Frequently Asked Questions, or, How Does This Work?

-- WHAT IS THIS SITE FOR?
YA ARC is the result of conversation on YALSA-BK, the open list for book discussion between YA librarians/friends/advocates. Those of us with access to advance reader copies like to share with friends, and this is a handy, mainly self-service way to facilitate all the sharing. Everyone is welcome to lend or borrow ARCs as long as they adhere to the guidelines.

Please, read the guidelines before you jump in!!!

--BUT WAIT, WHAT'S AN ARC?
An "ARC" is an Advance Reader Copy, also known as a "galley," of a book that is pending publication. It's a paperback mockup of the final book. (Reader beware: these are not complete versions of the final book; many are missing artwork, show editing notations, and/or will be altered by the author/editor before final publication.) Many of us on the list have access to them because we are on committees, go to ALA conferences, write professional reviews, buy books for our library/system, and various other reasons. Since we aren't supposed to sell them or add them to our library collection, when we and our teens finish reading them they just gather dust or go in the recycling bin. As you can tell, we'd rather share them with other YA people! Along with the thrill of getting to read something before it hits stores, it really helps you keep ahead of the game. For example, when the copy you've bought comes in, you could booktalk it right away. (And you aren't left out of exciting discussions on YALSA-BK!)

-- HOW DOES IT WORK?
This site works like a round robin: we post an entry for each ARC that is volunteered. The ARC is mailed from its originating donor to the first person to write in to the comment area. The following people get the ARC as others finish.

GUIDELINES
1) Everyone must register with Blogger to manage their own comments. When you do this, erasing your comment is as simple as revisiting the page and clicking on the little grey trash can. If you opt out on an ARC, please email the rest of the people on the waiting list to inform them of this change.

2) All users of this blog should be active in the field. Whether you're a reviewer, a librarian, a consultant, or whatever, we don't care. This project was started to assist those of us actively working with/for teens and we'd like to keep to that mission.

3) There is a new limit of 4 per book entry and 2 entries per person. In other words, each new ARC will be capped at 4 people "in line" to read and each person will be limited to 2 "places" in line for ARCs at a time. This will help everyone stay focused and efficient. Once the initial offering has been successful and the ARC has returned, we may repost it IF the donor wishes to share again.

4) People submitting ARCs for sharing should hew to the following: we need a description/back to the book blurb, the link to its Amazon or B&N page, and a publication date (if known). This significantly expedites our posting the information to the site.

5) To request an ARC to read, post a comment under the book title you'd like. Include your name/professional affiliation/email address. Please nobody post using their snail mail addresses anymore. Mine would look like this:

Erin Downey Howerton
Johnson County Library
erindowney at gmail dot com

OR

Kristin Lade
West Bend Library
yalibrarianwi@yahoo.com

Please email the owner of the ARC with your mailing address. It makes things go faster! Keep in contact with your "reading group," and do them the courtesy of sending a little email when you get the book and are sending it on. In this way, we will know exactly who has the book at any particular point in time. After you’re done, check the blog for additional comments, email the person after you for their mailing address and send it on. If you are further down the list you might also want to email the person in front of you with your mailing address ahead of time. You can also discuss the read with each other and hopefully make posts to YALSA-BK or adbooks!

6) North America only, please. We'd like to share more broadly but again, we're all about keeping the wait time down. If someone wants to start a similar service for their friends in other countries, you're welcome to do so. Email us for advice, if you want :)

-- I READ THIS ARC AND NOW I WANNA TALK ABOUT IT!!!
Keep the comments section free of spoilers and reactions, please. We merely exist to route the books to you; YALSA-BK is the community that does the book discussion. And it rocks, so you should join by
clicking here. Heck, why don't you just join YALSA to become a member in the premier organization serving young adults in North America?!? Go on. You know you want to.

-- I FOUND A COPY THROUGH ANOTHER SOURCE. HOW DO I GET MY NAME OFF THE QUEUE?According to our new guidelines, you should be a registered Blogger member to post. So just login, go back to the entry and your comment, and click on the little grey trash can. Voila, you erased your name!

--WHY CAN’T I SEE MY COMMENT??
PLEASE do not submit multiple requests for the same book just because the comment hasn't posted yet! I do them in large batches to keep track of who's signing up for what, and there is a delay in the time I approve a comment and its appearance on the page. Blogger is like that. I cannot change its ways. Please ONLY submit your name, professional affiliation (school/library/whatever), and email address. If I can easily tell your professional affiliation from your email address, then all the better.
Please send an email to the owner of the ARC with your mailing address to better expedite the sharing of YA ARCs

If your comment has been rejected, it probably means one of the following:
-- you included your postal address (we're trying to keep it stalker-free here)
-- you didn't include your professional affiliation (library, school, whatever)
-- you posted like a gajillion times and I lost count of how many of yours I had to erase

--WHO CAN SHARE ARCS?
Anyone. Publishers. Vendors. Authors. Librarians. Reviewers. Anyone who wants to share the word about a new, yet to be published book. One word of caution. There has yet to be discovered guarenteed way to get the ARCs back to the owners. So please consider this a donation. Sometimes the books get back, sometimes they don't. We do the best we can. Any ideas are helpful.

-- IF YOU HAVE ARCS TO SHARE:
1) email Kristin at yalibrarianwi@yahoo.com and put "ARC blog" in the subject line.
2) in the body of the email, list your name and email address, then the titles/authors of the ARCs you have to share. Follow this with descriptions and/or blurbs, as well as a link to the book's Amazon or B&N page.
3) YOU must watch your book's entry comments. Send an email out the first person on the list asking for people's snail mail shipping addresses. Keep these private, as many of us do not prefer to make these public. Then start the round robin sharing!

If you so generously loan out YA ARCs for others to read and share, in the future I would appreciate a quick email after the ARC has been returned to you so I can delete it from the list. Hopefully this will keep things running more smoothly and we won't need to do such an extensive spring cleaning.

--WHAT IS KRISTIN'S MAILING ADDRESS TO GET THE YA ARCS BACK TO HER?
Kristin Lade
West Bend Community Memorial Library
630 Poplar Street
West Bend, WI 53095
yalibrarianwi@yahoo.com
www.west-bendlibrary.org
If Kristin is not the owner of the ARC, please email the owner and request their mailing address to get the books back. Even if you find them long after they've been sent to you, do your best to get them back to their owners.

last updated by KJL 6/4/07