In 2007, we wrote about a new book publicity trend: ARC giveaway programs, in which publishers provide early copies of books to citizen reviewers through book sites or their own sites. Two years later, these programs have grown quite a bit. Details on a few:
BookBrowse.com First Impressions
- Publisher’s fee: $750/promotion; members pay $30/year.
- Titles are promoted for 4 weeks from publication and are included in one issue of BookBrowse’s e-mail newsletter. A maximum of 5 books per month are promoted.
- Publishers can offer 20–50 ARCs; 80% of members who receive an ARC review it.
- “Publishers are finding more ways to use the reviews gathered, such as posting them on bookseller websites, using them in media kits, seeding the review sections of their own websites and so on,” says Executive Editor Davina Morgan-Witts. “The ability for publishers to gather good quality reader reviews is very valuable, because a significant percentage of readers value reader reviews higher than professionally written media reviews. We’ve asked this question in a number of surveys and about 40% of respondents say they value reader reviews higher.”
- An online book club will launch later this year.
Bookreporter.com Author Spotlight
- Publishers can choose 4- or 8-week promotions, each of which includes homepage promotion, a review, an author interview, an excerpt, and more. “Based on publisher interest we’ve added literary fiction and women’s fiction to our existing list of genres: fiction, historical fiction, suspense/thriller, romantic suspense, mystery, and fantasy,” says President Carol Fitzgerald.
- Campaigns are being restructured for 2010 to include three tiers of participation options, allowing publishers to give away different numbers of ARCs. Prices for 4-week Author Spotlight: 20 ARCs ($2,900), 50 ARCs ($3,200), 100 ARCs ($3,600). Prices for 8-week Author Spotlight: 20 ARCs ($4,800), 50 ARCs (5,100), 100 ARCs ($5,500).
- Launching a new promotion, Sneak Peek: An Early Look at an Upcoming Book, in 2010. “The strategy here will be to start to build buzz with an early galley, perhaps even in manuscript form, which typically has been used in the past for influential bookseller and librarian readers,” says Fitzgerald. “These titles may be shared six to nine months in advance of publication, as opposed to the current features, which are more tied to pub dates.” There will be two options: a standard Early Reader Campaign and an online Focus Group option, which matches readers to the publisher’s target audience and gives them a series of questions to respond to after they finish the book. “Our feeling is that many publishers are looking to test the waters on a book for potential audiences,” says Fitzgerald. “Others are just looking for early readers to build buzz.” Pricing for the Focus Group option will most likely range from $3,400 for 25 ARCs to $4,000 for 100 ARCs. Prices for a standard Early Reader campaign will range from $2,200 to $2,600.
Goodreads First Reads
- Launched in June 2008, due to member demand.
- Free. To date, there have been over 800,000 giveaways from over 630 authors and publishers. Last month, the program listed 210 titles for giveaway.
- “In the spirit of the program, giveaway winners are encouraged, but not required, to write reviews of the books they receive, and most do,” says Jessica Donaghy, Community Manager and Features Editor.
LibraryThing Early Reviewers
- Free. The program started in 2007 with 95 copies of 5 Random House titles; LibraryThing now gives away 1,000–2,000 titles per month and works with 275 publishers and imprints. “We now have publishers all over, though still mainly English-speaking, and are offering books to many countries—the UK, France, Germany, and more,” says Head Librarian Abby Blachly. “Next month we actually have a Catalan publisher participating for the first time!”
- Publishers can give away e-books and audiobooks.
- Self-published and vanity press works aren’t allowed, says Blachly, “which has angered a few members, but both publishers and members reacted strongly when we included self-published books before.”
- In February 2009, LibraryThing launched a Member Giveaway program that allows authors to give out books directly. “We made Member Giveaway for authors who couldn’t get their publisher to sign on to Early Reviewers, couldn’t get enough copies together, or whose book was already out,” says Blachly. Authors have given away 6,420 books since February.
