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.
Once you created an account and logged in, you should have seen a very brief tutorial and selected the book genres you’re interested in and added at least one review profile for a site you can review on. If you didn’t do either of those things, don’t worry, you can still do them. Just remember that until you do, you won’t see any free book offers as we need to know what you like to read and where you can review!
To select or change your genre preferences, click the menu icon from the top left corner and then tap on “Settings”. From there, you can select your genres of interest, but don’t forget to tap “Update” to save them.
To add your profile link(s), click the menu icon from the top left corner and then tap on “Manage Profile Links”. We accept reviews from 7 different review sites, and the more you fill out, the more offers you’ll see as different authors want reviews on different sites.
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. 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 in the New ARCs section of the app. Click the “Read More/Reserve” button to view the full book info to decide if you’re interested, and then if so, click the “Reserve Your Copy” button. You will be able to reserve the book as long as their are still copies available and 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!)
(Note that a brief ad will show after you click the “Read More/Reserve” button, but once you get your Gem Level high enough, those ads will stop appearing.)
The reservation period for each book lasts a little less than 2 days, at which point you will be able to download the book via the Books You’re Reading section or via an email we send you.
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 are found in the Books You’re Reading section and are where you leave your reviews, comments or reasons for not reviewing), your Gem Level will automatically increase which will allow you to reserve more books (and stop seeing ads).
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 you 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).