Smart Bitchery member and fab author PC Cast wrote me the following rant, and I’d be a bad, bad bitch indeed if I didn’t pass it on verbatim to the rest of the world:
[S]everal of us (authors) are really getting pissed off at the horrid proliferation of the internet selling of our ARCs. It’s come to a boil lately (and you can check out my last 2 postings on my blog to get the dirt) because we’ve (MJ Davidson, Susan Grant, Gena Showalter, moi) discovered copies of our Mysteria ARC for sale on fucking ebay. Well this REALLY pisses us off because the goddamn copies are “like new no spine broken at all†which fucking means the fucking reviewers didn’t even bother to read the damn thing before they scurried out like cockroaches to sell their copy and make a damn buck. (One copy went for $30 something the other went for $20 something.) And we were only given limited ARCs for Mysteria, which we sent out at our own fucking expense to reviewers. So I feel fucked twice up the ass with no lube.
Okay, so here’s the point that we’re trying to get out there to readers: WHEN YOU BUY AN ARC YOU’RE RIPPING THE AUTHOR THE FUCK OFF. Not only do we not get any damn money from it, but no review, no numbers increase, and the publisher has an expensive ARC printed that doesn’t do us shit for good. Not to mention that legitimate, ethical reviewers and booksellers get fucked up the ass too when we (authors and publishers) run short on ARCs because unbeknownst to us we’re sending our limited supply to asstards!
Naturally I confronted the asshair sellers on ebay and got bullshit responses. I’ve reported their listings to ebay, too, as unethical. I mean PLEASE. It says clearly across the cover ADVANCED REVIEW COPY NOT FOR SALE. But ebay would sell its mom’s soul if it could turn a profit. Luna is actually trying to track some of these sellers to stop up the reviewer/bookseller leaks.
Anyway. It makes me mad. So fans who lurve us pay big money to rip us off? Okay, I can’t do math word problems, but this just doesn’t seem right.
