well as i assume the advanced reader copies of "sc" are meant for reviews to be hnaded out to journalists etc.

in which way could they differ from the real releases?

and what exactly is a pre-sale [as seen on ebay]?

you buy it and they have a small stock of books to be released earlier that they sell or is a pre-sale simply an advanced order to be shipped on the actual release date?

silly questions, i know - please forgive me i am a european and not that well-informed about american publishing rites.

The one I bought an eBay was a "Choose Your Own Adventure" version. I chose to unite the AI, marry the razor-girl, play bass in the Idoru's band, and platform jump from the bridge.

seriously, as far as I can tell, the arc is an uncorrected proof. it may contain some typos. I doubt it will have any substantial differences because it is a proof. Who is to say, though? The book hasn't come out.

Pre-sale, in my experience means it will be shipped to you upon release.

I've bought ARC's of both PR and SC. PR was identical to the published version. I expect SC will be as well.

The writer does not get any money...

The ARC copy of Pattern Recognition that I've got has a typo in it where Gibson has misspelt 'Cayce' - he typed it as 'Case' instead. I do find it amusing that he denies any links between the characters when his Freudian slips say otherwise!

Other than that one interesting typo, there's only a couple of grammatical or spelling errors that are in the ARC. In all other respects the Pat Rec ARC and full-release editions are identical.