Here's Something Different

youngadultARCs is a website devoted to sharing ARCs. ARCs are advanced reader copies (my publisher refers to them as bound galleys) that are distributed before publication to reviewers, librarians, booksellers, etc. The idea is to give reviewers an opportunity to read the books and write a review that will be published around publication time, to give librarians an opportuntity to decide whether or not they want to purchase the book for their collections, to give booksellers...well, you get the point.

ARCs are not for resale or for use in library collections. They are bound from uncorrected galleys so there may be all kinds of printers' errors, the authors and editors may make changes, and they may not include illustrations. To treat these as a finished book is unjust both to the author and publisher and to the reading public. The book just isn't finished.

So what should people with access to arcs do with them after they've read them? Well, the folks at this website came up with an idea for sharing them. The site looks as if it serves primarily young adult librarians. It looks to me as if this is an attempt to pass arcs around to exactly the people who should be reading them.

Arcs shouldn't be sold on ebay, people!!! They shouldn't be shelved with library collections!!! (I saw 3 arcs on the new book shelf at a nearby library last September. One of them wasn't going to be published until next month.) They should be passed along to librarians, teachers, booksellers, anyone who is in the business of talking up books.

Good luck, youngadultARCs.

I found youngadultARCs through bookshelves of doom, which I found through Kids Lit.