sell it is perhaps like getting a double scoop, somehow … not deserved and a bit graspy. You could donate the book to a library, a women’s shelter, a nursing home.
So I am finding it hard to put my finger on why people think it is ethically questionable to sell ARCS. And yet, I do have a niggle about it. Roger Sutton, editor of Horn Books Inc., in a 2007 blog post, opined that the reviewer owns the book and can do whatever she likes with it. In another 2007 post from a group blog of children’s book authors, many commenters share the view that they feel there is “just something not right” about selling ARCs. but nobody says what is wrong with it.
One last question:
I’m tempted to say that the reviewer who asks for the ARC with the intention of selling it is closer to being in the wrong than a reviewer whose primary intention is to read and review the book, but who sells it as an afterthought. But why? As long as both reviewers read and review the book (i.e. fulfilling the agreement they have — if they have one — with the publisher) does it matter which motive is dominant?
Any thoughts?
Related posts:
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- Fuzzy Thoughts on Promotion and Book Blogging I’ll start with three quotations: 1. In an interesting post called “The Reviewer/Promoter Hat“, Mrs. Giggles wrote, I found myself...
- Do Author Comments Have a Chilling Effect on Review Discussions? A number of things happened recently to raise this question for me, none of them on this blog. First, Mrs....
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#1 by Ann Somerville on December 16, 2009 - 6:16 pm
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I think it’s a tad skeezy, and before release date, just downright mean – but if you look at it as more promotion, then I suppose it’s not as bad as first looks indicate. Giving them away is far preferable, but might not be an option. Some reviewers get hundreds of books, and how many can you fob off on friends and charity shops?
I suppose, in reality, I’m indifferent to the issue of selling on – unless the book was never reviewed. That would change it from skeezy to unethical, even if it’s not illegal. If you didn’t review it, you should pass it on free to someone who might do.
#2 by katiebabs on December 16, 2009 - 6:31 pm
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I always assumed it was unethical to get money for something that was sent for free, because you are taking money out of the author and publisher’s pocket, meaning a lack of sale.
My next question is, if selling an ARC is okay when is selling e-ARCS wrong?
#3 by Heloise on December 16, 2009 - 6:49 pm
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Oh this just seems wrong. I’m with Katie, not only are you benefiting twice but you are taking the money away from a regular sale of that book.
Before the release date is worse. Terrible I tell you, just what is the world coming to? On the other hand, if you are getting hundreds of books (is this possible?) it brings up the possibility that some are ‘unsolicited’ so to speak. If you haven’t agreed to review it, and a publisher is just sending it hoping you might review it, I could see selling it. (Although I’d still just donate ‘em to the library. They sell the ones they don’t want…)
#4 by Rowena on December 16, 2009 - 6:53 pm
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On every single ARC that I’ve gotten, it says on the cover, NOT FOR SALE (in all caps too) so it never crossed my mind to sell any of the ARCs I’ve received.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to make money off of something you got for free but that’s just me. I’m not the ARC police though.
#5 by Katie Mack on December 16, 2009 - 7:21 pm
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I don’t know what the ARC/galley policy is at other review sites, but at AAR we are told not to sell ARCs/galleys. Publishers and/or authors have requested we not sell them, so as a courtesy to them, all reviewers are asked to adhere to this policy.
But even if AAR didn’t have this policy, I still wouldn’t sell them. One of the biggest issues for me is that I don’t feel right about putting an uncorrected proof out there on the market. They typically contain spelling, grammar, and/or formatting errors, not to mention being of poor paper/binding quality. So yeah, I can see where a publisher or author wouldn’t want these books floating around out there. And selling them before the actual release date? That’s just plain uncool.
But beyond all that, there’s the fact that I just don’t feel right profiting off of something I received for free. I can’t really explain it any better than that. It doesn’t sit quite right with me, so I don’t do it.
#6 by Liz on December 16, 2009 - 7:47 pm
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It’s interesting that this comes up in both romance and children’s lit on-line communities, where there are lots of amateur reviewers (both in the not-getting-paid sense and in the root sense of lovers of the genre), and relationships between readers and authors that lead to gifts of ARCs.
I think professional review outlets have fairly strict ethical guidelines about not profiting from free review copies (ARCs or books). In somewhat the same way, my academic department does not sell “review” copies of textbooks we are sent on spec by publishers; when we get spammed by businesses wanting to buy them, we tell them to stop contacting us because we consider resale of these free copies unethical. We donate them to students or charities (or just let them pile up in our offices).
To me, those ethical guidelines seem right: you shouldn’t profit from “swag” (why do I get grammar handbooks instead of Oscar-quality swag??) that is given to you as part of your professional duties.
But if you’re not getting paid to blog, then you aren’t exactly like a professional reviewer. This is a new realm, and while it’s clear authors and publishers want the same rules to apply to amateurs, it’s less clear that they should. (On the other hand, if they get fed up, there go the free ARCs and review books for bloggers).
#7 by Elizabeth Jules Mason (MsMoonlight) on December 16, 2009 - 7:51 pm
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I don’t see anything wrong AFTER a release date, but why bother? Who would want an uncorrected ARC when they can get a corrected new book??
Most of my ARC’s end up in the garbage and some landfill somewhere- which is worse then selling them in my opinion (favorites make my keeper shelf), but I really didn’t think anyone would want them when a nice shiny corrected version was available.
I’d give them away for free (after the release date) if I knew anyone locally that wanted them.
MsM
#8 by Janet W on December 16, 2009 - 7:57 pm
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What they all said! The fact that it isn’t illegal doesn’t make it any less skeevy. So darned unfair to us poor schlubs who aren’t reviewers, aren’t booksellers, aren’t librarians … so we don’t have early access … and the people who were given books free turn around and sell them? I thought people were insulted by the deferentiation between professional and amateur reviewers — that is was the quality of the review that counted. And I too have never seen an arc that didn’t have Not For Resale plastered all over it!
Maybe someone will say “hey, it’s all good and it’s all free publicity” but it doesn’t pass my personal smell test. Give ‘em away to charity after the release date is what I would probably do.
#9 by Robin on December 16, 2009 - 8:30 pm
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The reason you can’t sell an e-arc is that you have to make a copy of it to sell, which violates current law governing digital copyright. That law has subverted the First Sale Doctrine, which remains a cornerstone of traditional copyright law. And it’s the First Sale Doctrine (which states that as long as someone lawfully obtains a book, they can dispense with it as they want, including through resale) that allows people to sell books, whether that be at a garage sale or on eBay (or in bulk as a UBS).
One thing I want to point out here is that publishers do not only send ARCs to reviewers; they also send ARCs to bookstores and other industry participants. I know more than one person who has a friend working at a bookstore and has been consequently well-stocked with ARCs. Further, publishers often (not as much since the economic decline) send ARCs out quite indiscriminately. I know of more than a few people who regularly haul piles of ARCs to local bookstores (The Strand, in New York, is particularly well-known for accepting ARCs to sell as used books).
This doesn’t mean people shouldn’t form their own ethical boundaries around ARCs, but I’d suggest that many of these concerns are driven by factors distinct from the promotional nature and purpose of the ARC. I haven’t ever sold one (I can’t even sell my regular books, for god’s sake), but I don’t know that I have any substantive objection to the practice, as long as the ARC was obtained lawfully.
As for selling ARCs previous to the on sale date, I’m torn. After all, there are many instances where lay down dates for books are totally ignored, meaning that books are often available at retail outlets previous to their on sale date. And people can purchase those books and then sell them used, online, ahead of the on sale date. Is this also unethical? I have seen readers who refuse to even purchase a new book before the on sale date because they don’t want that sale to be discounted from the author’s first week sales numbers. While I think every reader should do what they feel comfortable with, IMO this practice reflects an unusual level of loyalty to the author.
#10 by AQ on December 16, 2009 - 8:31 pm
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Opposing viewpoint. I definitely see the point with professional reviewers paid by a business to review the ARC. I’d consider that unethical.
For unpaid reviewers. It’s nice that the blogger receives the book or an ARC for free but the cost of that free “product” in no way offsets the cost of reading the book, writing up the review and then hosting/creating the html post.
If the [non-professional / unpaid] reviewer can make a few dollars off of the sale, it’s much less than anything the author or publisher would have to pay for professional marketing or PR services, even if the arc is sold before the release date unless enough ARC are handed out (I’m thinking thousands or tens of thousands) as to impact release date sales.
I’d consider it just another form of word-of-mouth publicity. I often think that the book industry doesn’t do enough pre-release day promo. Look at the movie industry. We get reviews and special viewings prior to opening day. With book reviews they typically come after the book is released which would seem to be counterintuitive since we’re told that the first two weeks of sales are very important to publisher numbers.
#11 by Robin on December 16, 2009 - 8:37 pm
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And from a legal perspective, here’s a piece from techdirt on selling promo CD’s.
This is slightly off topic, but here are a couple of interesting pieces on the First Sale Doctrine in the digital age here and here for anyone interested.
#12 by BevBB on December 16, 2009 - 8:43 pm
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@Elizabeth Jules Mason (MsMoonlight):
It would be so easy to agree with this but, to be honest, the fan and collector in me would revolt if I did. Because, let’s be honest, that’s the market we’re actually talking about here when the line is crossed to gobbling up uncorrected ARCs.
I keep telling everyone who will listen that the romance genre is an enormous fandom. And the simple fact of the matter is that fandoms are filled with avid collectors. That we get to read the product we collect is only a side benefit.
Trying to keep collectors away from that which they’re obsessed with is like trying to stop the tide.
Of course, this doesn’t in anyway address the ethics involved on the side of those selling the ARCs, just that there is definitely going to be a market for them whether anyone wants them to or not. What I’d like to know is why an author wouldn’t want there to be a market for them if it means they are considered collectible?
See, that’s where it becomes disingenuous to me.
#13 by Robin on December 16, 2009 - 8:45 pm
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@BevBB: And it’s not just Romance; there is a huge demand for these copies on the part of book collectors in general. Many antiquarian booksellers deal in them, for that reason.
#14 by Magdalen on December 16, 2009 - 8:57 pm
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I live in a poor, sparsely populated county, so I’ve been surprised to see ARCs on the “New Fiction” shelf at the county library. This suggests there is a reviewer somewhere in the neighborhood who donates them to the library. I see that as a good thing. It allows the library to buy other books with their limited funds, and it gets a wider variety of books on the shelves.
But I’m rather assuming that the ARCs are of books the library would not have purchased otherwise. Obviously, donating an ARC to a library that would, absent that donation, have purchased precisely that book new means one fewer royalty to the author. That’s the only risk I see in that case.
As for selling ARCs — well, it falls into that category of things people do presumably because it doesn’t bother them to do so. I don’t sell my used books (can’t be bothered to, truthfully) but I buy used books (thus depriving authors of the royalties). I feel a twinge of shame, peppered with regret that I can’t afford to buy all these books new (and thus ensure the authors earn the royalties on those sales). But I still do it.
#15 by BevBB on December 16, 2009 - 9:03 pm
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@Robin: Oh, yes, and in truth, romance as a genre is just now being seen as truly collectible. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate.
The sheer volume of romances produced has always made them a problem in terms of collecting because rarity is what equates to value. Or rather collectibility. So, there was no reason for dealers to pay much attention to them before. Now, it’s more that people are finally starting to ask about romances in terms of collecting them for various “fan” reasons, which is how it always starts. Therefore, dealers are noticing.
Money speaks. Always.
#16 by Jessica on December 16, 2009 - 10:12 pm
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I agree with this, and I think people’s comment to the effect that “you should not make money from something you got for free” indicate that many commenters on this thread share your view that it is not the promotional nature but the free nature of the book that is the issue.
To take a similar case, I was thinking about the time my sister in law sent me a hand me down (my nephew’s) $200 pair of designer jeans for my 6 year old. I sold them on eBay and bought an entire Gap wardrobe for him with the money. I felt really bad about it and never told her. Of course, there are trust issues here between family as well.
But what do people make of the “NOT FOR RESALE” that Rowena mentioned? What does that mean to you?
#17 by Wendy on December 16, 2009 - 11:44 pm
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When this discussion crops up (usually fueled by authors who find ARCs of their book on eBay well before release date) my stock answer is: Until publishers see this as a “major issue” – it’s going to happen. Right, wrong, indifferent, whatever. Of course this would mean publishers somehow “tracking” ARCs and my gut feeling is that it’s too much work for them to bother with. Although that being said, the economy being the way it is – anything is possible. I will say that within the last 6 months our ARC supply at work has substantially dropped off (I work for a large library system, so we do get some ARCs). We ain’t gettin’ what we used to.
I take the “Not For Resale” thing seriously. I don’t sell my ARCs. Ever. I either keep them or trash them. If I keep them it’s because I loved the book, in which case I’ll also go out and buy a “real” copy. At the library, we share our ARCs with staff members using the honor system – don’t resell them, don’t catalog them, bring ‘em back eventually – and every few months I go through and recycle the oldies.
I have definitely gotten more eARCs of late, usually directly from authors. I’ve been loving these because if I don’t want to “keep” the ARC, I just delete it. Poof! Gone! Plus it saves time, postage, space, materials – it’s just easy. That said, I don’t see publishers completely dumping print for e anytime soon. The piracy issue looms large, and there’s still the fact that not everybody on the planet is using some sort of digital reading device (be it a reader, smart phone, whatever).
#18 by AQ on December 16, 2009 - 11:44 pm
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In general, I took that to mean that retailers couldn’t sell the products as new. So Target couldn’t go out and pick up a bunch of “samples” but Half Price Books could.
But it’s not free if there is an expectation of a review attached to the giving. it’s an exchange and the time and effort given to read and review the arc is greater than the value of that ARC. It’s greater than the price of the book even in hardcover. How long does it take to read a book? to review it? to write the final post? How much money would you make at your current job for the time it took for the entire process start to finish? Now how much does the book cost retail?
Receiving an ARC is simply not getting something for free. If anything the author or the publisher are getting something for free by getting an online review rather than word-of-mouth promo. I get free movie tickets all the time, the cost of which would be greater than the average mass market novel and I don’t have to write an online review and the average viewing time for the movie is shorter than my reading time. Now that’s getting something for free and the movie distributors pay the theatres and the promoters to host the events.
ETA: I have to ask. Are most non-professional bloggers who receive ARCs women? I ask because my professional experience through the years is that women tend not to think of their time as valuable and worth compensation. For example: I was much more likely to see an hourly female employee working for free than a male one. Yes, a gross generalization based on my limited observations as a consultant in multiple industries outside of our current recession. And, yes, I have been guilty of working for free myself.
#19 by BevBB on December 16, 2009 - 11:52 pm
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Let me put it this way, do any of you honestly believe those three little words are going to stop serious collectors and book dealers from acquiring anything that’s they consider might be hard-to-find in the future?
Or be an impediment to a die-hard fan of an individual author for one single second?
Or be any different than books being resold/traded to a used bookstore?
The flip side, again, is the knowledge that one is in possession of something for which there is a market. I don’t have the answers to the ethics questions. I’m simply pointing out the position the holders of ARCs are being placed in.
ARCs are collectible items that have value. Real value. Conceiveably greater value than the actual books given time and the author in question.
But people are supposed to just pretend like this isn’t so?
Not likely.
#20 by Robin on December 16, 2009 - 11:56 pm
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@Jessica:
I think if publishers could get away with stamping “not for resale” on every book, ARC through final copy, they’d try it.
Publishers send out bogus cease and desist letters, too. They claim that digital rights have been captured under contract language written before electronic rights were even conceived. They do a bunch of stuff they don’t necessarily have the legal authority to do.
Publishers want to make money. They promote their own interests. I recognize those interests, with a very wary, cynical eye, but I don’t necessarily see them as superior to my interests — and rights — as a consumer and reader.
#21 by AQ on December 17, 2009 - 12:05 am
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Sorry, one more thing. Writing a good review as opposed to a positive or negative is a skill. Not everyone can do it or do it easily. It shouldn’t be taken for granted.
#22 by heidenkind on December 17, 2009 - 3:29 am
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I don’t take ARCs, either, so I don’t know. But once I got an ARC of a Jacquie D’Alessandro book from Amazon! I paid $5.99 for it and it arrived three or four months before the book was due to be published. I have to wonder about what happened there–not that I wasn’t thrilled to get it. But I sure as heck won’t be able to resell it.
#23 by Laura Vivanco on December 17, 2009 - 5:06 am
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BevBB’s point about collectors made me wonder about the value of ARCS from an academic point of view. Academics can be fascinated by the rough drafts of famous novels. Depending on the point in the writing process at which the ARC is released, could it be at all similar? In that case, destroying the ARC would seem wrong.
Thing is, though, that I’ve been well indoctrinated with “books are your friends” propaganda, so the idea of sending a book to the recycling makes me feel sad (and sending one to be landfill seems even worse). I know books are not alive: they’re just made out of paper and glue (and maybe a few other things), but because I’ve been told that “books are your friends”, I almost think of books as entities with their own rights, like these two books. How could I not want them to find a home in which they would be loved and cherished?
P.S. Jessica, I think your new three-column format is causing the window for typing comments to be truncated at the right-hand side. Maybe other browsers deal with it differently, but I’m having trouble typing since I can’t see parts of my sentences.
#24 by BevBB on December 17, 2009 - 8:17 am
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@Laura Vivanco:
Thank you, Laura. I think that one was niggling at the back of my brain but hadn’t yet made it out yet.
Seriously, I would think that certain ARCs might be considered priceless from an academic standpoint. Certainly it would at least depend on the author and/or the academic who might be studying them.
But the point remains the same that faces any collector and when one gets right down to it academics are simply collectors of information, of which an ARC is a source. In this case, the point has to do with that rarity issue I mentioned before. There’s a significantly smaller supply of ARCs than the actual books, which is why hardcore collectors tend to gobble them up just on the off-chance that an author might become collectible.
Hardcore collectors are a different breed from most readers, though. Heck, they’re somewhat different from fans, although not as much. I say that to emphasis that question of whether or not these ARCs should be sold to them is not even going to enter the picture in their heads. It’s just done in an effort to preserve things that they know might become collectible, i.e. of value in the future.
So, I honestly have to wonder if an academic wanted or, even better, needed an ARC for, say, research purposes, just how bothered they’d be by those three little words on a cover…
And, no, I’m not being sarcastic, I’m being brutally honest here because we are talking about something that can become extremely rare as people do destroy, lose and downright misplace them due to misconceptions like those within this very thread.
#25 by Keira on December 17, 2009 - 8:31 am
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I second everything AQ says here. An ARC is not a free product. Reviewers are expected to take the ARC and read it, review it, and promote it somehow online via blog, twitter, or other. It’s a lot of work. If you’re a reviewer who happens to be on 100 ARC mailing lists and get hundreds of unsolicited ARCs that’s a whole other ball of wax, but most reviewers are not on automatic mailing lists.
Things I have done with my ARCs include: sharing with the librarians at my local library (very small probably never sees ARCs otherwise) so they could see and read the book themselves and possibly add to the library’s general circulation (by buying a copy) and sharing with friends who would not have heard of the author otherwise. I have never sold one, not because I find it unethical, but because I can always find someone to give it to who would LOVE it or because I wanted to keep it myself.
I am of the opinion that selling unreviewed ARCs is unethical.
#26 by AQ on December 17, 2009 - 9:06 am
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I don’t have comment box problem but when the comments run long, it’s an awful lot of blank white space and scrolling. In fact, more blank space than text.
#27 by Victoria Janssen on December 17, 2009 - 10:25 am
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When you get galleys/uncorrected proofs and sometimes ARCS, there is often language printed on them such as “limited distribution” or “not for sale” and sometimes “not to be quoted.” This is by no means consistent among publishers. Some have no disclaimers printed on them at all.
Also, there’s a market for them as rarities, if the book turned out to be famous or the author is well-known or it’s autographed or, well, rare in some way.
Most ARCs just take up space, I feel – once the “real” book is out, they don’t have much intrinsic worth aside from, perhaps, the academic.
#28 by Robin on December 17, 2009 - 11:37 am
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@Laura Vivanco: I feel very much the same way about books as you do. Consequently, I have been unable to either sell or trash or recycle any of my books, whether they be ARCs or finished copies. Currently, I just box and store what I can’t accommodate on my shelves (and I’ve boxed some for library donation, although I’ve not yet sent them), and at some point I’ll probably have to come up with some solution. It likely won’t ever be selling, at least not for the ARCs, but I can’t really face the idea of throwing them away, either.
#29 by Robin on December 17, 2009 - 11:57 am
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Actually, now that I think about it, IIRC the new FTC rules require us to trash ARCs after we finish reviewing them, so I guess I’m going to have to get used to that idea PDQ, lol. Oh, well, if I’m required to do it, it’s a bit easier, actually.
#30 by dick on December 17, 2009 - 1:11 pm
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Anything that you haven’t solicited that is sent or given to you becomes yours, doesn’t it? I can see nothing wrong with selling whatever it is, regardless the reason it was sent. I had no qualms whatsoever selling some unordered books I received in the mail.
#31 by Ann Somerville on December 17, 2009 - 4:17 pm
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“Anything that you haven’t solicited that is sent or given to you becomes yours, doesn’t it?”
Not in every country. In the UK, yes, in Australia, no. Don’t know what the law is in America.
If you are a reviewer and have a policy of accepting ARCs without noticed, I think you would be hard pressed to argue the goods are truly unsolicited, even if the publisher/author doesn’t expect you to return them. I’d have thought the real risk to a reviewer who consistently sells ARCs is that publishers will stop sending them, but then I’ve yet to see any hard evidence that the publishers give a damn. It seems to be more an author issue, if it’s an issue at all.
#32 by Jessica on December 17, 2009 - 6:37 pm
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@AQ: @Laura Vivanco: I am having my Wizard Behind the Scenes look into the comment problems. Hopefully will get straightened out.
@Robin: you are right, that the fact that publishers do not want them to be sold is neither necessary nor sufficient for those words “not for resale” to generate a legitimate claim. If we had an obligation to fulfill every claim anyone made on us, things would get impossible pretty fast.
I guess I was wondering whether you agreed to those terms by voluntarily accepting the book. (answer may be “No.”) Amateur reviewers do not have to take ARCs.they can get books from the library or they can purchase them. It is a choice. Everyone seems to agree that taking ARCs does obligate reviewers to at least one or two things, for example, to actually reviewing the book on their blog. I do not think it is so crazy to wonder whether reviewers may also have an obligation not to sell the ARC.
Indeed, at least one defender of selling ARCs, AQ, feels that making $ from selling the ARC is, far form being something a publisher can ban, something a publisher ought to explicitly encourage or allow as part of the deal for the review.
The obligation not to sell – if there is one — may be generated from a totally different place than a voluntary agreement: Indeed, the more I see comments like those in this thread opposed to the practice, the more I think people view it as a character question. Sure, you CAN do it, but if you do, isn’t that a bit … unseemly, or as I said in the post, double dipping in some way?
I might say that the opposers view it more as a matter of etiquette or taste than ethics (as in “sure, you can grab that third helping at the pot luck but …”), but I don’t think that covers everyone. As I look around on line and even in this thread, I see language being used that suggests people who oppose it don’t just think it is wrong for them personally (like sardines on pizza might not work for them), but wrong for anyone similarly situated. That’s an ethical claim.
When I see people make ethical claims like this, it’s my personality to wonder what is behind them which is why I raised several possible theories in the post. I’ll have to think more about why profiting from something free is considered a kind of vice (or not a virtuous thing to do). Puritan work ethic? Not sure.
But for my part, mere repugnance without sound reasoning is not enough to justify an ethical claim.
#33 by AQ on December 17, 2009 - 7:18 pm
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Not if the author or publisher wants to have the posted review around the time of release when sales numbers are godlike. Assuming that a priority and purpose of ARCs.
Then I counter with my own crazy to wonder whether reviewers should be paid for their time and have a written contract between two parties (the reviewer & ??? would the question). Which opens a whole different can of ethical worms. Sorry, I’m crazy that way because online reviewers are taking the place of professional publications.
#34 by katiebabs on December 17, 2009 - 7:29 pm
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I would love to see when the day comes that a book blogger gets paid for a review. You never know, with such publications like Kirkus closing, it may happen sooner than you think.
Look at it this way, a book is anywhere from $7-$25, so basically a reviewer is getting paid if you think of it, just not in dollars but in books.
#35 by Ann Somerville on December 17, 2009 - 7:42 pm
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“reviewers should be paid for their time and have a written contract between two parties”
I am really unhappy at the idea of a contract between reviewers and publishers. For one, like payment of any kind (or tied advertising), it casts doubt on objectivity and honesty. For second, if publishers thought for a second they could impose the requirement for positive reviews on reviewers, they would do it – and I already have personal experience of publishers refusing to send more ARCs to me because my reviews weren’t positive enough (I’m not alone in this either.) If the very act of receiving an ARC constitutes some kind of payment or reward for a review, then that obligation is a restraint on the reviewer which taints their work. Some reviewers, notoriously, are perfectly happy to let their reviews conform to publisher expectations in exchange for that reward. Many refuse to.
An ARC is not a gift or a reward. It’s a sample to allow prospective vuyers judge the value of the product. Most samples are pretty unappealing, actually. Samples are not given out as rewards or payment, and should not be seen as such. That’s why I don’t have a strong feeling about their resale -they have little or no intrinsic value to the reviewer. I do believe that if a reviewer accepts print ARCs, they should do so with a firm intention of trying to review most they get, or they should tell the publisher they can’t handle anything other than books they actively ask for. But provided they accept them in good faith, make an honest attempt to review the book (or at least look at the thing to decide if they can review it) then the reviewer should be able to dispose of the book as they see fit (depending on the law, of course.)
#36 by Laura Vivanco on December 17, 2009 - 8:25 pm
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It seems to me that
(a) writing a review is work and
(b) it doesn’t seem to be thought of as contrary to the Puritan work ethic to profit from the earth’s natural resources. Then “profiting from something free” has been thought of as “fishing,” “berry-picking,” “being a lumberjack,” “keeping the nation’s economy afloat by drilling, baby, drilling!” etc. Of course there are ethical (and environmental) issues involved when profiting from these “free” resources, but there does seem to be a difference in how this is viewed from how selling ARCs is viewed.
So I’m not so sure that the problem people have with ARCs is due to the “Puritan work ethic.” Or perhaps I just don’t know enough about the “Puritan work ethic.”
#37 by Jessica on December 17, 2009 - 8:58 pm
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@Laura Vivanco: That helps. Maybe it’s not that it’s free, then, but that people think of the book as gifted. Unlike pay for work.
Maybe this comes down to a tension between two ways of looking at reviewing: one as an unpaid labor of love, in which there just happens to be an exchange of services and something of a small monetary value. In this sense, the ARC is more like a gift.
The other picture says reviewing is a kind of paid labor, and the book is the payment. Perhaps it is a token payment, given the amount of time one might spend on a review, like an honorarium for giving a lecture. Like any payment, I can do what I want with my pay.
I am not sure where to put Ann’s view that it is a “free sample”, but that one is compelling too.
#38 by BevBB on December 17, 2009 - 9:59 pm
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@Jessica:
Actually, isn’t it more like a promotional item?
Something I believe might be getting lost is that the original versions of ARCs were (are?) a necessary part of the printing process. They were the product of a check just before the book goes into final printing. So, these extra “not quite ready” copies existed and the question became what to do with all of them. Toss them out, waste stoage space on them or let them help pay for themselves by spreading them around as advance informational/promo material…
Always seems to circle back to those choices for some odd reason.
#39 by AQ on December 17, 2009 - 10:06 pm
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@BevBB:
But then don’t you have to take into account the publisher’s, author’s or agent’s intent in sending them out to reviewers? Publicity for minimum cost without paying directly for the publicity.
After all if there were no ARCs then a reviewer might not even learn about a certain title or they’d choose not to read it. How many times do we hear reviewers say they were glad they were sent a particular book because otherwise they would’ve missed out.
#40 by Laura Vivanco on December 18, 2009 - 7:10 am
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I think anthropologists have some interesting things to say about gift-giving and how it tends to create obligations in the recipient of the gift, and there are lots and lots of complicated unwritten rules. I don’t know much about it, but I did find this quote which gives a sense of some of the complexities of gift-giving:
I wonder if some of the sense of obligation to the publisher/author on the part of reviewers varies according to how they see the relationship. For example
a) Some reviewers may see their relationship with the publisher as a purely professional one but the publisher is not their employer. This would be the case if the reviewer works for a newspaper, and the reviewer is thus getting ARCs which provide copy for the newspaper, in return for providing reviews, which give the publisher publicity. In this situation there may be written rules of conduct which set out the rules for how to deal with ARCs (and other “gifts”).
b) If, however, you are a blogger-reviewer, you may see the publisher as a friend, or at least an acquaintance, you may be flattered by the publisher’s attention, and so you are perhaps more likely to feel it is somehow wrong to sell on gifts received from a friend/acquaintance.
c) Some blogger-reviewers perhaps see the relationship between them and the publishers as a more professional one, but without quite the same structure as is in place for the reviewer who’s being paid by a newspaper. In that case, the reviewer may see the ARC as payment, and therefore something that the reviewer should be able to sell on in order to receive recompense for her/his work.
d) I’m sure there are other possibilities too, including the ones involving those of us who have rather intense and somewhat irrational feelings of friendship and affection for the books themselves
#41 by Laura Vivanco on December 18, 2009 - 7:12 am
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Jessica, is it because of the narrowness of the column that the long quotation in my last post has come out looking like a poem rather than two paragraphs of prose?
#42 by BevBB on December 18, 2009 - 9:13 am
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@AQ:
Well, yeah, but what I was getting at more was what I see as the irony that the publishers were originally faced with essentially making an ethical choice of either trashing those existing copies or choosing to use them to promo the books. And one could definitely argue the ethics of it because it involved spreading around material that was “unfinished” prior to publication. Someone at the very beginning had to make that choice and set that precedent. Once done, they apparently all started doing it.
Since then, the process has very much evolved from something that was a rough manuscript looking version to something that’s so polished it can pass for a finished product complete with special ARC cover copy.
But the irony remains that the choice is almost identical to what the current possessors of the ARCs are faced with whether we’re talking paid or unpaid reviewers – keep them, trash them or somehow profit from them.
The real, bottom line question seems to me to be one of who do they really belong to once they’ve been given out like that as promotional items? Do publishers go around taking back bookmarks and posters and other such promotional materials? Do authors?
Or do they want them to remain out there continuing to promo the books in some fashion? See there’s the rub.
And that bottom line again.
#43 by RfP on December 18, 2009 - 9:17 am
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This issue is always difficult to dissect because it may be seen as two separate questions or as two parts of one question:
1. Whether selling the ARC is ethical
2. Whether the purchase results in decreased sales or additional publicity for the author
I treat these as separate questions. Regardless of the effects of the sale, I still have to settle with myself the ethics of *my* role in the sale. The effect doesn’t relocate the onus of the decision; just because the sale doesn’t hurt (or ultimately helps) the author, or doesn’t bring me much money, or gives joy to others, doesn’t mean that I should participate in that.
However, I think for many people the ultimate effect or buying the ARC may trump (or dictate) whether the act of selling the ARC is ethical. Jessica, I get the impression that you may be, like me, thinking of this as a two-question problem, so question 1 is what’s bothering you. Is that right?
#44 by Jessica on December 18, 2009 - 9:22 am
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@Laura Vivanco: Although I like the idea of bringing out your poetic side, I got rid of the second side bar. Working on the quote issue.
#45 by AQ on December 18, 2009 - 9:29 am
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Laura, Ann, Rfp comments brought something to mind for me and that’s my obligations to the gift-giver. If I receive a “gift” and I consider it personal, then my personal obligation is greater than if I receive payment and consider it a business transaction. If anything, the influence I’m under (me personally in this given scenario) to give a positive review or at least not tear something apart would be greater. Now I might be able to counteract that but it would need to be a conscious effort. It’s rather drug companies like giving pens to doctors.
#46 by AQ on December 18, 2009 - 9:36 am
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@BevBB:
What is the actual objection raised by the givers of the ARCs and what data do they present to prove their claims?
I know it’s kind of outside the realm but of course now I want to know. Obviously they can do things. We don’t see Harry Potter ARCs lying around. So if ARC are truly an issue I see a simple sign this contract agreeing to not sell this and we’ll send you the ARC. And yet I don’t generally hear that in these discussions. Not that it doesn’t happen.
BevBB, so the other ARC question becomes: if you are a mind to sell them with the intent to make money, are you better off selling them before release date or holding them until they become collectors items? Selling them to a used book store after release would probably only snag a dollar so I’m not seeing that it would be worth it. How many ARCs would bring any type of significant dollars and what do we consider significant in this conversation?
#47 by AQ on December 18, 2009 - 9:42 am
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PS to comment #45: Many times when I hear the complaints by authors about ARC sales, it sounds like they have feelings of personal betrayal. So it’s obviously an obligation that goes both ways for some individuals.
#48 by BevBB on December 18, 2009 - 9:43 am
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You know, I had a kind of a thought just now. There is a third option. Why not pass them on to other reviewers? Not sure how that might be done logistically but it would keep them in circulation for promoting the books and avoid the tangle of the ethical question.
Baring, of course, any stupid regulations that interfere with something so simple and logical maybe happening.
See, it’s a lot easier for us just readers who recieve these things on occasion. I have one ARC in my possession, at least that I can remember, and I did not buy it. It was given to me – signed – by a favorite author. So, this headache is not an issue for me.
And truly I probably wouldn’t think twice about coming at this from the other side as a fan, collector or simply a devoted reader and buying an ARC that I wanted.
Which is why I also keep telling people that authors are not simply readers and neither are those that choose to review either. Once one crosses that line, one has entered new territory. Doesn’t mean one isn’t a reader any longer, just that there’s a new dimension attached to everything that makes things a lot more complicated.
#49 by AQ on December 18, 2009 - 9:52 am
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@BevBB:
But then isn’t the reviewer assuming a cost (mailing) to help promote the book? Where are the lines between just being a reviewer and becoming part of the promotional machine?
So very, very true.
***
Jessica, doesn’t this have a certain similar feeling to the conversation we had about authors participating on blogs? How there are different types of blogs from pure fandoms to indepth analytical “takedowns” (to borrow a WWF phrase) and everything in between. Each type of blog has a different set of expectations as it applies to author interaction. Wouldn’t it reasonable to assume that non-professional or rather unpaid reviewers would have as many flavors as they are blogs and that there is something similar here as to how they approach their reviews and their “relationships?” Which I know was part of Laura’s point above.
#50 by BevBB on December 18, 2009 - 11:17 am
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@AQ:
That’s something someone more interested in the current publishing side things would have to address. My interest is more in collecting and the historical evolution of the printing process itself. The part I find fascinating is that at least some of the ARCs do have those specialty promo covers instead of simply plain brown ones, so to speak. To me that says a lot about their intended purpose.
Um, for me, the before or after the release date question is sort of irrelevant. How to explain without going on forever though.
Okay, typically, value accrues over time in collecting anything, if it’s going to at all. Which is why book dealers are probably the ones who do gobble up the majority of the ARCs at the lowest prices and then stash them away in the hopes that they will become collector’s items. They are essentially gambling. Or investing, whichever term they feel comfortable using.
So, basically what we’re dealing with is something my father always taught me which is that the worth of something is what someone is willing to pay for it right that minute. You either wait for it to become valuable or you find someone who thinks it’s valuable right now. Which in this situation means a fan, not a collector. So, you see why I always make the distinction between the two groups and emphasize time here. It all has meaning and it all affects relative value.
But to be even more direct, hopefully, value also depends a lot on several other factors and the popularity of the author is only one of those and sometimes a relatively small one at that. Consider if an uncorrected promo ARC existed of Christina Dodd’s three armed heroine cover. Not saying one exists, just saying that books with “mistake” covers like that are some of the most collectible items out there and an ARC of one? It would boggle the mind because it would conceiveably be even more rare.
Then there’s simply the fact that so many paperbacks are collected for the covers in the first place combined with ARC special covers sometimes not matching the final products anyway. That they may actually be a test cover that gets changed and so they’re even more rare.
There’s just no way of knowing until time passes and things play themselves out. See what I mean?
#51 by AQ on December 18, 2009 - 12:47 pm
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@BevBB:
Thank you for the explanation. It makes sense and I think it’s relevant to the discussion. As a person who understands the collector aspect is there any way current to determine how many ARC copies are created? Something on the order of how many pennies were minted with a certain mark? Is that relevant to this collectible now? can you ever imagine that it would be in the future or is this something that is irrelevant because there are too many unknowns such as publisher ARC vs. agent ARC vs. author ARC vs. whatever?
To all: Does time make a difference for the people who believe it’s unethical to sell an ARC? If I held onto to an ARC for 20 years would that make a difference in whether or not it was ethical for me to sell it?
#52 by BevBB on December 18, 2009 - 4:27 pm
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Again, it’s not how many but how few finally remain that’s important in terms of collecting unless of course one is simply a fan. Always remember that fans pounce on things for completely different reasons than collectors and yet fans are a type of collector. And one never knows what will ultimately set off a reason for something being considered collectible.
As to the question of determining how many ARCs are actually printed or created, though, I’m sure the publisher and possibly individual authors know how many were created and ultimately passed out.
Just as an experiment, run this search in your bowser if anyone is interested: collectibles, books, ARCs
Or alternatively: collectibles, paperbacks, ARCs
You’ll get some fascinating results but pay attention to how often romances show up on various category lists. One generally has to search for either it or love story as a keyword to find anything remotely within range.
#53 by Robin on December 18, 2009 - 4:44 pm
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@Jessica:
The word “ethical” carries a lot of weight for me, so I don’t use it lightly. Calling someone or something “unethical” is, for me, a substantial and serious charge — every bit as serious as accusing someone of stealing or cheating or the like. So I very much appreciate the desire to root out the reasoning behind these different feelings we each have about ARCs.
I do have to wonder, though, if in communities where there is not a lot of author and reader interaction — where, for example, we aren’t constantly imbibing authorial views on things, from ARC sales to digital publishing and the like — whether people would have a different sense of the ARC. There just seems to be so much author loyalty and *personalization* of an author’s work in, well, at least the Romance culture, but I’m sure it’s not the only one like this, that I really do wonder if the ARC can be seen by some as an extension of the author-reader connection. Not that ARCs are anthropomorphized, exactly, but that they’re given significance beyond their production and distribution as promotional copies.
I have to say, though, that the thought of viewing ARCs as a “gift” as some were discussing above, just squicks me out on many levels, not the least of which is the idea that receiving the ARC creates some obligatory relationship between the recipient and the publisher. Now if an author sends an ARC explicitly with a review request, that’s another thing, IMO. But it does concern me a bit that readers would feel obligated to a publisher should they receive an ARC. To employ AQ’s example of getting free movie tickets, would that make someone feel they owed the movie studio some sort of obligation? That they had some relationship to the studio?
As Laura was pondering above, it’s tough when you have a community of people who love books not to put some sort of value on the physical copy, even if it’s an ARC. And maybe that’s core here — if we didn’t value books, per se, this wouldn’t be an issue at all. And I think reviewers have particular issues to deal with in the way they deal with ARCs that may shape the trust that authors and publishers place in them in sending them future ARCs.
I can imagine that publishers might be thrilled to think they are instilling a sense of obligation in ARC recipients (I shudder a little to think if some publishers aren’t reading some of these comments quite happily). But I think it’s a very, very sticky place we get into where an ARC creates any formal or informal relationship between reader and publisher. In fact, where book reviewing is concerned, I think the notions of honesty and neutrality are best served when there is no perceived obligation and no sense of specialness around the ARC, so better understanding how ARCs are perceived and why seems like a pretty worthy project, IMO.
#54 by AQ on December 18, 2009 - 5:23 pm
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@BevBB:
Thanks! I’m not a collector but I find things like ARCs fascinating so I’m having fun going through the Google links. The thing that strikes me is that there seems to be luck and hard work involved. Luck in getting hold the right ARC and hard work finding that right someone willing to buy it.
Most ARCs aren’t going to be worth that much unless the stars align. (Your post #50. )
I hope more ARCs escape the shredding bin. Not enough to flood the collectors’ market but enough to help us look at history within the book world since hand-written drafts are probably a thing of the past. Are there hand-marked editorial galleys floating around for sale? (Yeah, I know google. I’m on it. LOL)
Robin:
Would that change if one of the stars gave the movie tickets to a private viewing that they were hosting?
Robin, to take what you said one step further about the “gift” aspect: Are ARCs a form of author branding? Would there be a difference between sending the final print book vs. the ARC?
#55 by Katie Mack on December 19, 2009 - 4:47 pm
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Reading everyone’s comments has made me think a lot more about why I don’t feel comfortable with selling the ARCs I receive.
While I understand the argument behind considering an ARC a publisher’s “payment” for a review, I personally shy away from that. I also don’t view ARCs as “gifts” from the publisher. For me, both concepts imbue the ARC with a sense of obligation — to an “employer” on one hand, and a feeling of gratitude or reciprocity to the giver on the other — that I absolutely do NOT want. I write reviews solely because I want to, and I want the emotional freedom to write them as honestly as I can. Feeling a sense of obligation to the publisher would only serve to dampen that emotional freedom.
So I don’t consider ARCs to be either a payment or a gift, but I really don’t know what label I would assign them. Which I think is a big reason why I don’t feel comfortable selling them. For me to justify (to myself) selling them, I’d have to figure out what exactly I consider them. Since, at this point, I haven’t figured that out, I don’t feel right making money off of them.
I’d like to point out that just because I feel this way, doesn’t mean I expect everyone else to feel the same way, nor do I negatively judge others who feel differently. I don’t consider a reviewer making a few bucks from selling an ARC that she reviewed to be an issue strong enough to warrant me labeling the practice “unethical” — which I consider a very weighted word.