Thread by @seananmcguire

I guess I should expect this, since we live in 2019, but I'm getting quite a few "why do you keep hitting yourself?" comments, which basically summarize to:

1. Someone is misusing ARCs
2. This clearly upsets you
3. Why do you keep giving them ARCs?

Well.

eARCs are a relatively new thing, and they're distributed by a few sites that require a certain amount of validation before people are approved to receive review copies. Good!

I have absolutely no part in this process, and that's probably a good thing, because at this point, I would go "no, no eARCs for anyone," and that's not fair to people who are being honest and using the system correctly.

When I'm upset enough, I'm a real "baby with the bathwater" kind of a gal is what I'm saying here.

Who gets approved for eARCs?

Librarians.
Booksellers.
Reviewers.
Bloggers.

Who SHOULD get approved for eARCs?

All of the above.

These are all people who read books for OTHER READERS. I can tell you my books are amazing until I turn blue, but am I unbiased? No, I am not. You NEED these people to be able to read and review.

So here's the problem.

Let's take a would-be reviewer--call her Inga--who applies for access to an eARC. She's got a small blog. She gets approved. Yay for Inga! She then takes the book, scrubs the file of identifying marks, and uploads it under the name Gina.

We can't prove that Inga and Gina are the same person. This isn't CRIMINAL MINDS, we don't have Penelope Garcia. We can report Gina (and we have). We can hope our publishers do something.

But short of going "sorry, eARCs are over, no one gets them anymore," we can't shut this down completely. Much as I honestly wish we could.