Sunday, January 2, 2011

ARC Review Update

Lately I've been staring at my TBR pile and wanting to cry a little. Not because of the books themselves because books are inherently awesome. Who would cry over a book they'd want to read? But my TBR pile looks like this -


The stack on the far left are ARCs for review alone. The rest is a mix of BEA titles, PaperBackSwap/BookMooch books and a handful I've been dumb enough to purchase. And then I have my NetGalley list which consists of the following titles -

Crazy by Han Nolan
Alison's Wonderland by Alison Tyler
Tyger, Tyger by Kersten Hamilton
The Secret of Ka by Christopher Pike
Annexed by Sharon Dogar
Demon Hunts by CE Murphy
Eight for Eternity by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer
Lovely by Kris Starr
Captive Spirit by Liz Fichera
Ghost Shadow by Heather Graham
The World Above the Sky by Kent Stetson
Tricker's Girl by Hilari Bell
Roman Games by Bruce MacBain
F**k it by John C. Parkin
Views from the Loft by The Loft Literary Center
My Soul to Keep by Rachel Vincent
The Hypnotist by MJ Rose
Spy Glass by Maria V. Snyder
Past Midnight by Mara Purnhagen
The Iron King by Julie Kagawa
Carrie Pilby by Caren Lissner
Losing Romeo by AJ Byrd
The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey
The Sevenfold Spell by Tia Nevitt
The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group by Catherine Jinks
Those That Wake by Jesse Karp
The Lying Game by Sara Shepard
Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton
Delirium by Lauren Oliver
Grilled Cheese Please! by Laura Werlin
Savannah Grey by Cliff McNish
The Betrayal of Maggie Blair by Elizabeth Laird
Awaken by Katie Kacvinsky
Mystify by Artist Arthur
Lost in the River of Grass by Ginny Rorby
Everything I Was by Corrine Demas
What Can't Wait by Ashley Hope Perez
One Hundred Candles by Mara Purnhagen
My Favorite Band Does Not Exist by Robert T. Jeschonek

So it's with this massive list in mind that I say I've come to the conclusion that I will only now consider ARCs from those that I currently have standing relationships with. In other words, don't cold call me. If I've already accepted a product from you then I will consider more but with a much stricter eye. I will have to really, REALLY want to read it in order to accept it. If I haven't, please don't knock on my door and try to pitch me your sale. I won't bite. As you can see, I'm a bit overwhelmed so adding more works to my pile is not on my list of things to do.

I'm not doing this to be bitchy or thumb my nose at the indies or debuts out there or anything. I just can't take on any more without going at least halfway insane. I need to make a sizable dent in my reading pile before I open up my ARC receipts full tilt.

If you ignore this post and submit to me anyway and I see that you're not on my bypass list, your email will be deleted unanswered. You can't be bothered to put forth the effort to follow my guidelines, I can't be bothered to respond to unsolicited emails. That's only fair.

So please, if you've sent me stuff in the past, don't be afraid to ask again. I will still consider it. To everyone else, the answer is no. Please don't even try. It'll be a wasted email.* These new guidelines will remain in effect until further notice.

*While this may sound bitchy, I have had authors try to convince me that they're above my guidelines and I should just consider them anyway. Um, no. I create my guidelines for a reason. At least this way if I still get someone trying to convince me otherwise, I'll feel less guilty about pointing this out and telling them to piss off. I don't think cordiality is rendered when a person has already told my guidelines to go fuck itself.

12 comments:

Jana said...

I love reading your posts! You just lay it out there.

Karissa E said...

I am with you on this. Netgalley is a bit of a problem for me too, it is sooo easy to request stuff that looks interesting. I have also recently been turning down lots of books for review because there is no way I can review them all in this lifetime...

Stormi said...

I am in the same boat as you are I have two bookshelves full with some on top of the bookshelves plus my ebooks. Netgalley is just too tempting not to request from..ugh..lol

Alexia561 said...

Believe it or not, your post has actually made me feel better! It's nice to know that I'm not the only one about to be buried under a massive TBR pile! I swear that they multiply like rabbits when we're not looking!

Good luck to us all on getting our TBR piles back to managable size! *L*

Lori Johnston said...

Donna, I am happy to see that I am not the only reviewer who is feeling overwhelmed with all the awaiting books.

I too am stepping back on taking review copies until I can get caught up.

Good luck!

Anastasia said...

Wow, what a huge pile! (Not helpful, I know).

I've had to stay away from NetGalley until I have a better grasp on my paper ARCs-- I don't have nearly as mucha s you, but enough to not want more obligations. Good luck with getting through your TBR pile!

LM Preston said...

Whoa! What a pile. My book doesn't come out til June, are you taking june reads, lol? Can't wait to read your reviews!

Liviania said...

Moving my TBR pile out of my apartment took an entire car. Yet I *still* bought twenty books this weekend. (Er, well, I had already read one of them and just wanted to own a copy.)

Sandy said...

It seems like a lot of bloggers are starting to get overwhelmed with their stack of TBR piles (I´m one of them...and my pile isn´t even that bad!) or at least, starting to admit that they are.

Good luck with trimming down that review pile!

Books for Company said...

I have so many also to read, l'm glad lm not the only one! I had 150ish on my shelves (brought) before joining netgalley and now l don't think l will get to them for a while!
Im sure you will get many many hours of enjoyable out of these books =)
Look forward to the reviews

Liz @ Cleverly Inked said...

Thank goodness for my Hiatus. I was able to get caught up on my reading. Well sort of. Now I am back and ready to post my gazillion reviews

Chrystal said...

I totally need to do this. I keep getting sucked in. I love books so much I keep saying yes, but it's actually making me feel like I"m drowning. Perhaps a tiny blogging hiatus is in the cards for me shortly until I get caught up. *sigh*

Good luck with your pile and also weeding through the emails that always seem to make it through regardless of policy. :)

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