At first I thought it was an April Fool’s Day joke.
April 1 and there it was, big as life, right there on my computer—an offer on eBay to sell the ARC (advance reading copy) of my forthcoming DINING WITH DEVILS—a Tasmanian Thriller. Starting bid: $5.98 U.S.
A Tasmanian thriller, I hasten to point out, not due for release until April 15!
Whereupon I realized to my horror that the only fool involved in this scenario isn’t April, unless of course April is an author. The fool is ME.
WE AUTHORS ARE IN THE WRONG BUSINESS! We should be reviewers, which is what I believe the person peddling my ARC to be, although of course I cannot prove it because this person hasn’t revealed his/her true identity. Not surprising, that.
Talk about *lurks’n’perks*, as we’d call them in Oz ... this is a helluva rort. Think about it, folks—you get to read somebody else’s (hopefully excellent) book for nothing, write (or don’t bother to write) a brief (hopefully good and fair to the author and the story—or not) review and then you sell his/her—clearly marked NOT FOR SALE—ARC for twice as much as the author would get if somebody bought the real book. And you can do it again and again and again—just as long as publishers and/or authors will keep sending you free books to read. Consider the thousands of ARCs a reviewer sees in a given year—and can then sell at $5+ each. Maybe more than that. Maybe lots more! According to the person trying to sell my ARC, “They can also be highly Collectible”
And if you believe that one, have I got a bridge that might interest you. J
It’s money for jam! You don’t have to do the work of actually writing the book, you don’t have to dream up characters and plots or smell red herrings or do any of the real work—and you make twice as much from the NOT FOR SALE ARC as the author does from the book itself. How cool is that? And legal, too.
Except that if I were doing it, because I am an author and I respect authors and I respect writing and especially good writing, I would have the common decency to wait until the real book was actually on the market and had some chance to garner the benefits of my (hopefully useful, perhaps even complimentary) review. Fair is fair, after all.
I have no argument with reviewers selling ARCs on eBay or anywhere else once the review is written and published/posted and the book is out there in the marketplace. Let us be fair—what else should they do with them? I suppose one could use selected passages (truly great openings, for instance, like the one in DINING WITH DEVILS J) to wallpaper the loo, or something like that. But realistically the options for disposing of ARCs after review—even and/or especially ARCs clearly labeled NOT FOR SALE—are rather limited.
I also have no argument with you, me, or anyone else buying an ARC on eBay or anywhere else. Why shouldn’t we? It is legal, certainly. And all of us can’t afford to “buy new.”
What I do object to is selling and/or buying the ARCs before the *real* books themselves are even available. And to the seller using deceptive wording to try and pass him/herself off as a good guy instead of admitting up front that he/she is a reviewer selling off books ... books that he/she might actually have never even bothered to review ... as happens all too often.
Consider this: The ad for my ARC comes with the disclaimer: “I bought this book at a library book sale, it is an advance reading copy, soft cover. It looks like it has only been read once by a reviewer, who no doubt wrote a glowing review of the book. No spine creases.”
Yeah, right. Except that this particular seller has sold 355 items on eBay since 2001 and lists several dozen other ARC’s … all with the identical disclaimer. Including some that I know have the same release date as my own book because I know the author/publisher involved. And the NOT FOR SALE label on each offering’s cover photo has been doctored with white-out.
No mention that the seller has read the book and agrees or even disagrees with this theoretical reviewer. No mention that the seller has read any of the ARCs offered for sale. No suggestion that the seller can even read.
There’s also the disclaimer that goes: “An ARC (Advance Reader's Copy) is an early release of a book to a book reviewer for their opinion of the book. Although sometimes marked Uncorrected Proof or Not for Sale
they usually contain all of the text of the final publication and they can legally be sold once given out by the publisher. They sometimes have a plain cover and they are almost always paperback. They can also be highly Collectible.”
I will therefore bet, even if I cannot prove it, that the seller is not some good-hearted soul who goes around buying from “Friends-of-the-Library” sales to help libraries—and is now sharing that largess with decent, legitimate readers. Not bloody likely! This person is a benefactor to nobody but himself/herself.
I also would bet good money (if I had any) that the seller is a reviewer who’s found a good lurk and is cashing in—without having the common decency to admit to being a reviewer who is padding the piggy bank, or even admitting to being nothing more than a common, garden-variety peddler, with dollar signs for eye-balls and no genuine reader’s soul at all. Clearly this person has no honest respect for readers, authors, publishers—and is therefore (in my humble opinion) a person who doesn’t deserve to be a reviewer. If he/she/it is a reviewer.
Not to put too fine a point on it, if the eBay seller really is what I suspect, then he/she/it is nothing but a parasite, a charlatan and a liar. But he/she/it isn’t alone. Peddlers with no genuine respect for authors, books—or readers—are busily flogging all over the internet.
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