There is a box in our shipping room right now with forty-two copies of a book that will not be published for three months. Each copy has a letter tucked inside the front cover. Each letter is slightly different, personalized for the recipient. Some are going to newspaper reviewers who still write weekly book columns. Some are going to bloggers who run sites with twenty thousand followers. A few are going to booksellers we have worked with for years, people whose recommendations move more copies than most advertising budgets.

These are advance reader copies, ARCs, and we still print them on paper. In 2026, when digital galleys can be distributed instantly and at almost no cost, we package physical books, hand-write addresses, and pay for postage. People ask us about this constantly. Why bother? The answer is more complicated than nostalgia, though I will not pretend nostalgia plays no part.

What an ARC Actually Is

For readers who have never encountered one, an advance reader copy is a pre-publication edition of a book sent to reviewers, booksellers, librarians, and media contacts before the official release date. ARCs are not final. They often contain typos, and the cover design might still be in progress. Every ARC includes a disclaimer saying the text is not yet final and should not be quoted without checking against the published version.

The purpose is simple: generate reviews, word-of-mouth, and pre-orders before publication day. A book that launches with twenty reviews on Amazon and coverage in a handful of publications has a much better chance than one that arrives in silence. The review ecosystem is the engine that drives book discovery, and ARCs are the fuel.

Most large publishers now distribute digital galleys through services like NetGalley or Edelweiss. Reviewers can request a title, get approved, and download it immediately. The process is efficient and inexpensive. We use these services too. But we also send physical ARCs, and here is why.

The Psychology of the Physical Object

A digital galley arrives in your inbox alongside fifty other things demanding attention. It sits in a queue on your e-reader alongside the last twelve books you downloaded and have not started. There is nothing wrong with this. Digital distribution democratized the review process, and I am glad it exists. But a physical ARC arriving in the mail is a different experience.

When our ARC of The Last Archive by Catherine Voss arrived in reviewers’ mailboxes, it was a tangible thing they had to deal with. They picked it up. They looked at the cover. They read the back copy while standing in their kitchen. They put it on a shelf or a nightstand or a pile, and every time they walked past it, the book reminded them of its existence.

Digital files do not do this. They are invisible until you actively seek them out. A physical book has presence. It occupies space. It makes a claim on your attention simply by being there. I know this sounds old-fashioned, and maybe it is. But the data supports it. Our physical ARCs generate reviews at a significantly higher rate than our digital galleys. The people who receive paper copies are more likely to read the book, more likely to finish it, and more likely to write about it.

I have talked to reviewers about this, and their explanations vary. Some say the physical book feels like a commitment. “If someone spent money to print and mail this to me,” one blogger told me, “I feel like I should at least give it a fair shot.” Others say it is about the reading experience itself. Long-form reading on a screen is harder for many people, and when a reviewer is reading dozens of books for work, the physical format reduces fatigue.

The Personal Touch Matters

Every ARC we send includes a personalized letter. Not a form letter with the recipient’s name plugged in. An actual letter, written by someone on our team who has read the book and thought about why this particular reviewer or bookseller might connect with it.

When we sent out ARCs for Echoes of Iron by James Whitfield, our publicist Rachel wrote individual notes explaining why she thought each recipient would find something in the book. For a reviewer who had previously written about Civil War fiction, she mentioned specific aspects of the historical research. For a bookseller known for hand-selling literary fiction, she described the prose style. For a blogger who focused on debut authors, she talked about James’s background and voice.

This takes time. Rachel spent the better part of a week writing those letters. But the return on that investment was clear. Multiple recipients told us that the letter was why they moved the book to the top of their reading pile. One reviewer wrote back saying it was the first time in years that a publisher had demonstrated they actually knew anything about her reading preferences.

You cannot replicate this with a digital galley request approved through an automated system. The personal connection between publisher and reviewer is part of what makes the review ecosystem work, and physical ARCs with personal letters are one of the few remaining ways to build that connection.

The Economics Are Not as Bad as You Think

The most common objection to physical ARCs is cost. Printing, packaging, and mailing a hundred copies of a book is not cheap. Depending on the format and destination, each ARC can cost between eight and fifteen dollars to produce and ship. For a hundred copies, that is somewhere between $800 and $1,500, which is a meaningful expense for a small publisher like ScrollWorks.

But consider the alternative. A single review in a mid-tier publication can drive hundreds of sales. A bookseller who loves a book and hand-sells it to customers can move dozens of copies in a single store. A blogger with an engaged audience can generate more pre-orders than a paid social media campaign. The cost per impression of a physical ARC, when it actually generates a review, is competitive with almost any other marketing spend.

We also do not send physical ARCs to everyone. We are strategic about it. Our list is curated. Every recipient is someone we have reason to believe will engage with the book. We supplement the physical mailings with digital galleys for broader distribution. The physical copies go to people where the personal touch will make a difference. The digital copies handle the volume.

The math works out. I have tracked our ARC-to-review conversion rate for the past four years, and physical copies consistently outperform digital by a factor of about three. Roughly 40% of our physical ARC recipients write a review or provide a blurb, compared to about 12% of digital galley recipients. When you factor in the quality of those reviews (physical ARC reviews tend to be longer and more detailed), the economics are even more favorable.

The Review Ecosystem in 2026

The world of book reviews has changed enormously in the past decade. Newspaper book sections have shrunk or disappeared. Many magazines no longer run regular book coverage. The gap has been partially filled by online publications, literary blogs, BookTok creators, bookstagrammers, and podcast hosts. The review ecosystem is more fragmented and more democratic than it used to be.

This fragmentation creates both opportunities and challenges. On the opportunity side, there are more voices discussing books than ever before. A positive review from a BookTok creator with a hundred thousand followers can sell more copies than a review in a major newspaper. The barriers to becoming a book reviewer are lower, which means more diverse perspectives are represented.

On the challenge side, the sheer number of review outlets makes it harder to know where to focus. When there were a dozen major review venues, publishers knew exactly who to contact. Now there are thousands of potential reviewers across multiple platforms, each with different audiences, preferences, and formats. Figuring out which ones matter for a specific book is a full-time job.

Physical ARCs help us cut through this noise. They signal seriousness. They say, “We believe in this book enough to spend real money putting it in your hands.” In a world where reviewers are drowning in digital galleys, a physical book stands out. It is the equivalent of a handwritten letter in an inbox full of marketing emails.

What Reviewers Have Told Us

Over the years, I have had many conversations with reviewers about their preferences. The feedback has been remarkably consistent.

Most professional reviewers receive more books than they can possibly read. A newspaper reviewer might get fifty ARCs a month. A popular blogger might get twenty. They have to triage constantly, and the decision about what to read first is influenced by many factors: personal interest, timeliness, publisher reputation, and yes, format.

One reviewer told me she has a “physical pile” and a “digital pile.” The physical pile is smaller and gets read first. “If it is on my desk, I see it every day,” she said. “If it is on my Kindle, it might sit there for months. I know this is irrational, but it is true.”

Another reviewer, a podcaster who covers literary fiction, said he appreciates physical ARCs because he can take notes in the margins. “I know you can annotate on a Kindle,” he said, “but it is not the same. When I am preparing to discuss a book on my show, I want to flip through it and see my underlines and margin notes. The physical interaction helps me remember what I thought while reading.”

Several booksellers have told me that having a physical ARC is essential for hand-selling. “I need to be able to hold the book, feel the weight of it, show it to a customer,” one independent bookstore owner said. “A PDF does not work for that. When a customer asks me what is coming out next month, I want to pull an ARC off my shelf and put it in their hands.”

The Case for Digital (and Why We Use Both)

I do not want to be unfair to digital galleys. They are an essential part of our strategy, and they have real advantages. Speed, obviously. When we acquired Still Waters by Elena Marsh and moved quickly on the publication timeline, digital galleys let us get the book into reviewers’ hands weeks faster than a physical mailing would have allowed. Cost is another factor. For international reviewers, shipping a physical book can be prohibitively expensive, while a digital file costs nothing to deliver.

Digital galleys also allow for broader distribution. We can make a book available to hundreds of potential reviewers on NetGalley, reaching people we would never have identified on our own. Some of our best reviews have come from readers who discovered our books through these platforms and would never have received a physical ARC.

We also appreciate that digital galleys are environmentally friendlier. Printing and shipping physical books has a carbon footprint. For a publisher that cares about sustainability, the digital option has obvious appeal. We try to offset this by printing our ARCs on recycled paper and using eco-friendly packaging, but the environmental case for digital distribution is real.

Our approach is both. Physical ARCs for our core list of reviewers, booksellers, and media contacts. Digital galleys for broader outreach. The two formats serve different purposes and reach different audiences. Treating them as interchangeable would be a mistake.

The Logistics of Physical ARCs

For anyone curious about the practical side, here is how our ARC process works. About four months before a book’s publication date, we finalize the ARC edition. This is usually a trade paperback with a simplified cover and the “Advance Reader Copy, Not for Sale” disclaimer. We print between 50 and 150 copies, depending on the title and how wide we want the distribution.

Our publicist maintains a database of contacts, organized by genre, platform, and past responsiveness. For each new title, she creates a targeted list. We do not blast ARCs out to everyone. We choose recipients who are likely to connect with the specific book. A reviewer who specializes in historical fiction gets our historical novels. A bookseller known for championing debut authors gets our debuts. This targeted approach means less waste and higher engagement.

The letters are written next. Each one takes ten to fifteen minutes. For a mailing of fifty copies, that is roughly twelve hours of writing. It sounds like a lot, and it is. But those twelve hours consistently produce more results than twelve hours spent on almost any other marketing activity.

We ship priority mail domestically and use a fulfillment partner for international mailings. Each package includes the ARC, the personalized letter, and a simple one-sheet with the book’s publication date, price, ISBN, and ordering information. Nothing flashy. The book should speak for itself.

What We Have Learned

After several years of maintaining this approach, a few lessons have become clear.

Timing matters enormously. Send an ARC too early, and the reviewer forgets about it before the book comes out. Send it too late, and they cannot fit it into their schedule. We have found that three to four months before publication is the sweet spot for physical ARCs, while digital galleys can go out slightly earlier because they are easier to access when the reviewer is ready.

Follow-up is important but requires a light touch. We send a brief, friendly email about two weeks after the ARC arrives, asking if the recipient received it and offering to answer any questions. We do not nag. We do not ask when the review will be published. Reviewers are professionals, and treating them with respect means trusting their process.

Not every book needs the same ARC strategy. When we published The Cartographer’s Dilemma by David Okonkwo, we sent physical ARCs heavily to non-fiction reviewers and supplemented with digital for fiction reviewers who might appreciate the narrative style. For Bitcoin for Absolute Beginners by Alexander Hawthorne, we skewed digital because many of the relevant reviewers were online-first tech and finance writers who preferred that format.

Relationships compound over time. The reviewers and booksellers who received our first ARCs years ago are still on our list. Some of them review every book we send. That kind of ongoing relationship is invaluable, and it started with a physical book and a personal letter.

The Future of ARCs

I get asked sometimes whether physical ARCs will eventually disappear. My honest answer is: I do not think so, but they will probably become even more targeted. As printing costs rise and environmental concerns grow, the era of blasting out hundreds of physical ARCs for every title is ending. What will remain is the strategic, personalized mailing to recipients where the physical format makes a real difference.

I also think the definition of “reviewer” will continue to broaden. Ten years ago, our ARC list was almost entirely newspaper and magazine reviewers. Today it includes bloggers, podcasters, BookTok creators, and independent booksellers. In ten more years, it will probably include formats and platforms we have not imagined yet. The physical ARC will adapt to these new contexts, or it will not. But the underlying principle, that putting a book into someone’s hands with a personal note is one of the most effective things a publisher can do, will remain true regardless of how the media landscape changes.

For now, I am going back to the shipping room. Those forty-two copies are not going to mail themselves. And I still need to write six more letters.

Published by the ScrollWorks Media editorial team.