{"id":4516,"date":"2010-05-28T05:49:27","date_gmt":"2010-05-28T11:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cozy-mystery.com\/blog\/?p=4516"},"modified":"2010-05-28T05:49:27","modified_gmt":"2010-05-28T11:49:27","slug":"why-i-dont-accept-arcs-advance-reading-copy-of-mystery-books-from-mystery-authors-andor-mystery-book-publishers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cozy-mystery.com\/blog\/why-i-dont-accept-arcs-advance-reading-copy-of-mystery-books-from-mystery-authors-andor-mystery-book-publishers\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Don't Accept ARCs (Advance Reading Copy) of Mystery Books from Mystery Authors and\/or Mystery Book Publishers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Hmmm… How do I broach this subject without sounding like I think I’m the end-all to all… plus a little more?!? (Which, by the way, is not at all the case!)<\/p>\n

Several times a month I receive\u00a0offers of free mystery\u00a0books. Yes! FREE mystery books!!! Sometimes these offers come from the mystery book authors, and sometimes the offers\u00a0come from their publishers. Either way, they are very generous offers<\/strong>… and believe me, I would LOVE<\/strong> to accept every one of the offered\u00a0books!<\/p>\n

But, I don’t!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I just “flat-out” have a policy of not accepting free mystery books. I think that\u00a0this policy\u00a0comes from my very ingrained “guilt complex” >>> which, if you have, then you know what I mean!!!\u00a0I know that with my guilt complex, I would end up feeling “obligated” to write a good review.<\/p>\n

I must be honest and disclose\u00a0that I did (once upon a time) accept two free books from authors\/publishers.\u00a0I don’t know what possessed me to think that I could be fair-minded in my reviews… but let me just say that one of the books I loved, and the other I didn’t finish.<\/p>\n

So, I decided not to review either book. One would clearly have gotten a 5 star rating, the other would have gotten a … Yup! That’s when the guilt complex comes in! I couldn’t\u00a0give that free<\/strong> book less than 3 stars, which, since I didn’t get past page 50 (my cut-off for books that I literally make myself stay with!) would have been a sham.<\/p>\n

Me and my guilt complex!!! I’d rather spend the $6.99 and not “have to finish” a book I’m not enjoying, than stay with a book I don’t like just so that I can try to find nice things to write about in a review. (Thumper’s mom would be proud of me!)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>PS>>> I’m using the “five-star” rating system as my example since it seems to be the most prevalent…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hmmm… How do I broach this subject without sounding like I think I’m the end-all to all… plus a little more?!? (Which, by the way, is not at all the case!) Several times a month I receive\u00a0offers of free mystery\u00a0books. Yes! FREE mystery books!!! Sometimes these offers come from the mystery book authors, and sometimes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-cozy-mystery-administrators-observations","7":"entry","8":"override"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pI0sr-1aQ","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cozy-mystery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cozy-mystery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cozy-mystery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cozy-mystery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cozy-mystery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cozy-mystery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cozy-mystery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cozy-mystery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cozy-mystery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}