While we were busy looking at hotties all last week, the gang at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books was thrashing out the issue of acceptable behavior when you’ve been given an advance reading copy. Most of the romance writers who hang out in the SB,TB comments section all seem to agree it’s bad form to sell galleys on eBay, but after that opinions start to vary. “The ARC says ‘NOT FOR SALE’ on it,” says Deborah Hern. “It’s clear language. Um duh?? What’s confusing?” So, if she decides not to keep her review copies, “I rip them apart, literally page by page. It’s an amazingly effective way to de-stress, and it gets rid of the ARC.” Nora Roberts is a little less hardcore, advising ARC-holders to “give it to a reader friend, donate it to a non-profit, hand it to your mama if she likes to read or throw it away.”
But not everybody agrees. “The publisher who doesn’t want a copy sold shouldn’t give it away,” says a commenter named John. “For all the joy that I get out of receiving ARCs, it seems to me that the publishers are forgetting one important thing,” adds a book reviewer. “Yes, we may be the plebes outside the industry, but as a reviewer and someone who actively promotes romance novels, I Am Doing Them A Favour. I am a cog in that great big wheel of publicity, and to be told what to do and what not to do as if I were a wayward child is really starting to rankle.” (Well, retorts Roberts, “if you believe, sincerely, that [reviewing her books] is a favor to me or the publisher, I want to relieve you of this… I can see to it that you are not asked to grant this favor again, for me or my publisher, as regards my books.” But then they made up.)