Congratulations!  You’re now part of one of the oldest and most popular ARC programs around, which means loads of free books in the genres you want are ready for you to read and review.  Here’s how it all works.

You should have already gotten an email explaining how to logon and view your dashboard, which is key to taking advantage of all of the benefits of our program.

The first thing you should do is go to the Your Profile Links tab of your dashboard and add your profile information for as many review sites as you can leave reviews on. The more you fill out, the more books will be available to you. Some books are looking for reviews on only specific sites, which means if you haven’t told us you can review on that site (by filling our your profile info for it) then you won’t be able to reserve those books.

Quick Tip: Almost all authors want Amazon reviews, so if you can review on Amazon* you’ll be able to see almost all the books available. But there are 6 other review sites as well, so you’ll still get offers even if you can only review on some of those.  Fill out the info for all of the sites you can review on, as the more sites you can review on, the more offers you’ll see. You can also always come back to this page and fill out the profile info for a site later, if you haven’t yet created an account on those sites.

Each day, new books become available and those that match any of the genres you’re interested in, as well as are looking for reviews on any of the sites you can review on, will show up on the New ARCs Available tab. You can then reserve the books that interest you, provided there are still copies available and that you have enough HGB Points (don’t worry, unless your gem is cracked, you’ll get enough points each day to reserve at least one new book – and those that participate in our program the most will be able to get even more than one book a day!)

The reservation period for each book lasts a little less than 2 days, and then a link to download the book will be emailed to you, as well as be available on your dashboard on the Books You’re Reading tab (where you can see all the books we’ve sent you, fill out the reader forms, etc).

Remember: Each book is only looking for a limited number of readers in total and by Gem Level, which means the earlier you check the more likely you are to be able to reserve a copy. But that’s also why we ask, in fairness to other readers and the author, that you read all the book details carefully and ONLY click on the reserve button for the books that interest you and that you have time to read and review in a reasonable amount of time. By keeping on top of your reader forms (which is where you leave your reviews, comments or reasons for not reviewing), your Gem Level will increase which will allow you to reserve more books. If you lag behind and your Gem Level falls too low, you may find that your ability to reserve books is more restricted or blocked altogether which is meant to give you time to catch up and allow readers that are caught up more of a chance to reserve their copies.

The book files available are usually in ePub and PDF format, allowing you flexibility on how to open and view them with some tips on doing so found here.

When you’re finished reading the book and left a review on one of the review sites that the book is requesting reviews for, you can fill out the reader form for that book. If the review date for a book comes up and you haven’t yet filled out the form, you may start getting email reminders about them. If you’re still reading the book, you can just ignore those reminders. They are simply meant to make sure you haven’t forgotten. The review date is simply the date to aim for, but it’s perfectly fine to leave your review later. We just ask that if you are starting to fall behind, that try to catch up before reserving too many more books.

Feel free to participate in as many or as few ARC reviews as you have time and interest for, but always keep in mind:

It is VITAL that you not fall too far behind on your reader forms. Your Gem Level is tied closely to how reliably you fill these out, and if your Gem Level falls too low, the books you can reserve will become more restricted or even stop altogether until you can get caught up. If you are having any technical issues, or anything else that is preventing you from participating, please let us know ASAP so that we can help get you back on track.  We want ALL readers to be able to read and review as many books as possible!

That’s about all you need to know about participating and getting a steady stream of free books to review.

*Amazon has a number of rules and restrictions around who can leave reviews for a book that they didn’t purchase on their site. The one that trips most people up is that you have to have spent at least $50 in the last 12 months on Amazon to be able to leave those reviews. Those purchases have to have been made with a credit card, and Prime memberships don’t count. Hidden Gems has nothing to do with that rule, it applies to anyone that uses Amazon and is specific to each local store (so if you live in Canada and shop on Amazon.ca and can review there, that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to leave reviews on Amazon.com as well, unless you also spend enough on that account).