How to run an ARC team for a series

The first book in a series gets an ARC campaign like any standalone. From book two onwards, the rules change. A reader who hasn't read book one won't enjoy book three, can't review it well, and is the reader most likely to download and never finish.

The upside is that a series gives you something a standalone never does: a team that gets better with every book, if you keep track of it.

Who to invite for book two and beyond

Invite in this order, and stop when you have enough readers:

1. Readers who reviewed the previous book. They've read the series, they post, and they want to know what happens next. This group should be most of your team.
2. Readers who reviewed an earlier book but skipped the last one.Often just a busy month. Ask if they've caught up before sending.
3. New readers who have read the series so far. Fans from your newsletter who bought the earlier books are excellent ARC readers - ask on the sign-up form which books they've read.
4. New readers who haven't started the series. Only if you can give them book one first and enough time to read both.

Leave out readers who downloaded the previous ARC and didn't review. In a series that's a strong signal: if book two didn't hold them, book three probably won't either.

Readers who haven't read the earlier books

Two options, and both are fine. You can send book one along with the ARC and set a longer window so they have time for both. Or you can keep them for the book-one promotion and invite them to the ARC team for the next book once they've caught up.

What doesn't work is sending book three to someone who hasn't read book one and hoping. Their review - if one arrives - tends to say they were lost, which helps nobody browsing the page.

Spoilers

Every review of a later book risks spoiling earlier ones. Readers mostly handle this themselves, but a line in your ARC email helps:

If you post a review, please keep major twists from this book and the earlier ones out of it - new readers often start the series from your review.

Ask, don't require. Amazon allows free advance copies only when the author doesn't try to influence the reader's opinionAmazon, so the request should be about spoilers, never about what the reader thinks.

Rapid release timing

If books come out weeks apart, the reading window overlaps the previous launch. Two adjustments help:

• Send the next ARC as the last one launches. Your most engaged readers just finished the previous book and want the next one now. That's the moment to send it.
• Don't double-remind. A reader who is still reviewing book two doesn't need a reminder for book three in the same week. Stagger them.

The general timing advice is in when to send your ARCs; for a series, shorten the gap between campaigns and let the team's momentum do the work.

Why the series team is worth the effort

For series fiction, the payoff of an ARC campaign is read-through - readers of book one going on to buy the rest - more than launch-week sales of any single book. We work through that arithmetic in what an ARC campaign is actually worth. Reviews also keep arriving long after launch: in one documented campaign the review count rose about 18% between day twelve and month six.Illene For a series, every one of those late reviews is on a page that leads to the next book.

The team itself compounds too. By book four you know who reads every instalment within a week, who needs a reminder, and who quietly stopped after book two. That knowledge is the most valuable thing a series ARC program produces - and the thing most authors lose when each launch starts from a new spreadsheet.

Keeping the series team in one place

ArcRoster keeps one reviewer roster across every campaign, so each reader's history on books one to three is there when you set up book four. Their reliability tier comes from how many of the ARCs they downloaded they went on to review, and you can tag readers by series or by the last book they read, then invite your Trusted readers first. For readers who drift off, see how to remove ARC readers who don't review.