I’m on the hunt for ARC readers and Street Team members! If you’ve been following me on social media you’ll know that The Wayward Damned has been finished, edited and is now nearly ready for formatting and proofreading. Once that’s all sorted then I’ll be needing a team of readers to read early access copies prior to release. So, you might be wondering what is an ARC reader and what is a Street Team?
ARC Readers & Street Teams
ARC stands for Advanced Reader Copy – it’s a version of the book that is given out to a certain number of volunteer readers prior to the publish date of a book, in order to get reviews in. Reviews are super important for readers – it helps to let you know if it’s the right kind of book for you, and it’s helpful to us writers in terms of encouraging more sales. Now ARCs can be in paperback form, but they’re often eBooks as it’s easier to send and cheaper for the author/publisher. It also means they can be sent out quicker as they aren’t having to wait for the copies to be printed and shipped.
Street Teams also ARC read the book, but they volunteer to do more on top of that, including talking about the book on their own social media accounts, recommending the book to friends etc. Street Team members aren’t required to have professional social media accounts – just to share on their profiles! They’re also provided with promotional images, graphics, release information and copy writing in order to promote the book themselves easily and effectively. This is some of what was included for the ARC read of The Bloody Maiden…
In order to make the process more fun (and to thank my Street Team!) I always include a challenge and giveaway so they have multiple opportunities to win prizes including physical copies of my books and merchandise!
What’s involved in reading TWD?
I’m looking to sign up both ARC and Street Team members throughout January in order to have them reading Wayward over the course of February (with promotion over Feb and March). I’ll be emailing out eBook copies of The Wayward Damned at the end of January with the option to either read a pdf or via an e-reader with an epub file. My teams will be getting emails from now providing them with all the information they need and to celebrate the excitement of the book launch!
All members of both teams will be entered into my giveaway and provided with the requirements to enter my Team Challenge – all they have to do is complete a couple of small tasks to win the challenge prizes! I also send all my Team Members thank you letters and bookmarks upon book release – because who doesn’t love a free bookmark? I’m getting a lot of promotional images and graphics ready to send over to my Street Team, as well as a Press Kit with release information, and copy writing they can use such as: blurb, tagline, elevator pitch, ARC reviews and purchase links.
How can I read more ARC books?
There are plenty of ways you can get involved by reading ARC copies of books – you get free books and you support authors in their publishing journey! You can do this via Facebook Groups focused on ARC reading, certain websites that link authors with ARC readers, following your favourite indie authors on social media (traditionally published authors also do ARC readers, but you’ll get a lot more personal connection with the majority of indie authors), you could even start your own ARC reading social media page to build a place for all of your reviews! Here are a few places you can start:
S. M. MITCHELL 
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