angry
Yet some persist in selling these ARCs. Right now there is a Twitter discussion about one such seller of ARCs. Oh, they are claiming that all you are paying for is shipping, but they are still selling ARCs, ARCs they received FREE at conferences or via publisher mailings. The last time I discussed this on the blog I had folks disagree about whether selling the ARCs was illegal. It is, at the very least, unethical. Selling something you receive for nothing? How can that be acceptable? Cloaking the sale with "shipping costs" does not make this more palatable.
Most of the people I know float on books and do so out of their own pockets. There is no S&H charge involved. When I see this sort of thing happening, all I can think of are the commercials who offer to double your purchase as long as you pay the extra S&H. I know sometimes that the S&H on my own book orders comes awfully close to doubling the price of the books themselves. I get that mailing costs time and effort and money. It is one of the reasons I have giveaways from my home and from the hall outside of my office as well.
If you see someone selling ARCs, report them. If you see someone skimming multiple copies of ARCs at a conference or exhibit, call them out. I am growing weary of the videos I see wherein people share the "haul" they are taking from a conference. I watched a 30 minute YouTube video recently in which some bloggers shared their "haul." I do not know what compels someone to take more books than they can read or to take books they will not put into the hands of kids or to take more than one copy of a book. I do not understand this behavior.
Yes, accept an ARC from a publisher. Read it. Write about it. Post it. And then hand it off to another reader. DO. NOT. SELL. IT.