How to tell which ARC readers actually review

Every ARC team has two kinds of readers who look the same on sign-up day: the ones who read and post a review, and the ones who collect free books. You can't tell them apart from an application alone. You can get most of the way there by checking a few things before you approve, watching a few things during the campaign, and keeping one number across launches.

First, a sense of scale. Even well-run campaigns don't get a review from every reader. In one documented romantasy launch, 50.6% of readers who downloaded had reviewed after 12 days and 59.8% after six months.Illene BookSirens publishes a site-wide average of about 75%, with individual books ranging from above 90% to below 50%.BookSirens So the goal isn't a team where everyone reviews. It's knowing which readers carry the rate and which drag it down.

Before you approve: four checks

1. A public review history. Ask for a Goodreads or Amazon profile link on the application. Recent reviews of books in your genre are the best single predictor you'll get. An account with dozens of "want to read" shelves and no reviews is the classic collector profile.
2. Genre match. A reader who reviews thrillers may not finish your cosy fantasy. Ask which genres they read and compare it to their reviews, not their shelves.
3. Whether they can post on Amazon. Amazon only lets customers review after spending $50 on Amazon.com in the past 12 months.Amazon If Amazon reviews are what you need, ask where they'll post.
4. A real answer to one question. "Why do you want to read this one?" takes ten seconds to answer honestly. One-word or pasted answers are a weak signal on their own, but they add up.

None of these is proof. A brand-new reader with no history might be your best reviewer by next year. Treat a thin application as "give them one book and see", not as a rejection.

During the campaign: what downloads tell you

Track three states for every reader: invited, downloaded, reviewed. The gap between the last two is where the useful information is.

• Invited, never downloaded: usually a timing problem, not a character flaw. A reminder often fixes it. Don't count these against a reader.
• Downloaded early, reviewed before the deadline: your core team. Note it.
• Downloaded, then silence past the deadline: this is the pattern to watch. Once is life. Twice in a row is a habit.

A reminder a few days before the deadline does more than any amount of vetting. Our ARC reminder email templates cover the wording.

Across launches: the one number worth tracking

The most reliable signal is simple: of the ARCs this reader downloaded, how many did they review? Count only copies they downloaded, so a reader who never started isn't punished like one who took the book and vanished.

One launch tells you little. Three tells you a lot. A practical way to sort readers once you have that history:

These bands are the ones ArcRoster uses. The 50% line sits inside the range measured in real campaignsIlleneBookSirens; the 80% and 25% lines are judgement calls - adjust them to your genre.

Whether a reader reviewed late also matters less than whether they reviewed at all. A review that arrives two weeks after launch still counts on your book page.

What not to sort on: the star rating

Never decide who to invite back based on how many stars they gave you. It is tempting after a 2-star review, but it undermines the whole point of ARCs - honest early reviews - and it can cross a line. Amazon allows free review copies only if the author doesn't try to influence the reader's opinionAmazon, and in the US the FTC bars incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment.FTC rule Sort on whether a reader reviews, never on what they say.

Doing this without a spreadsheet

You can track all of this by hand - our free ARC tracking spreadsheet already calculates a review rate per reader. The hard part is keeping it across books, because every launch tempts you into a fresh file.

ArcRoster does the bookkeeping: it records who downloaded and who submitted a review link in every campaign, and keeps each reader's reliability tier in a permanent roster, so when you set up your next launch you can invite your Trusted and Reliable readers first. When it's time to let someone go, here's how to remove ARC readers who don't review without burning the relationship.