
I didn't know what a street team was until recently, but on Bookstagram you will notice that most authors have one. They're a select group of hype people that post about your book. It usually starts because they love your brand and/or book, but it also helps if the author incentivises joining the street team. It can be for the limited duration of leading up to your book launch, but it also be a more permanent street team.
Sometimes (but not always) the ARC and street team are one in the same. But in a dedicated arc team's case, it's more about the events leading up to the arc, and once they receive their ARC and they're done, that's it.
For my YA books, I didn't know any better. I just signed up to Booksprout, a review platform and let people review my books. I actually got some great reviews that way, but for me, the one draw back was how hard it was to get your book in front of the ideal reader offset against the cost of the platform.
So I'm doing things a bit differently for The Rule of the Damned. This time, I'm building my arc team via social media and I will be using Book Funnel to distribute the books to them. Where the ARC applications come in is it helps me ensure that I'm targeting my ideal reader (someone who enjoys dark urban fantasy).
An inevitable follow up question, is why wouldn't I let someone who enjoys other genres read be part of my ARC team? Well, I would be happy to have them, but there is one catch. I have content warnings in this book, and not everyone may be comfortable with the subject matter. So that would be my only hesitation. For now, I don't think a street team is for me, but its not to say I haven't ruled it out for future books. Right now, my focus is this adjusted approach I'm taking to building an ARC team. It goes to show, you never stop learning on this author journey.