To choose ARC readers well, look for people who already read and review your genre. An ARC is an advance review copy of your book. Sent to the wrong reader, it often comes back as a low rating. The complaint is that the book was not what they expected. Fewer, well-matched readers beat a long list.
What Does an ARC Campaign Actually Do for Your Book?
An ARC campaign gets you written reviews in the days around your launch. On its own it may not move the eventual star average on your Amazon or Goodreads page. That difference should shape how much effort you put into it.
Ratings and reviews are not the same thing. A rating is a tap on a star with nothing written; a review has text. Both feed the star average, but ratings accumulate far faster, because they ask almost nothing of the reader. Across a book’s life, a handful of ARC reviews ends up as a small share of that total.
Early on, though, that share is most of what exists. A newly released book has few ordinary buyers, so ARC reviews are what a browsing reader finds. They also give your Goodreads page something to show before release day, and some promotion services will not consider a book with very few reviews. That is the job ARC reviews do: they carry the opening stretch, not the whole life of the book.
How many readers you need depends on how many of them follow through, and that varies a great deal. BookSirens runs one of the reader pools authors use. It publishes a 75% review rate across its community. That means roughly three in four readers who download a copy go on to post one. It also notes that individual books range from under 50% to 90%. Readers recruited through social media commonly post at much lower rates than that.
Why Does Reader Fit Matter More Than Reader Numbers?
A reader who does not enjoy your genre may still post. When they do, the review tends to read as a complaint about the genre rather than about your book. That review then stays on the page for as long as the book is on sale.
This is the failure that the advice to “give out as many ARCs as possible” quietly creates. In an r/selfpublish thread on vetting ARC readers, one reply put the mechanism plainly: “a lot of people treat ARC lists like ‘whoever wants in, gets in’ but that’s usually how you end up with those 2-star ‘not my genre’ reviews that could have been avoided.” Another author in the same discussion spelled out how such reviews tend to read: “There was no spice! 1/5”; “Not my speed. Couldn’t get interested. 1/5”; “Seems like it wasn’t written for me. 1/5”.
The damage is worse early than it would be later. A book with six strong ratings and one two-star complaint carries a visibly dented average. The same review against three hundred ratings barely registers. Your ARC readers are, by definition, the people rating the book while the sample is smallest.
Experienced authors do disagree about this. In a thread on whether to accept every ARC application, one well-received reply takes the opposite line. Accept anyone, keep notes on who actually posted, then offer the next book only to those readers. The cost of that approach is easy to state. You end up with a screened team eventually. Your first launch, though, goes out to whoever turned up. That is exactly where a mismatched review does the most harm.
Who Is Actually Allowed to Review Your Book?
Two Amazon rules decide whether a reader you recruit can post a review at all. Both are screening criteria rather than small print, because the people a first-time author naturally turns to are often the ones these rules exclude.
The first is a relationship rule. Amazon’s community guidelines bar reviews of products connected to friends, relatives, employers, business associates and competitors. Your friends, your family and the other writers in your group are therefore barred from reviewing your book, however honest their opinions would be. Amazon’s promotional content policy adds a book-specific example of a prohibited review. An author posts a positive review of a peer’s book, in exchange for a positive review in return.
The second is a spending threshold, and it applies to everyone else you recruit. The same community guidelines set a spending floor. An account must have spent $50 on Amazon.com in the previous twelve months to post reviews or star ratings. The payment must come from a credit or debit card, and promotional discounts do not count towards the total. You cannot check another person’s spending, so a reader who is willing but has a quiet Amazon account will only find out when the review is refused. Naming the requirement on your application form lets them check for themselves first.
Free copies themselves are fine. Amazon’s guidelines expressly permit readers to “review free books (advanced reader copies) from authors or publishers”. One condition applies: you cannot require a review in exchange for the copy, or try to influence what it says. Asking a reader to review the book is allowed. Making the copy conditional on their doing so is not.
What Should Your ARC Application Form Ask?
A short application form is what makes a fit decision possible before any file leaves your hands. Google Forms is free and does the job. Check first if you plan to use one of the ARC services described below. Several of them collect applications for you, and let you approve or decline each one. Each field should screen for something specific.
- Name and delivery address for the file. Ask where they want it sent. A Kindle reader may give you their Send to Kindle address rather than the email they write from. Someone reading in an app on a phone or laptop will usually just give their ordinary address.
- Links to where they review. This is the most useful field on the form. A link to an Amazon, Goodreads, BookBub or StoryGraph profile shows you what they read, how recently they posted, and what they typically award. Ask for links rather than usernames, so that checking takes seconds.
- Recent books they enjoyed in your genre. Naming two or three comparable titles tells you more about fit than any tick-box. An applicant who cannot name any may not read the genre at all.
- Content acknowledgement. State plainly what the book contains and does not contain, then ask them to confirm they have read that. A romance reader who expects open-door love scenes should learn that your book is closed door now, not in a review.
- A conflict declaration. One line asking whether they know you personally saves an ineligible review later.
- Where and by when they expect to post. This sets a shared expectation without making the copy conditional on a review, which the Amazon rules forbid.
What the form must not do is ask for a promised rating, or offer anything beyond the book itself. Payment, gift cards and prize draws all invalidate a review, and Amazon removes reviews it identifies that way.
Where Do Genre-Matched Readers Come From?
Genre-matched readers are easier to find in places organised around a genre than in places organised around free books. The routes below give you different mixtures of volume and fit.
Your own mailing list is the strongest source, because those readers chose you rather than a giveaway. If you have published before, the back matter of that book feeds the same list. A short closing page sends readers to your website. There they can sign up and ask to be told about the next advance copy. A list takes a while to grow either way, and it does least for a first release, which is exactly when authors need readers most.
Genre reader communities on Facebook, Substack and Goodreads sit next. The people there have already declared what they read, so fit is good; follow-through is variable, and these groups are crowded with authors making the same request. One author in an r/selfpublish discussion of ARC review rates posted repeatedly across several groups. Seven readers signed up and one review appeared. Their conclusion was that more authors now look for ARC readers than ARC readers look for indie books.
Reader pools attached to ARC services work differently again. BookSirens, BookSprout, StoryOrigin and NetGalley each hold a standing community of readers. Those readers browse the available titles. Each service shows you something about an applicant before you approve them. That may be a genre history, or a record of how often they post. You can therefore judge fit even though the reader is a stranger to you. What you give up is loyalty: these readers post because the platform keeps a record of whether they do, not because they follow your work. Pricing and reader numbers differ between them, so check current terms directly rather than trusting figures quoted in older articles.
One tool is worth separating from that group. BookFunnel delivers files rather than supplying readers: it sends the copy, watermarks it and reports downloads. It does not come with a community of readers to draw on, so the recruiting stays with you. Authors sometimes budget for it expecting an audience, then discover the gap late.
When Should You Turn an Applicant Down?
Decline when the applicant cannot review, will not fit, or wants something the rules do not allow. Everything else is a judgement call that you are entitled to make.
Some declines are clear. Turn down anyone with a personal or business connection to you. The same goes for an applicant whose reading history has no overlap with your book at all. Decline anyone who will not accept that the file should not be shared. Refuse any request for money, a gift card, or a review in return for theirs. None of these are close calls, and none of them are rude to refuse.
The judgement calls are review histories that give you pause. One account has posted nothing in two years. Another never rates above three stars, whatever the book. Neither is disqualifying. Both are reasons to send that copy elsewhere when copies are limited.
One reason is never good enough, and it is the tempting one: do not decline an applicant because you expect a lukewarm verdict on this particular book. What separates that from the genre test above is the kind of evidence involved. Turning down someone who has never read your genre is a judgement about what they read, and their profile shows it. Now suppose a careful reviewer reads your genre closely. Two of their recent four-star reviews complained about slow openings, and your first chapter is slow. Turning them down is a guess at what they will conclude. A reader who fits your genre and reviews honestly is doing exactly what the process is for, and an unbroken run of five-star reviews from hand-picked friends convinces nobody.
Declining is also more ordinary than first-time authors expect, and it runs in both directions. Readers turn books down constantly, and experienced ARC readers describe not being selected as unremarkable. As one reply in the vetting thread put it, it is not a bad thing to get thirty-eight sign-ups and send out ten copies.
Picking your readers takes far less time than finding them, and it does more to shape what appears on your book’s page. Ask for review-profile links, read a few of the reviews you find there, check that the genre matches, and send the copy to the people who fit. Turning an applicant down costs you nothing. Leaving the wrong one on the list can cost you a review that sits there for years.
Further Reading on ARCs and Early Readers
- How to Set Up an ARC Campaign for Your Self-Published Book: the mechanics once you know who your readers are, covering timing, preparing the copy and following up.
- Galley vs ARC vs Proof Copy: what each kind of pre-release copy is for, and which ones you actually need.
- How to Find Beta Readers for Your Self-Published Book: the earlier stage, where readers comment on the draft instead of reviewing the finished book.
- How to Build a Pre-Launch Email List Before Your First Book Is Published: how to build the source that produces the best-matched ARC readers.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many ARC readers do you need?
Fewer than most advice suggests. Because only a share of readers post, authors usually send more copies than the reviews they want; even so, a first book does not need dozens, and a handful of genuine genre-matched reviews is a reasonable target. Judge the number by how many well-matched applicants you have, not by a headcount.
Do ARC readers get paid?
No. The free copy is the only thing an ARC reader receives. Amazon’s community guidelines prohibit offering anything else in return for a review, and gift cards, cash or entry into a prize draw will invalidate the review and get it removed.
Do ARC readers have to say they received a free copy?
Yes. Under the US Federal Trade Commission’s endorsement guidance, a free product is a material connection that a reviewer should disclose clearly wherever they post, whether or not a review was requested. The FTC suggests wording as simple as “I was given a free copy to review”; see the FTC’s guidance on what people are asking about its endorsement guides. Its rule on consumer reviews and testimonials, which took effect in October 2024, now backs this area with civil penalties.
Can you get a bad ARC review removed?
Not for being bad. Amazon removes reviews that break its guidelines, such as one from a person with a personal connection to the author or a review obtained with payment, and you can report those. A negative review from an eligible reader who read the book is not a guideline breach, and Goodreads librarians have no power to remove reviews either.
What should an ARC reader do if they do not finish the book?
Nothing is owed. An ARC reader who stops reading may post an honest review, tell the author privately and post nothing, or simply stay silent, and all three are accepted practice. Some ARC platforms build this in with a formal way to withdraw a review promise, so that the reader’s record is not penalised for it.
