In this instructional video, Julie Broad (founder of Book Launchers) argues that first‑time nonfiction authors should focus on getting their books read rather than obsessing over piracy. She explains that Advanced Reviewer Copies (ARCs) are essential for building launch momentum, providing early excitement, blurbs, media exposure, and crucial reviews for launch week. Broad outlines a practical workflow: use a digital EPUB (with PDF as backup) and choose a review‑management platform—BookSirens, Booksprout, StoryOrigin, or NetGalley—based on goals and budget. She advises authors to assemble a "book army" of social followers, email list subscribers, past clients, and supporters, and to make the review request simple with clear deadlines and direct links. Tracking is done via a spreadsheet and email tags to send reminders before launch, on launch day, and after. Timing recommendations include sending digital ARCs 2–4 weeks before launch for customer reviewers and 12–16 weeks ahead for editorial reviewers. Print ARCs are reserved for high‑impact outreach to media, influencers, and strategic partners, typically limited to 10–20 copies. Throughout, Broad emphasizes that visibility from reviews drives sales and overall author business, and that modest protective measures (e.g., low‑cost DRM) are sufficient compared to the cost of not getting readers.
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Are you worried about people stealing your book? Let's worry about whether people are going to read it. A lot of first-time authors are protecting their book instead of promoting it, and it can kill your launch. Let's talk about what matters for getting advanced reviewer copies out, also known as ARCs, and what doesn't. And if you want to get as many reviews for your book as possible and succeed with ARCs and beyond, well, this video is for you. Hi, I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of Book Launchers and your host here at BookLaunchers.tv. Book Launchers is your first choice for all things related to writing, publishing, and promoting nonfiction books that build an empire. Now most authors think ARCs are free copies, and yeah, they're not copies people buy, but ARCs are your momentum engine before launch. They're used to do really a few core things. Number one, get Get advanced excitement and blurbs, and this can be endorsements for your cover, for quotes for your media, editorial reviews, and even advanced copies to press and media to get exposure and interviews for launch. So that's one. The other thing is to get reviews for launch week. And here's the reality most people don't always understand. A book with reviews, endorsements, and people excited to tell others about the book that is coming out, they get visibility. And a book without those things, well, you've got an uphill battle after launch, and it is easier to disappear into the abyss of books. So ARCs, well, they're not optional if you want your book to get momentum into launch. Now, the next question is probably, how do I do it? Well, of course you can send physical copies, but you may not have them yet, and of course it's more costly to send a bunch of physical copies out. Generally speaking, you're sending ARCs before you have print proofs, we usually have our authors send them once they get the first draft of the book in layout. That's not the final version, but it's been through all the edits and it's looking pretty darn good. So it's a digital file that you're sharing. Now, this is where authors get stuck. They start worrying about piracy or sending a PDF that gets shared all over. People will say, "Well, what if somebody shares my PDF? What if it gets uploaded somewhere? What if someone steals it?" Now, if somebody wants to steal your book, sorry, but they will. Whether it's the DRM system when you upload it, watermarks, whatever it is that you try to do to protect it, if somebody wants to steal it, they will. Now here's another question I ask myself. What's more dangerous? Someone sharing my book or no one reading it at all? So many first-time authors choose protection over distribution. Now I don't want someone uploading my book and profiting off of it, especially if they publish it in inferior quality, which has happened to some authors. And that is crappy. David Goggins has a lawsuit against Amazon for his lost revenue as a result of pirated books being sold and Amazon not pulling them down very fast. So I'm not dismissing this concern completely, but I'm also not David Goggins or J.K. Rowling who have people buying books by the hundreds of thousands or millions. So my biggest challenge is really getting books into people's hands, and I care way more about getting readers than guarding files. Now that's me. You may have a different perspective, but for me, if somebody actually gets the file and reads it, they might become a subscriber, and somebody who's a subscriber might become a client or a referrer. And those people become revenue. And even if someone shares your book, they're sharing your ideas, your authority, your calls to action. You did put calls to action in your book, right? So that's not really loss, it's distribution. But there are some great tools these days that for a very low cost you can make the experience more protected and even better for your reader. Some of the tools even help you get reviews from people you don't know. So here are some of the tools that we use at Book Launchers and we recommend to our authors for distributing ARCs. Number 1, we're working with a digital file, right? An EPUB for the best experience. And again, if your book is in the early stages of layout, you can get this file from your designer. You could use a PDF as a backup, okay? Our favorite is still EPUB. Then we're going to choose the platform for distributing and managing the reviews. Now here's the choices that we have for that. There's more, but these are the ones we use. BookSirens, which is best for getting new readers, and there's a high completion of reviews from strangers on this. Booksprout is good for managing campaigns, and you will find strangers do reviews here too. StoryOrigin— well, it's great if you want to control your reviewer team. This is the most robust platform, but they don't have their own reviewer base, so it depends what you're looking for from them. But they are my preferred and most recommended. NetGalley is the most expensive option, but it's great for editorial reviews as well, as many of the reviewers do post to Goodreads and Amazon. We have affiliate links and just regular links for all the platforms below. Now, by the way, for NetGalley, you can save money on NetGalley reviews if you're a member of IBPA, or there's some other services out there that will allow you to do discounted NetGalley reviews so long as you give control up of who's reviewing your book. Okay, now that you have that chosen, build your review group and send them emails. Start with who you're going to put in your group. We call it a book army. You can see a video on that on this channel. But your social audience, your email list, past clients, people that you know already like and support you, offer the opportunity to read your book in advance in exchange for them agreeing to post a review when it launches. We also have a chapter on it in Self-Publish and Succeed where you can check it out. Ultimately, you want to make it easy to say yes. Give them a clear deadline, simple instructions, direct links to review. The easier you make it, the more reviews you're likely to get. Now, here's my recommendation: keep a spreadsheet of who was sent the book for review so you can remind them. I set them up in an email list in my email provider. I use Kit, but whatever system you use, I will tag them in my system as an ARC for the book so that I message them when it's 1 week out from launch, launch day, and afterwards to remind them to get those reviews posted. Now, when to send ARCs? Well, for normal reviewers, like customer reviewers, send 2 to 4 weeks before launch. For editorial reviews, you want to have 12 to 16 weeks ahead as much as possible. For a lot of the editorial review services, if you miss that window, you're too late. Now, we've just been talking about digital, but when do you need, or when is it better to send a print copy? Well, honestly, most of the time digital is enough, but where we use and recommend print is for things like media, especially television, even radio, influencers, strategic relationships. Now, I wouldn't waste money by printing a whole bunch and sending them out, so we generally get 10 to 20 copies of a book in pre-launch and use that for outreach to media influencers and sometimes, you know, corporate partnerships, speaking engagements when we're doing the full authority and launch marketing for a client. We won't send that many physical copies out and you probably don't need to either, especially when you're just going for reviews. But you do want to do this. So digital copies are going to work for the majority of reviews that you're trying to get. And using ARC copies to do this, well, Every review you get is important because it drives visibility. Visibility drives sales, and sales drive everything else in your author business. ARCs will get you going. The good news is there are tools to make this faster, easier, and less secure, so you have less worry about piracy. But remember, ultimately the most important thing isn't necessarily protecting your book, it's getting people to read it. If you like this video, definitely subscribe to the channel. Give it a like and say hello in the comments below, and I hope to see you on another video.
