The Hidden Gems ARC review service relies on authors sending their books to us to supply to our readers. Each author only asks for a certain number of reviewers and we have thousands of reviewers signed up to our service. So in fairness to both our authors and other reviewers, we need to keep track of who is regularly participating and who is not.

We don’t penalize readers for missing the occasional review because we understand that life sometimes gets in the way of a book being read or finished – or there are occasionally legitimate reasons why a reader might not want to review a particular book. However, if readers are consistently not reading our books, or not connecting with them enough to want to leave a review, then it’s likely that our program isn’t for them.  Perhaps the books we have aren’t the type they enjoy.  That’s okay, but in fairness to the authors sending their books in the hopes of getting them read, and the other readers looking to get those books, we may need to limit the number we send to readers that have stopped participating until/unless their situation changes. Remember that even if you don’t read a book for whatever reason, or if you choose not to review one that you did read, you still need to fill out the reader forms with a reason for not reviewing. Too many empty forms is another indication that a reader is no longer interested/able to participate in the program.

Using all of this information, we calculate a status for each reviewer in our program. Since we are Hidden Gems, we describe the different status levels in terms of your Gem. You can view your gem status on the left side of your dashboard at any time, or in more detail via Your Stats tab.

There are 4 different Gem levels:

• Sparkling – This is the highest level and means that you’ve been keeping up with your reader forms – maybe you’ve missed some but not enough for us to be concerned. You will be added to the pool of potential reviewers whenever you sign up.
• Getting Tarnished – You’ve started to miss some books. We’re not overly concerned at this point, but you may start to find you aren’t getting quite as many books sent to you as before so that you have time to catch up. You will still be added to the pool of potential readers when you sign up for a new one.
• Tarnished – You’re in the danger zone now and really need to catch up on all the books you’ve requested and that we’ve sent. Maybe you need to be more selective in the ones you sign up for and only focus on ones you really have time to read and look interesting enough to you that you think you’ll want to finish it and give an opinion. You will likely not be getting too many of the books you request until you catch up a bit, but will still be added to the pool of potential readers when you sign up for a new one.
• Cracked – You’ve missed far too many books and in fairness to our authors and other readers, you will not be getting any more until you can catch up on the ones we’ve already sent you. You will not be added to the pool of potential readers when you click to sign up for a new one.

What can you do to improve your gem status?

Catch up on your reader forms for the books we’ve already sent so we know that you are still interested in participating (even when you didn’t review)! If you aren’t filling out the forms (they only take a few seconds, usually just the click of a button) then we have to assume it’s because you aren’t reading or enjoying any of the books we’ve sent.  If that’s not the case, then fill out the forms so we know and can get you back to reading!

You’ll see the books you haven’t filled out on the Books You’re Reading tab of your dashboard. Please fill in any missing reviews or reasons for not reviewing as soon as you can. If you’ve left reasons for books that you later added a review for, you can update those from the Completed Books tab as well.

We really don’t want to block any of our readers from reading new books so please do your best to catch up and only ask for books you have the time and interest to read. If you think your status is incorrect or have any questions about it, please don’t hesitate to contact us.