ARC FAQs

What are ARCs?

ARC stands for “Advance Review Copy”. These are copies of a book given out for free before release which allow select readers an opportunity to read the book early. These readers can then, if they want to, leave a review for the book prior to release.

Are reviews required?

No! Reviews are entirely voluntary. Publishers or authors may prefer to give ARCs to readers with a higher rate of leaving reviews, but it’s unethical (and sometimes illegal) to require reviews or give books “in exchange for” reviews.

Receiving a book “in exchange for” a review is a form of paid promotion. Major platforms like Instagram and TikTok require in their terms that all paid promotion be specifically disclosed in the post. Furthermore, many storefronts, like Amazon, specifically ban reviews made in exchange for products.

ARC reviews should be disclosed with something like: “I received a free advance copy of this book. I am leaving this review voluntarily.”

We use BookSprout, which provides a convenient template disclaimer that you can easily copy/paste into your review!

What are advance reviews for?

Reviews are for readers. The whole point of ARCs is to provide a way for readers to find helpful reviews on release day. Ideally, these reviews call out both things that might make a book a good fit for a potential reader, or a bad fit for a potential reader.

Should I disclose that I got a free ARC copy?

Yes. Be sure that your disclosure includes that you’re leaving the review voluntarily, such as:

“I received a free advance copy of this book. I am leaving this review voluntarily.”

Should reviews include author feedback?

Generally, no. This can get confusing in the indie space, because a lot of authors do ask for feedback from ARC reviewers.

Industry standard is that author feedback should come from trusted alpha and beta readers. Reviews are for readers, not authors.

That said, Demon Cat Press always welcomes two kinds of feedback in the private feedback box via BookSprout:

Typos – Please don’t feel like you’re expected to look for these, but if you happen to notice one, you’re welcome to let us know. (A typo is a clear error like a misspelling, missing punctuation, or confused word. If you simply don’t like how something is written, you’re welcome to say so in your review.)
Potential triggering content – If you identify potential triggering content that’s missing from the books Content Notes, please let us know! You can include this in your review as well, however, be mindful to censor words that might cause your review to be labeled as having “inappropriate content”.

How do you manage ARCs?

At this time, we use BookSprout for all of our ARCs. This is an ARC platform that provides a lot of helpful features for both publishers and readers. Reader accounts are 100% free!

How do I get an ARC?

At this time, we don’t have any special requirements for ARC reviewers. You don’t need to have a certain number of followers, and you’re not expected to post to social media. (Though if you want to, that’s amazing!)

When ARC sign-ups go out, there are twenty five copies available per campaign, on a first-come first-served basis.

The best way to catch the call is to subscribe to the free Monster Munchies newsletter or apply to join a review team via BookSprout:

Do you offer physical ARCs?

As of this time, no. We offer only eARCs (eBook ARCs).

What are the requirements for reviewers?

We don’t have any requirements around follower count, etc, and you’re not expected to post to social media. (Though if you want to, we’d love that!)

All that we ask is you:

Have a genuine interest in the book
Are able to leave a review on a review site listed in the review campaign (whether you do is up to you)
Do not tag any author or the publisher in any reviews other than fully positive four-star and five-star reviews.
- “fully positive” means the review doesn’t contain any criticism (even constructive criticism)
- You’re welcome to post such reviews, we just ask that you don’t tag us.
Do not upload/share/submit the book to any platform for any purpose other than reading it yourself. That is:
- Do not upload to a pirate site
- Do not share with friends/family
- Do not use for training AI (Artificial Intelligence) or ML (Machine Learning) models
- Do not use as a prompt to generative AI models for writing “in the style of”, etc

If we suspect or confirm that you’ve done any of the “Do Not”s above, you may be blocked from any/all future ARC campaigns. And we’ll be very sad. 😔

What if I don’t like the book?

That’s okay! Reviews are for readers.

If you would rather not leave a review, you don’t have to.

If you feel it’s valuable to other readers to include criticism in your review, here are some tips for making it as helpful to other readers as possible:

Be specific. For example, if you didn’t like the pacing, did you find it too fast or too slow? What’s the pacing of books you normally read?
Stay focused on the book. Specific insults aimed at the author(s) are not usually helpful, and may actually be against the terms of certain review sites.

We hope it goes without saying, but please keep your thoughts to your review. There’s no need to reach out to us or an author directly.

Should I wait to post a negative review?

All reviews are voluntary, and you should post whenever you feel is appropriate.

Some authors request that 3-star and below reviews are held and published after release. However, we at Demon Cat Press feel this strays too far into review manipulation. (We also don’t see 3-star as a “negative” review.)

If you, of your own volition, want to delay posting a review until after release, you are welcome to do so, but we will never expect this nor ask this of you.

I’m new to reviewing. How should I think about star ratings?

Give all our books five stars! 😉 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Hehe, just kidding, of course! Obviously, we’re a bit biased here, but we still want to provide some helpful context since the reviewing space can be overwhelming at first. Some people say three stars is negative, others say it’s positive, it can be very confusing.

Every reviewer approaches stars a little bit differently, but here are the two frameworks we see most often:

Approach 1 – Frequent Five Stars:

5-Stars: Loved it!
4-Stars: Liked it
3-Stars: It was good
2-Stars: Not my cup of tea
1-Star: Had serious problems

Approach 2 – Favorite Five Stars:

5-Stars: Amazing, incredible, absolute favorite!
4-Stars: Loved it, great book
3-Stars: Liked it, would recommend it
2-Stars: Not for me, would not recommend it
1-Star: Had serious problems

Other notes:

It’s common practice to not give a star rating for DNF (Did not finish) unless you stopped reading due to a serious problem, or read far enough to be able to develop an opinion.
Once a book reaches 20 ratings of any star value (including reviews) on Goodreads, the Goodreads review average shows up on Amazon, and this can be very helpful!
Some authors claim that 3-star reviews cause books to be “suppressed” on Amazon, and this isn’t true. What’s true (as of Sept 2025) is that Amazon will show special features of books with an over 4-star review average. Lower than 4-star average just means books aren’t eligible for these special features.