Where to get free books and ARCs

(NOTE: This post was edited and updated on Dec 16, 2012)

If you are a book lover like I am, you are always excited to discover new books and ecstatic to get free books. I am lucky that I do get a lot of ARCs (Advance Reader Copies) at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October and BEA in May. And while book fairs are great places to get books, there are other ways. Book publishers have caught on that a great way to get buzz for their books is to put them in the hands of people who love books and have a enough gratitude for a free book that they are likely to write a review on their blog, for amazon or other review outlets. Several websites now offer ways for publishers and authors to match up free books with willing readers and potential reviewers.

First up, there is the Early Reviewers program at Library Thing. Each month, LT releases a list of donated ARCs that ER members can request. LT then uses a special algorithm that calculates how likely you are to like the book you request (based on the books you enter into your LT library) and how likely you are to review it (based on the number of reviews you've uploaded to the site). It is not a sure thing - there are far more people requesting than there are review copies, but you can increase your chances. My first time, I spent a couple of hours entering about 70 books and uploading reviews for 1/3 of them and I ended up snagging an April 2008 book, The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton. I've gotten 16 more since.

Book Divas has a program called Collective X that offers ARCs for review. Every once in a while, the moderator announces the books she has to offer and you send her a private message with your top 5 picks. You need to review the books you've claimed before you can claim more.


Shelf Awareness has a daily newsletter where publishers often offer ARCs in ads. Just sign up for the newsletter and look for ads which say "Click here to get an ARC" or some variation thereof. Make sure you sign up for the Pro edition.

Bostick Communications provides access to review copies of books mostly by self-published authors.

NetGalley is the place to go for eGalleys of many publishers' books if you have access to an eReader.  Be aware however that most eGalleys expire on the book's publication date.  Make sure to fill out your profile with the appropriate information or you are likely to be declined for many books.

Edelweiss is another eGalley platform of interest.

Publishers themselves have also set up ways to get free books into your eager hands:

Harper Collins has a First Look program where winners are selected at random and applicants must explain why they think they'd like the book (currently on hiatus).

Hachette also offers ARCs for active bloggers on the ning platform called Early Birds ARC review. You can also join and get review copies from the Early Birds Blog Tour group and the Audiobook Review group.

St. Martin's Reading Group Gold offers Early Access books periodically on a first-come, first-served basis so check back often for latest offers.

If you are in a Sci-fi book club, you can sign up at Del Rey to get on their ARC mailing list. Many publishers run periodic contests or will enter you into a drawing to win free books if you sign up for their newsletter.

Christian:

Thomas Nelson has a book review bloggers program where you get a book in exchange for a 200 word review on your blog and a consumer retail site .

Young Adult:


Random House offers Random Buzz for teens (earn points that can be traded for free books by submitting reviews and doing activities - this seems like a lot of work!).

There is the In Group at Mac Teen Books for teens 13-19 (not sure exactly how it works, but if you want to join, there's a e-mail address provided in the sidebar).

Teen reviewers can be members of the Hip Scouts at Hachette.

And then there is Sneeky Peeks at CBAY Books (an imprint of Blooming Tree Press).

There are also tons of sites and blogs that run contests where you can win books. You can find some just by surfing around and looking at bloggers' sidebars.  Free Book Friday and Free Book Friday for Teens offer new book contests every Friday. Fresh Fiction has a page with a LONG list of contests you can enter each month. YA Books Central has great book contests from publishers for YA books. Goodreads also has many book giveaways as part of their First Reads programs.

Another activity to get involved in is blog tours. This is where an author who wants to promote his or her latest book sets up a tour of book lover's blogs. The blog owners will usually get an ARC of the book and agree to review it as well as host the author on a specific day (usually an interview). I've been a part of several of these. There are several PR specialists who set these up and two good places to start are Pump up your book promotion and TLC Book Tours. If you do end up becoming a host for a tour, Lillie Ammann has a great article here with advice for hosts.

A type of blog tour that is becoming increasingly popular is the ARC tour, where a group of bloggers pass along upcoming books to review before publication. In this case, you do not get to keep the book, but must read it and then pass it along within a certain time frame (usually one week). Because these types of tours are a ton of work to organize, most don't last very long.  Try googling ARC tour to see if you can find current ones.

Lastly, you can get the publishers/authors to come to you - how? By maintaining an active book reviewing blog with a wide readership. Easier said than done right? I started getting offers just a few months after I started reviewing books on my blog, but I put in a lot of hard work on my blog in the meantime.