All year long, I debated writing this post because I wasn’t sure of my decision yet. I didn’t want to come across as someone ungrateful for the hundreds of ARC opportunities I’d been given.
I didn’t want this decision to be clouded by memories or emotions, good and bad. I didn’t want it to be an impulsive act I’d later regret. If I’m breaking up with ARCs, it should be a neutral and reflective moment. Not a colorful f*ck you to all the ways I feel let down by every level of publishing.
Despite negative experiences, I still loved supporting authors and publishers. I enjoyed bonding with fellow readers over the stories we all loved. I lived for being in the thick of it all, peering into the heart of publishing itself and feeling, in no small way, that I was a part of something magical. That my role in all of this was precious and significant. And maybe it was for a time.
But I can’t continue to ignore the glaring elephants in the room: (1) my growing disinterest in reading due to perpetual burnout (2) my shifting perspective on the value of ARCs, and (3) the frustration I felt due to a lack of appreciation. All of this forced me to examine my relationship with books with more honesty than I allowed myself before. And now I can admit it with absolute certainty:
I am breaking up with book ARCs in 2023.
The Unholy Pressure to Review Every ARC
Was I forced to review ARCs? No. In fact, I loved the emotional high I received from requesting them and getting approved. It feels good when a publisher or author deems you worthy enough to read their book before anyone else. It feels amazing when your review connected readers to books they might not have noticed before.
But with this always came a sense of guilt and obligation.Beneath was a constant pressure to not only read a book, but do so in an “acceptable” manner. To be honest, but not offensive. To buffer every criticism with cotton candy highlights. To curb my language, soften my disappointment, hold my tongue entirely if I don’t have something nice to say. The anxiety of walking that line between genuine feelings and “professional” feelings that won’t make a publisher avoid me in the future was unreal.
It was also difficult to refuse ARCs for books I knew I’d like. Or when publishers and authors went out of their way to offer me dibs, and I had to say NO. Or when I said YES, but couldn’t get around to actually reading the ARCs.
I was forever trying to dig myself out from under the 1,200+ review requests Bookish Valhalla received each year from Big Five and Indie publishers. That doesn’t even count the 500+ we got from authors. It was a blessing and a curse to be auto-approved on Netgalley.
It just felt like a turbulent and vicious cycle of feel-good-feel-guilty-feel-fomo that resulted in me associating ARCs with near-constant stress.
The Math of ARCs Doesn't Add Up
No matter how much I try to rationalize the idea that an ARC is considered “payment” for the time and effort I put into a review, the math just doesn’t add up.
It’s actually something my husband noticed over the summer. He asked me why I spent so much time and energy on “something that costs maybe $20.” Now, you must forgive my husband for wording it this way; he’s not much of a booklover, sadly. Or, at least, isn’t what we would consider a booklover. But he made a point that I hadn’t considered before.
The average reader spends about 11.1 hours reading a 400 page book. Depending on the blogger and their review style, it can take anywhere between 2 hours to 2 weeks to write a review. That doesn’t count reviewing on other sites like Amazon, StoryGraph, Readerly, and Goodreads. It definitely doesn’t count the additional time spent spreading the buzz across social media platforms and creating content for those. Honestly, I can’t even calculate those last two in hours because there is so much variance.
But let’s be humble and say a book blogger spends 15 hours total on a particular book. That means, based on the $20 cost of the book, the blogger is being paid at a very rough estimate of $1.33/hour. That’s less than minimum wage.
Book bloggers are not just handed a book to read and review. We’re handed a book to market to other readers. And that marketing ability comes with a host of skills such as copy writing, formatting, design, video editing, an understanding of blog legalities, etc. We’re given a book to generate buzz and get others to buy it. It comes at the expense of our time and energy.
When you strip the romance of ARCs away, you realize it’s a lot of work. And that the payment for such work is the work. That doesn’t even account for instances when ARCs aren’t the finished product.
I didn’t like the way my relationship with ARCs made me feel, as if I was little more than a marketing tool. As if my contribution to the industry is only valid when I’m of direct use, beginning and ending with an ARC.
Reclaiming the Joy of Reading for Fun
Honesty? Reading doesn’t feel joyous anymore; reading to review, to support, to boost, to get more ARCs, to talk to other readers—it all feels like a chore. Like a habit performed out of obligation. Like if I don’t support authors and publishers, I’m somehow a bad reader. If I don’t gush about the latest release, I’m somehow irrelevant and outdated. If I’m not screaming my bookish thoughts publicly every 5 seconds, I’m unworthy of being called a book blogger.
These are, of course, irrational thoughts and feelings. They’re unrealistic expectations I’ve held myself to. They’re fears and insecurities I’ve allowed publishing to use in exchange for ARCs. I’m grateful for every ARC I’ve ever received, but I’d be lying if I said the excitement wasn’t eclipsed by a sense of dread. That I wasn’t constantly locked in “read to review” mode to the point where reading anything for the simple joy of it was impossible. When reading is for other people, I find nothing enjoyable about it.
Underneath it all, this is why I’m breaking up with ARCs; I miss reading for myself. I miss losing myself in a story and being in the moment with my thoughts. Sharing my bookish reflections with other readers is wonderful, and it’s something I didn’t have when I first fell in love with books. But I feel as though I’ve allowed my relationship with books, especially ARCs, to be too externally focused to the point of problematic. To the point where it feels weird to just read. No expectations or strings attached. And I hate that.
I want to get back to that place where reading is joy.
Key Note for Readers: I want to emphasize that this is purely a subjective reflection on my own relationship with ARCs over the years. It is by no means a declaration of ceasing to support authors; I’ll do that in other meaningful ways the best I can. But Bookish Valhalla will no longer center our blog on ARC reviews. We want to get back to being more than a marketing hub.
How do you feel about ARCs? How has your relationship evolved with them? Do you still request them? Let me know in the comments!
I think I could have written this post myself with how much I relate to it! I think this is a cycle that many book bloggers go through with ARCS: excitement, joy, overwhelmed, burned out. I drastically reduced my requests for 2022 and still found myself utterly behind, and it truly has sapped the enjoyment of reading from me. I’m confident that my frequent reading slumps relate to the ARC burden I put on myself, particularly since I tend to get SFF arcs the most, and I can’t read too many in a row without the biggest of slumps.
I commend you on this post and best of luck in 2023 with this goal!
This post was the biggest of moods all over for me because I definitely feel the vicious cycle of ARCs though; I’m still struggling with old ones that I feel bad sometimes taking up new ones (and sometimes actually reviewing those on time!) when I’m not fully caught up with old ones. I do still request them though, but I think after so many years, I’ve become super selective and I don’t think I’ve requested more than 10 books in all of 2022? Which is truly shocking considering how I used to request at least 20-50 a year, but looking back on that, in those days I was in high school and just mostly had school (though I had a part time job as well), so I definitely had more freedom in a way versus adult, which is still relatively the same amount of time if not a little more (for now) so I’m kind of just comparing apples to oranges.
My mother put your husband’s question the same way as well actually (and has been very much urging me to quit solely for that too in the past few years, but I’d honestly prefer to call it quits on my own terms which is a different story in its entirety), though I think her phrasing was more “why would you spend so much time and energy on something you can get for free at the library, which you are privileged enough to have access to?” It’s not including hosting and the other hidden costs as well (which yeah… the math definitely doesn’t add up), so I definitely get her meaning even if it’s blunt.
In hindsight, I think my husband’s question was coming from a place of observation and concern. Because, to him, blogging didn’t seem to be rewarding for me anymore. And at the time, I wasn’t ready to admit that. Even if, deep down, I *knew* that something about blogging didn’t feel joyous anymore. It was only when I saw the ratio of ARC reviews vs reviews of books I read for the pure experiences of them that I wondered if maybe that was the issue. It also came down to the decision between taking a complete (and possibly indefinite) hiatus from book blogging or cutting out whatever was causing the most stress, which happened to be ARCs. Even when I was being selective, responding to so many authors was exhausting. But I didn’t want to leave them without any response since I dislike that kind of industry standard :/ so, in a way, it’s easier to stop requesting/accepting requests. I still read more as an adult than I ever did as a kid (mostly because I sacrifice sleep on the alter of stories), but this year was just hard. Like, my grandfather died. My family was in constant crisis. I started a 2nd job. Kitchen reno and health issues. So…I had no desire to read for most of 2022. I’ve binged a million kdramas, though. So, I definitely understand not having the mental bandwidth to really invest in reading at the same rate. I’m hoping 2023 is a year of more relaxed and positive reading experiences that we can appreciate 🙂
I totally understand, I stopped requesting them completely too. I’d maybe go check netgalley once or twice a year but that’s it 😅 i’m not a fan of the deadlines, where sometimes even when you requested them MONTHS prior, they end up
Approving it only the day before launch 😬 or it also happened to me that I requested I was in a mood, and I got it so long after that it didn’t even interrested me anymore 😅
Kristina recently posted…October Wrap up 🍂
This is so mood! I often found that by the time I got around to an ARC, I was no longer interested in reading it or there just wasn’t enough time to read and review it. And what if I *didn’t want* to review it? Like, there are many books I loved, but had no desire to review. I also had that same issue with Negalley! I’d request a bunch of books throughout the year, but they’d approve me either just before or just after the release date. I remember once I suddenly had 5 books to read, all due within a month. I appreciated the approval, but there’s no way with 2 jobs + Japanese classes + writing + my own reading desires that I was going to get through all 5 😅