Why I Don't Request Arcs - Especially physical arcs

hiya so there's a couple of books coming out this year - I'm really absolutely dying for but I won't request the physical arcs or I won't even request the e-arcs for them actually here's why I just feel like first of all I don't deserve to be able to request arcs I just I don't have the level of respect that maybe publishers are expecting from someone within the community and like I know that's ridiculous because I see people who have less subscribers and less views than myself and I'm like oh well that's really great for them whereas personally I feel like I'm just not at that stage and you know I reached 500 subscribers recently which is incredible thank you so much for your support like I'm actually I'm delighted with myself but I reached that and still I was thinking, you know I can't request books yet because I'm not I'm just not big enough I suppose I know that a second ago I said oh I don't feel respected enough but now i'm saying oh I don't have enough subscribers and views and i'm not saying that views and subscribers equals respect or respect equals views and subscribers or anything I'm not saying that I'm saying that I feel like I don't have both I suppose like I don't feel like I'm enough of a booktuber to be able to request things even though it's a part of my Twitter bio I still don't feel like being a booktuber is enough of a part of my identity for me to actually be able to approach people and say yeah this is what I do I'm a booktuber I talk about feminist books mental health and young adult books that's what I'm all about I would like a copy of your book because it feels like I'm I just don't deserve it I've had a couple of publishers email me being like do you want a copy of this book and I'm absolutely amazed at their acknowledgement of my existence I'm like oh my god oh my god people are acknowledging that I do this thing but I'm always like but why why why me you know? hashtag jessica needs confidence you know what, the other day it wasn't the other day it was like a month go but I was told by someone that I seemed pretty arrogant when they were talking to me about my youtube channel not this channel the other one and I was like oh that's that's cool that I seem to have so much confidence about my channel that I am now arrogant, where as with this one it's like no no I'm not ready for people to really acknowledge my existence like and you know if I'm thinking about emailing a publisher then I'm stuck with the idea oh my god I must really really want this book if I'm willing to put myself out there and be like vulnerable and whatever even though it's not really being vulnerable but it kind of is being like "can I have a copy of this book please?" so if I'm considering that then that means I really really love the author and I want to support authors if I really love someone then I really want to not just get their book for free. If I'm going out there and I'm saying to a publisher I want a copy of Louise O'Neill's book The Surface Breaks, which I really really do, I saw that the ARCs were shipped out to people a couple of weeks ago and i was like, oh my god I cannot imagine getting that early because it's out in may but I'm going to myself "I don't want to ask the publisher can I have a copy of the arc" even though I really want it because then that means that I probably won't actually go and buy the book when it comes out because I'll have trouble being like "Jessica buy this book even though you already own it, buy it again and support your favourite author" because it's like well I'm kind of broke, I need to be wise with my money so if I get the physical copy of a book then I just I probably won't be bothered supporting the author which makes me sound really bad or feel really bad I suppose so I'm just like right I'm just not gonna I'm not gonna go there if I really want a book I'm gonna wait till it comes out and then buy it does that make any sense at all I really hope it does, and you know the thing is some people will say oh it's just one book that you're not buying like the authors won't really be that devastated by the loss of one sale but I don't like assuming people's financial situations I don't like assuming what authors are earning or not earning, I'm just going to assume that that sale will actually mean something to them and so if I really love an author, I want to support them in every way I can like with some books it seems like they're absolutely huge and everyone is talking about it and everyone seems to have read it, and then what you ask people oh can I borrow a copy of your book they're like oh actually borrowed it from someone else and then you're thinking well how many copies of the book were actually sold and how many people just borrowed it from a friend or from the library or whatever and then you can't really judge how many how much the author is making because it's like, well I don't know? so unless it's like JK Rowling that you're talking about you can't really be like oh the loss of this one sale of my book isn't going to affect them at all because you just you don't know and I know the people are gonna be like Jessica you're being silly but if everyone had that attitude and everyone who wanted the book went to the publisher and was like can I have it have a copy of the book please who would buy the book?now I'm not saying to never request ARCs, I'm just saying that personally when it comes to getting physical ARCs, not talking about e-ARCs or anything like from Netgalley but when it comes to getting an actual physical book from a publisher I don't want to be too mad about the author I want it to be a book that I probably wouldn't have bought myself anyway because if I have the money to support not sure and if I have the Mooney to buy their books then I really want to just buy it myself anyway that's why I don't request physical ARCs for a book if you do that's fine and good on ya for having the confidence to even email the publisher and be like yeah I want that book send me it yo I'm sure you don't do that could you imagine if you did, ha. thanks very much for watching though if you're new here by the way and you like bookish videos about mental health, feminist, young adult or booktube then maybe you would like to subscribe to me so you can do that by clicking over here thanks so much for watching! Slán