You may have seen your favorite bookish content creators talking about books that haven’t been released yet. It’s highly likely that these folks have received advance reader copies (ARCs) of these books to read and review. Publishers will often provide advance copies to book stores and libraries so that they can make purchasing decisions for their inventory. Publishers will also offer advance copies to reviews and influencers to generate buzz and marketing for their books.
If you’re interested in receiving review copies, keep reading for resources that I’ve used. This post will cover how to access digital ARCs. I do receive a few physical ARCs through influencer teams, but I’ll write about those separately.
NetGalley
One of the most common websites to request digital ARCs is NetGalley. This is the website I’m most familiar with and have experience requesting and receiving books, so I’ll spend most of this post talking about it. It’s free to sign up for an account and create a profile. Be honest with your status and give some information in your bio as to what you like to read and review. My profile specifies that I’m a reviewer who posts on my own website and I’ve selected my favorite categories. The bio section lets you add even more info about what you like to read and where you talk about books. Here’s my most recent bio:
Binge reader of historical romance novels (with a few contemporaries thrown in for fun). I love to read series in order and binge an author’s entire backlist.
I read for fun, not to be critical, so I share positive things I enjoy from books. (I don’t usually share things I dislike because those might be things someone else enjoys – also, if I was bored, I’ve probably skimmed over that section and got right to the section that interests me).
http://instagram.com/randomolive with 32k+ followers
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Writing about books at https://randomolivereads.substack.com/
To browse for books you want to read, you can look at the category or the publisher. If you have a favorite publisher, you can add it to your favorites list. Each publisher will have a section that describes the characteristics they’re looking for in reviewers. I generally keep a tab open on my computer and check to see if new books are added to the romance category each day; if there’s something interesting, I’ll go ahead and click the button to request it. Depending on the publisher, I’ll usually receive an email of approval within a few days. Alternatively, you can check the section for “Read Now” books where the books are freely available to review without waiting for the publisher’s approval.
After you’ve been approved or selected a Read Now book, there are a couple of ways to actually read the ebook. My preferred method is to send the book to Kindle (following the instructions on NetGalley); this lets me read the book on my iphone using the Kindle app and on my Kindle Paperwhite e-reader. There are also options to read using the NetGalley app or to download the epub file.
I generally read and review the books I have on my NetGalley shelf in chronological order by publication date. My goal is to submit a review of the book before it is published. The amount of time you might have before the release date may vary: smaller publishers may have shorter times (Dragonblade Publishing usually puts books up for request about a week or two before the publication date), while traditional publishers may make the book available for request months before the publication date (At the time of writing this, I requested a book from Avon Books that is scheduled to release in 6 months). Books are available to request until removed by the publisher (usually at the time when the book is published).
After reading the book, it’s important to go back to the website to submit a review. This gives the publisher early feedback on the book and gives them material to use in any marketing materials. In order to keep requesting future books, consistently returning feedback is essential. NetGalley tracks the number of requests, approvals, and reviews on your profile and publishes a Feedback Ratio, which is the percent of reviews returned divided by the number of titles approved. The higher the Feedback Ratio, the more likely a profile is to be approved for future books. Here’s what my current Feedback Ratio looks like (I started requesting and reviewing consistently in Jan 2022; data collected Oct 2022):
Feedback Ratio: 82%
77 Approved | 63 Feedback Sent
Recommended feedback ratio is 80%
Since NetGalley explicitly tells us the recommended feedback ratio, I try to keep up with the ARCs I’m reading and submit reviews as soon as I finish the book. This helps maintain my feedback ratio even though I’m consistently requesting three to four books each week.
Edelweiss
With Edelweiss, there is a lot of overlap with the books available on NetGalley, but sometimes books will appear here first. I have registered for an account and requested a few books, but I have not been approved on this website. From what I’ve read online, this site is mostly aimed towards booksellers rather than reviewers/influencers.
BookSirens
BookSirens seems to have books from smaller publishers and there is a different book selection than on NetGalley. The book request information will often specify if the review should be cross-posted to Goodreads or Amazon and often your review will not be considered complete until it is cross-posted. I’ve reviewed a couple of books from here and it’s a good source for smaller publishers.
BookSprout
BookSprout is yet another source for books from smaller publishers. I have not reviewed any books from this site, although I did create an account.
Individual Author Teams
Sometimes authors will cultivate their own ARC team and send them out to their trusted list of reviewers. If you’re a superfan of any one author, you should follow their social media accounts, sign up for their newsletter, and then keep an eye out for review opportunities.
Overall, I enjoy being able to read books before they’re published and not having to be on the waitlist for a new release from the library. The external deadline of reading and reviewing before the publication date helps me with keeping up with all the books I want to read anyway. Just be careful not to overwhelm yourself with too many ARCs!
Thanks so much for reading this post! Looking for more bookish resources and romance book reviews? Read the archives!
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