On free books, and how to thank authors: how do you value a book?

aruna · Nov 21, 2015

This is an excellent blog post, posted today on a Facebook book club I'm a member of. Someone -- actually, it was the publicity manager of my publisher -- complained about people getting free books from Netgalley, only to never review them, and the general rudeness of some readers badgering her for free books. I know the problem first hand -- people asking for, and getting, free print copies of my books, only to never say a further word, not even a thank you. So this book club member wrote a piece on the subject.

I've already shared on FB, and it's worth getting the message out to readers.

Yes, I am occasionally offered free books for review but I never take that for granted. It’s a privilege, not a right.
It’s an agreement between me and the person who has made the request or the publisher on the website I’ve downloaded it from.
This agreement has to be respected and fulfilled. On the exceptionally rare occasion me and a book don’t match I will offer an alternative review source.
I don’t say yes to everything I’m offered and I don’t badger people for free copies of the books I want to read.

shadowwalker · Nov 21, 2015

I'm going to have to disagree with two points in the article.

Getting a free book to review is not a privilege. The reviewer is doing the author a favor if they actually read the book and post a review somewhere. The author may have worked like hell on that book, but the reviewer may have fifty such authors, all "expecting" a review. Yes, if one asks for a free book to review, there's an obligation, but otherwise?

Second, the idea that getting a book as cheaply as possible (other than a pirated copy, of course) could cause a writer to quit for financial reasons - seems obvious that's not going to happen, since most writers don't live off their writing income anyway.

cornflake · Nov 21, 2015

What does "... on the rare occasion me and a book [sic] don't match I will offer an alternative review site..." mean? Given the later discussion of a 'balanced and fair minded review [sic]..." it makes me wonder if she's only giving positive reviews, in which case, she should stop reviewing books.

Liosse de Velishaf · Nov 21, 2015

I occasionally contribute to a book review blog run by a friend. He does all the book requests from NetGalley, and then he, I, and a female friend pick what we think will be interesting. Generally, if we read an ARC, it gets reviewed, though not always. Often, requested books don't get read. Maybe they waited too long to approve and we couldn't schedule it, or maybe we were just busy and didn't get to read or review every book we wanted. Maybe the book just is way outside our zone of interest despite what the ad copy suggested. It happens. Shit, John Scalzi gets stacks of ARCs every week and reviews basically none of them. Publishers take this stuff into consideration, and probably have a good idea what percentage of ARCs result in reviews.

And with SP books, chances are most reveiwers wouldn't have read it anyway, so there's no real loss in sales to the SP person if they give out free ARCs and many don't get reviewed.

In an ideal world, every ARC would get honestly reviewed. In the real world, they don't, and it's not a horrible thing.

aruna · Nov 21, 2015

shadowwalker said:
Getting a free book to review is not a privilege. The reviewer is doing the author a favor if they actually read the book and post a review somewhere. The author may have worked like hell on that book, but the reviewer may have fifty such authors, all "expecting" a review. Yes, if one asks for a free book to review, there's an obligation, but otherwise?

.

If you get a book from Netgalley (which is what this is about) you HAVE requested the book. There are readers who join Netgalley just to get free books, and then don't review them. Netgalley is a review site. If you don't have time to review, then don't join, and don't request books! Perhaps the blogger didn't specifically mention Netgalley, but that was the inspiration for the blog.

Second, the idea that getting a book as cheaply as possible (other than a pirated copy, of course) could cause a writer to quit for financial reasons - seems obvious that's not going to happen, since most writers don't live off their writing income anyway

Of course, one person getting a free book won't cause a writer to quit. That is true. But if everyone was to go around looking for free books, and never buying, author income would never be able to grow. And in fact I didn't quit for ten years when I was writing one book after the other and never finding a publisher or agent. But how much nicer it is to actually be selling books! I do give away a lot of free books, both digital and print. And I offer friends free books -- I just did so again today, but she said she'd buy it, and she did. But another (FB) friend asked for a free book...

Once, on another FB book club I'm a member of, I did a giveaway: three audio books, and ten digital books. People were very eager to get the free books. The deal was, as stipulated by the book club, that they should review within a month. Only one of them did. The audio books are very expensive if you buy them. Not one of the audio recipients reviewed it.

....but this was not supposed to be a grump. I thought the blog post was a gentle reminder to readers that we do, we really do, appreciate it when they review the free books they get.

shadowwalker · Nov 21, 2015

aruna said:
Of course, one person getting a free book won't cause a writer to quit. That is true. But if everyone was to go around looking for free books, and never buying, author income would never be able to grow.

But everyone doesn't do that. And not everyone can afford to buy books at retail prices, either, so without cheap/free books, the author would lose out on not only those readers, but the readers they refer to the book that can afford to buy them at full price.

aruna said:
....but this was not supposed to be a grump. I thought the blog post was a gentle reminder to readers that we do, we really do, appreciate it when they review the free books they get.

Unfortunately, the "appreciation" doesn't really come through when we're told it's a "privilege" to get these books to review.

I understand and accept that one shouldn't use a review site just to get free books. On the other hand, if a reviewer is one of those who only gives out "happy rainbow" reviews, not seeing one is probably an indication the reviewer didn't really like it.

Ravioli · Nov 21, 2015

cornflake said:
What does "... on the rare occasion me and a book [sic] don't match I will offer an alternative review site..." mean? Given the later discussion of a 'balanced and fair minded review [sic]..." it makes me wonder if she's only giving positive reviews, in which case, she should stop reviewing books.

Might mean they won't even read it in the first place because they don't connect to what the book is about and can't give a fair review for that reason?

Jamesaritchie · Nov 21, 2015

cornflake said:
What does "... on the rare occasion me and a book [sic] don't match I will offer an alternative review site..." mean? Given the later discussion of a 'balanced and fair minded review [sic]..." it makes me wonder if she's only giving positive reviews, in which case, she should stop reviewing books.

That's not only nonsense, it goes against every bit of common sense there is. There is no reason a reviewer should have to write bad reviews. Ever, for any reason. If you want to do so, feel free, but not everyone has this mindset, and for good reason.

Like many, I don't even read books I don't like, but not making it trhough a book does not mean that book is bad. Nor does giving a good review mean the book is good. You're drastically overestimating a reviewer's ability to tell good from bad, as opposed to books they simply like or dislike.

I only review books I like because I don't read books I don't like. This means I only give good reviews. If you have a problem with this, join critics anonymous. You have a higher estimation of your own ability, and the ability of other reviewers, than I do.

Jamesaritchie · Nov 21, 2015

shadowwalker said:
On the other hand, if a reviewer is one of those who only gives out "happy rainbow" reviews, not seeing one is probably an indication the reviewer didn't really like it.

Not really. Back when I did reviews, I was able to do three reviews per week. I received anywhere from twenty to fifty books per week. All I could do was pick five or six book, and then review the three that I liked enough to finish.

Too many "reviewers" do reviews base don jacket copy, by reading the first and last chapter. Honest reviews mean you read the entire book, and there is no way in hell for most reviews to read more than a tiny fraction of the books they receive. Some review sites receive hundreds of books per week. You can't tell anything by what doesn't get reviewed, and you can't tell much by what does get reviewed.

aruna · Nov 21, 2015

I tend to agree with JAR. There are lots of books I don't like, but I don't feel obliged to give a review. Especially if I didn't finish them. fact, I really only give bad reviews if the book is already wildly successful, and I feel the need to balance out all the rave reviews if I found the book truly terrible for one reason or another. This happens fairly frequently; I seem to not like most of the books that everyone is raving about. But if it's a fairly new author struggling to make a mark, I see no reason to give a bad review. And if I had received the book as a review copy for free, I would probably let the author know that I'm not going to review it, and for what reason.

shadowwalker · Nov 21, 2015

I see no reason to finish a book you don't like before giving a review, as long as you state you couldn't finish it and why. Nor do I see why anyone other than the author would have a problem with a negative review. This whole idea that you should either give good reviews or shut up is one reason I pay no attention to them as a reader. Reviewers aren't supposed to be cheerleaders.

Sage · Nov 21, 2015

I'm wondering if there's some confusion about how Netgalley works. It's a far cry from pestering a publisher/author for a book. The site itself separates the authors/publishers from the reviewers. The reviewers clicked a button that says that they're interested in reading and reviewing the book. If it doesn't work out, it's a little ridiculous to think that the reviewers should seek out the author's or publisher's information to tell them they're not doing a review. The incentive to review the book (other than liking to review or your sense of obligation upon receiving the book) is that the more you fail to review, the less likely you are to get approved for a copy. Publishers see your information before they approve you. They know what they're getting with that reviewer, at least when using that site.

The rest of this is my personal experience with Netgalley. Note that I am not a big book blogger, & many times the books I'm most interested in are not the ones that I am granted. Because of this, when I'm in a Netgalley mood, I tend to request more books than I could probably read in time with a variety between big publishers and small publishers, and sometimes I get more than expected. I try to review all the books I am granted, but sometimes I get backed up or choose not to after receiving the book.

There's often a date listed for when the book will become archived. I try to read the books in archive order, but if I get backed up and don't read the book by that date, I don't send a review to the site (though I might put one on Goodreads. At minimum I always put a rating on a book I read from NetGalley).

There's no way to preview a book before you request it, so if I start a book and realize I don't particularly want to spend time reading it for whatever reason, I don't feel like I have to. When I buy a book, I always preview, whether on my Kindle or in a bookstore. Sometimes I do still read to review, even if it's not something I like, but if it's something I can identify early on and I have other books to review, I'm not going to spend time on that one.

Some books do not have a "send to my Kindle" option, but that's not apparent at the time I request them. If I have to read them on my computer instead of my Kindle, I won't be reading them. (Note that to read them on my Kindle, I have to pay a small fee, but it's worth it to read the books on the Kindle)

The best book I've received from Netgalley is currently on my Christmas wishlist so I can get the hardcover. This author did not lose a sale to me, and in fact gained one because I never would've known I loved it so much until I read it. Only one book that I had planned to buy might have lost a sale because I had an eARC and didn't feel the need to buy it after reading, but perhaps I would've gotten a preview on Kindle or checked it out at B&N and not bought it anyway.

EMaree · Nov 21, 2015

Once they become established, book reviewers are sent a massive amount of books to read. Often these copies are unsolicited, and to expect a reviewer to enter into some sort of contract the minute a book lands on their doorstep/in their inbox seems ludicrous to me.

When you send a review copy to a reviewer, you're not doing them a blimmin' favour. You are asking them to give up their time, a precious commodity, and to put in the effort of writing you a review. It is not a small ask, and it's incredibly rude to ignore the hours they have to spend reading a novel and composing a review.

Getting to send a copy of your book to a soul who's giving what little free time they have to read your book, out of thousands of other amazing novels out there, isn't a hardship.

Reviews from readers are a gift.

LSMay · Nov 21, 2015

EMaree said:
Once they become established, book reviewers are sent a massive amount of books to read. Often these copies are unsolicited, and to expect a reviewer to enter into some sort of contract the minute a book lands on their doorstep/in their inbox seems ludicrous to me.

When you send a review copy to a reviewer, you're not doing them a blimmin' favour. You are asking them to give up their time, a precious commodity, and to put in the effort of writing you a review. It is not a small ask, and it's incredibly rude to ignore the hours they have to spend reading a novel and composing a review.

Getting to send a copy of your book to a soul who's giving what little free time they have to read your book, out of thousands of other amazing novels out there, isn't a hardship.

Reviews from readers are a gift.

I agree for the most part. But in the case where the free book has been offered and accepted with the explicit condition that the receiver writes a review, there really is no excuse. Particularly if it's a physical book that represents lost revenue to the author.

Liosse de Velishaf · Nov 21, 2015

I give "bad" reviews. I've only gotten one book from NetGalley that I hated so much I had to decline to review it. But I'll give a one-star review if that's what I think the book deserves, and have. But generally I can guess whether I'll like an ARC enough to finish by reading the description and maybe looking at Goodreads.

Samsonet · Nov 21, 2015

shadowwalker said:
I see no reason to finish a book you don't like before giving a review, as long as you state you couldn't finish it and why. Nor do I see why anyone other than the author would have a problem with a negative review. This whole idea that you should either give good reviews or shut up is one reason I pay no attention to them as a reader. Reviewers aren't supposed to be cheerleaders.

I guess it depends on how the reviewer sees their reviews. Like, some people use it as a form of literary criticism, and other people use it to give recommendations. There's no reason why people can't review things in the way that follows their style.

And on a related note, I think a lot of reviewers don't review some books out of the fear of getting a bottle smashed into their head...

aruna · Nov 22, 2015

My take is that if you are asking for more free books than you have time to review, maybe it's time to take a break from free books... it seems that once a book is free, readers feel less incentive to actually read, much less review them. They are more likely to read a book they have paid for; and the more expensive the book, the more likely to read them. So this is really about not asking for free books, and not entering giveaway contests if you have more books than you can manage. Especially not for print books.

These days, many of the books in giveaways are print-on-demand, and in my experience readers seem to think that authors have piles of free books lying around which they can send off. Another book club I'm a member of kept asking authors for books for giveaways. Not me, but other authors with my publisher said they kept getting requests for free books. I suggested that maybe the book-club people don't know that each book we donate costs us 4-5 GBP. I wrote a private message to the book-club admin, explaining that the authors they were asking had to pay for these donated books themselves, plus postage. The admin lady was very apologetic. Oh gosh! I didn't know that!!!! So sorry! And they stopped doing it.

I agree that it's a privilege to have a reader read my book from beginning to end, and I'm grateful for every review. But to ask for free print books, only to ignore them, doesn't seem fair to me.

slhuang · Nov 22, 2015

I don't ever consider a free book to incur obligation on the part of the reviewer. I don't even track that stuff, in fact . . .

aruna · Nov 22, 2015

Then you are a better person than me.
Audible disks cost £25.54 when bought new, so when I offered three in a giveaway, and it was actually stated (by the admin) on the site that they were for review, and I sent them, beautifully packaged, from Germany, nicely packed with a little signed card, I did kind of expect some kind of acknowledgement, at least. I only had six, and I maybe should have just given them to my friends.

Yes, I should just have let them go and forgotten it, let it go. In fact I did shrug it off at the time -- but the recent discussion made me aware that something isn't quite right here. I won't do it again -- I might as well sell them myself!

shadowwalker · Nov 22, 2015

I think something else that's being missed in the discussion is the business end of giveaways. Trade publishers include ARCs in their budgets; authors, especially SPs, need to recognize the costs as well - before they start offering freebies. As kind of a side-step, does anyone know the ratio of sent ARCs to actual reviews for trade publishers? Because I'm assuming that A) not every reviewer will review every book they're sent by publishers, and B) the ratio is probably a bit worse for SPs. You should have at least an idea of what that ratio is when determining how many giveaways you're going to do. And one then has to look at where they're offering these freebies. If the ratio of giveaways to reviews is abysmal on one site, why use it? But that's the kind of cost/benefit that should be considered when offering freebies. I'm quite sure that readers don't assume there's no cost to authors (other than for e-books), but I'm pretty sure they do assume authors aren't giving away stuff they can't afford to give away.

Giveaways need to be considered a cost of doing business and that cost included in one's budgetting to determine how much is too much.

Sage · Nov 22, 2015

aruna said:
My take is that if you are asking for more free books than you have time to review, maybe it's time to take a break from free books... it seems that once a book is free, readers feel less incentive to actually read, much less review them. They are more likely to read a book they have paid for; and the more expensive the book, the more likely to read them. So this is really about not asking for free books, and not entering giveaway contests if you have more books than you can manage. Especially not for print books.

FWIW, I never measure a book based on what I paid for it. And, again, this is just my personal experience, but the books I buy often have to wait for books I received for review, books I got from the library, and even books I received as gifts. There are two reasons books from Netgalley and the library end up unread by me: 1) I got them without previewing and realize once I open the book that I'm not willing to spend time on it and 2) both have a due date and for whatever reason, I didn't get done by that due date. It is quite an assumption that readers value the book based on price. It's also quite an assumption that readers do not have a pile of books they have bought that haven't been read. Quite frankly, you don't know what's going in their life, what has taken priority over your book, or what their TBR pile looks like & where your book is on it.

Sure, there are always going to be some weird people who take every free book they're given and join every contest they see. Perhaps they click on every giveaway on Goodreads too. Those are going to be few and far between. Most readers are going to go after books that actually sound interesting to them. But that doesn't mean that they are going to get a chance to read and review that book in a timely manner. Not every book on my Goodreads "To Read" list is going to be bought(/borrowed/won) by me either, but that doesn't mean that I didn't want to read it when I added it.

And, I'm once again pointing out that Netgalley does not send physical books. That doesn't devalue the book, except that it seems to be suggested in this thread that giving away physical books is more important than giving away ebooks.

The idea that an author (rather than a website) is tracking whether I write a review, that they are, in fact, waiting for me specifically to write that review so they can read it, is rather discouraging. It's bad enough when an author specifically asks me to review (which I now say "no" to).

Hapax Legomenon · Nov 22, 2015

From an economical standpoint:

If a person downloads an ebook (ebooks have essentially, as I understand, no marginal cost, as in each additional copy of an ebook does not cost more to make than the first copy -- correct me if I'm wrong on this) for free, with the implications that the ebook is meant to be reviewed, and then don't... what is the cost to the author, exactly? It seems unlikely that this person would have actually purchased the book anyway. If the book was a part of an unlimited amount of downloads as in story cartel, it's hard to see it as the author actually losing anything by giving this book away. The copy of the book sitting unread on the would-be reviewer's kindle is just a file of data that was readily copied from a server to their device. If it did not cost you additionally to put that file there and the person does not read it or really acknowledge it at all, then it's a bit like it never happened, I guess. Or at least, it doesn't really matter that they have it.

But demanding free books from authors and not reading them is pretty damn rude.

brainstorm77 · Nov 22, 2015

My experience:

I have given away books in contests. I don't expect reviews from those. I do it solely to promote my work and to thank my readers who have supported through the years.

I have sent out review copies to review sites and have had them reply saying they would take a copy and review it. Some follow through and others do not. That does irk me. In this instance I am not giving out free reads for the hell of it. If you promise a review then do it. I don't care if the review is good or bad as long as it is honest, but do the review that you promised to do.

My experience with Goodreads giveaways has been mixed. I have gotten quite a few reviews from them, but some don't bother to review or rate when they get a copy. Goodreads states that is the purpose of their program, but the winners are not require to review or rate the books. I am okay with that since I know this before listing.

I hardly sent out review copies anymore. I do contests when I want to. That's about it.

Liosse de Velishaf · Nov 22, 2015

shadowwalker said:
I think something else that's being missed in the discussion is the business end of giveaways. Trade publishers include ARCs in their budgets; authors, especially SPs, need to recognize the costs as well - before they start offering freebies. As kind of a side-step, does anyone know the ratio of sent ARCs to actual reviews for trade publishers? Because I'm assuming that A) not every reviewer will review every book they're sent by publishers, and B) the ratio is probably a bit worse for SPs. You should have at least an idea of what that ratio is when determining how many giveaways you're going to do. And one then has to look at where they're offering these freebies. If the ratio of giveaways to reviews is abysmal on one site, why use it? But that's the kind of cost/benefit that should be considered when offering freebies. I'm quite sure that readers don't assume there's no cost to authors (other than for e-books), but I'm pretty sure they do assume authors aren't giving away stuff they can't afford to give away.

Giveaways need to be considered a cost of doing business and that cost included in one's budgetting to determine how much is too much.

This is a relatively important point to me. The reviewer or contest winner has not signed a legal contract. I would suggest against giving away your person ARC copies for the purposes of garnering reviews if you can't accept that there's a strong chance things won't go your way. Ask your publisher to do it. If they won't, there's a good chance they have reason to believe it will not contribute to your sales and you should probably give them the benefit of the doubt on that.

I did once receive a book from a blog contest with the hope that I would review it. There were twenty copies given away in that contest, by a trade-published author who has since gotten lots of positive feedback. Maybe a third of the folks who received copies, most long-time followers of the group-blog involved in this contest, actually wrote reviews, including me. I later bought all the books in the series because I liked it, and I reviewed three of them on my blog and Goodreads. The author got lucky. Sending out review copies is a crapshoot. You should keep that in mind when you decide whether or not to send out copies on your own dime, self-pubbed or not.

aruna · Nov 22, 2015

Sage said:
. Quite frankly, you don't know what's going in their life, what has taken priority over your book, or what their TBR pile looks like & where your book is on it.

.

I'm not talking about MY book specifically. But reading what other members of the book club say, it seems that several members have hundreds of books on their Kindles, which they despair of ever getting to! I can empathise -- but surely there is an economical factor involved? (And for the record, I am sure that my books are not on those TBR lists.)

Hapax: giving away ebooks is never a problem. I think the problem, particularly with that bookclub -- which by the way is extremely succesful, with over 5000 members, all avid readers, no spam allowed, and many readers promoting the books they love -- is that they get freebies from big trade publishers, and it's hard for authors of smaller publishers, or self-published authors, to
compete. I guess that's the downside of being with a small publisher, and I shouldn't complain. Truly, it's when the readers EXPECT free books from authors, and never buy books because everything is free, that I find it dodgy. We just don't have the same marketing budget, yet are asked to donate and donate.
I'm happy to donate books for a good cause. I just did -- I recently gave 20 books away to a charity that held a reading for me in London, and it was great fun. No problem there. I bought the books from the publisher, and gave them to the organisation to sell, and I don't expect a single review for those.
But when you, as a reader, sign up for a giveaway and are told in advance, by the site's admin, that winning means a review in a month, and you don't review -- I have to ask why did you enter the giveaway?

On free books, and how to thank authors: how do you value a book?

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