A guest post by @sonomalass of Sonomalass’s Blog.
Recent conversations, on Twitter and elsewhere, have gotten me thinking about NetGalley. As you probably know, NetGalley is a service that helps publishers put electronic ARCs (advance reader copies) into the hands of readers likely to review books and talk them up before their release. Let me say right up front that I think this is a fabulous idea, and I’m glad that it’s starting to catch on with more publishers, large and small. The increasing number of blogs, and the widespread use of reader review functions at Goodreads, Amazon and other sites, have changed the definition of “reviewer” quite a bit. The desire of publishers to use that, and NetGalley’s willingness to facilitate it, are good things. But I think that some of the growing pains are worth taking a look at, albeit from my purely subjective perspective.
When I first joined NetGalley, it was because a number of people told me, “Oh, you don’t have to have a blog. They are looking for people who review on Goodreads and Amazon, too.” And that was true, for many of the publishers participating; they wanted to get buzz for certain books, so they made those books more widely available for advance review by using NetGalley. I read some good books a little early, tried some things I probably wouldn’t have paid for, and Did Not Finish several books. I also let some files expire (most eARCs are temporary files) because I just didn’t get to them within the time frame allowed. Books I finished, I reviewed on Goodreads and in my own monthly reading summary. All in all, it was a pretty good system. Now, NetGalley says it is for “professional readers,” and I’m just not sure if that’s me.
So what changed? More publishers joined the service, including some pretty big names. I figured that was great; even big New York publishers need reviews, and if they had particular books for which they wanted to cast a wider advance net, that sounded like smart marketing/PR to me. But then I started getting email telling me that I should update my profile, because publishers wanted to know things about me (like the number of unique visits to my blog) before deciding whether they wanted me to review their books. And then I got several rejections in a row – email telling me that my request to view a book had been declined, and helpfully advising me how to beef up my profile to prevent future rejections. I also got messages from NetGalley advising me to look over each publisher’s requirements before requesting a book. This is the way the old print ARC system generally worked; a system in which I never participated, because I’m a small fish in the blogging pond.
This is where I started having a problem. NetGalley used to feel like a partnership; publishers want advance buzz, some of us like to try new things or read books early, and providing eARCs through a central repository was a good way to facilitate that. It was a new model for a new time in publishing, a model that went beyond substituting eARCs for paper ones. But now it feels like publishers are the big fish; they have something I’m supposed to want, and I should ask for it the right way, jump through some hoops to get it, and figure out in advance if I’m what they are looking for. Or else accept repeated rejection because I ask for the wrong things. Um, no thanks. Frankly, I do enough of that in my PAID professional life; I don’t need it or want it in my recreational activity.
Now, I think I understand some of what publishers are thinking here. They don’t want people using NetGalley to read books for free that they would otherwise have paid for, unless the publishers are getting something out of it. And they certainly don’t want book pirates signing up, getting eARCs, stripping them of DRM and selling them/giving them away, possibly before the books are even released. But the usual problem rears its head here – publishers (and some others) have a tendency to assume that every download of a free book is a) a book that will actually get read, and b) a lost sale. I firmly believe that both of those assumptions are false, based on my own experience – I have downloaded books and never read them, both at NetGalley and elsewhere, and most of those are books I would not have bought. The few books I have gotten from NetGalley that I have loved, I have then purchased – if I like a book enough to read it more than once, then I don’t want an unproofread, time-limited file, I want the real thing! A couple of those have been books that I probably wouldn’t have tried, so in those cases NetGalley actually gained a sale for the publisher. I’ve heard the same from many other readers; books downloaded via various publisher promotions often languish unread, because “free” was enough motivation to accept them, but it takes more than that to actually devote time and energy to reading them.
The real problem seems to be one of perception. The whole set-up, where readers/reviewers “request” ARCs, and publishers “decline” or “approve” those requests, feels unbalanced, as though what I’m bringing to the table (offering to take time to read a book and then publicizing it for free) isn’t valuable compared to the cost of distributing the file. Moreover, that feeling is magnified by having to request each title separately, risking multiple rejections (I got three rejection emails in one day because one publisher, whose books I had read and reviewed before, changed its criteria). Navigating the somewhat bewildering array of publisher requirements (no two alike) for access via NetGalley adds to the “jumping through hoops” feeling. I have spoken to fellow bloggers who have reduced their use of NetGalley because of this, and a few who, like me, are wondering whether to give it up altogether. Most of them agreed that a slightly different system, one that reduced the feeling of inequality, would encourage them to stay. What might that look like? I have some ideas, but first I want to hear from more readers, especially if you use NetGalley or have considered doing so. Not that I’m speaking on NetGalley’s behalf or anything; I have no one’s ear. But rather than just complain about the change in procedure and attitude, I’d like to get some positive discussion going. What changes do you think would help? Or are you happy with things as they are?
I’m really not trying to suggest that publishers should be obligated to give eARCs to all, or that they should not permitted to pick and choose how they are distributed. Nor am I denying that NetGalley provides a valuable service to publishers and to certain groups of readers. They do, and the potential value to publishers, authors, librarians, booksellers, reviewers and other readers is tremendous. I just think that the mechanism for sharing should be designed to respect each party’s contribution, instead of making some seem like givers and others like takers. A more equal feel to the system, and reducing the number of steps the reviewer has to take to get books that publishers want them to read, would benefit everyone. Because really, the LAST thing publishers need right now is the bad opinion of devoted readers.
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[...] blogging over at Jessica’s place today, Read, React, Review, on the subject of NetGalley. Come on [...]
I loved hearing about the reader/reviewer experience, thanks for perspective. As an author, I don’t use Net Galley, but like you, I’ve heard a lot of talk. I know people were really excited about it for a while and that recently, not so much.
I have a couple of reactions. The first is that given the varied publisher requirements of potential readers, someone, probably Net Galley, needs to streamline the burden on those readers. The situation SonomaLass describes sounds like a pretty terrible user experience.
The second is a feeling of disappointment that publishers may be, once again, imposing an old framework on a new situation. One mistake is not understanding the value of a small community within a niche. Imposing a blog hits or number of subscribers requirement risks omitting blogs that are highly influential because of the thoughtfulness of the content.
And what about the Goodreads effect? If 100 people on Goodreads review a book from Netgalley, I suspect the impact of that would be pretty high. I find it hard to see the benefit of imposing barriers to people who are going to take the time to post their thoughts on Goodreads. In that case, it’s not the individual’s impact, but the cumulative impact of a lot of reviews.
Lots of things to think about here!
Isn’t that the central tension here? To the publishers it IS professional. I see getting into ARCs, etc, as amateurs (not a negative term, BTW) inserting themselves into a professional space, not the other way around. From that perspective, it makes sense that that space would constrict again if it turns out that it’s not meeting all parties’ needs. I’m sure that’s compounded by the issue that, being online, expectations tend to be set by the current wave of users, who may have an entirely different set of background knowledge and mode of interaction from the original users.
I agree that to publishers this is professional. To authors, too, obviously. But it seems to me that the reach of NetGalley (22,000 users was the last figure I saw) pretty much has to include some of us amateurs. Doesn’t it make sense to respect that, and to find a way to manage the different levels of involvement/influence in a way that is sensitive to the needs of all users?
I’m usually accepted by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Orbit, a couple other small pubs and am on auto-approve with Harlequin/Carina. I’m a miniscule blog with a miniscule reach and felt like I was riding on my Amazon coattails, frankly – but I never thought much about getting turned down until Harper Collins showed up and I started getting turned down all over the rest of the place. I’ve gotten four rejections this week so far and am waiting on two requests for Disney Hyperion books (I’m guessing those will be noes). Harlequin, bless their consistent selves, had the approval for the two books I asked for in my inbox within five minutes.
When I started at Netgalley, I just was super careful about what I picked – I’ve reviewed all but three of the books I’ve selected and those were real stinkers. I did, and still do, look at it as if every book that I picked was a job that the publisher was assigning me. I’ve seen several people in a certain forum tell people, “You should sign up for Netgalley, you don’t need a blog or anything and you can get tons of free books. I’ve only reviewed four or five out of the nearly hundred that I’ve requested, don’t worry, they don’t make you.” Seriously, this person said that was their review rate. I was a little nauseated.
If one of the things that would make the publishers consider switching to auto-approval vs. request/deny/allow for each title is maintaining or establishing a certain review rate, I wouldn’t have a problem with that. I don’t think it’s out of line for a publisher to ask for it, any more than it’s out of line for them to be asking for some (some!) of what they’re asking for now, like if you have a blog and where else you’ll post your reviews. I agree that there needs to be some sort of uniformity in requirements though, and I don’t feel like jumping through hoops to get a book anymore.
I could envision some of the pubs with less restrictions letting reviewers with no Netgalley experience start out getting approved, then as they built up a number of books, they’d qualify for some of the larger pubs. If Harper Collins is going to be such hardasses about protecting their precious books, then they can set their number higher, but they ought to be up front about what it is and make it attainable. I HATE their nebulous “suggestions” for approval. They ought to lay it out in black and white, but then it makes them look elitist and even worse, it locks them into giving books to specific reviewers they don’t like, I suspect.
I have a half dozen different sources for ARCs now and while I’d love to keep using Netgalley, I don’t need it.
Great post, Sonomalass. My thoughts pretty much mirror what Carolyn said.
For the record, I haven’t requested ARCs from NetGalley since last summer, so I don’t have a dog in this fight. However, NetGalley built their reputation on the backs of so-called smaller, or niche, bloggers. Now that more bigger publishers are joining, they are being refused eARCS because they don’t meet “the new criteria”. Not nice.
ETA: I didn’t realise this was a guest post. Oops! Well done, Sonomalass.
I’ve been on NetGalley for a while now (since 2009), but I am particular about requesting books there so I’ve used it mm, looking it up – 16 times, and I’ve reviewed 9 of those titles (with a 10th I’m working towards). I’m with you in what those unreviewed titles represent – books I wouldn’t normally buy, tried reading but DNFed, or never read, so I didn’t review them. They wouldn’t represent lost sales to the publisher.
So I’m not a very active user. I have been rejected for a review once, for a book I really wanted to read, but I’ll just buy the book now. Yes, it was a HarperCollins imprint. On the other hand, I was recently approved for a HarperCollins book. So I am not sure what the criteria is. I’ve also “heard” that people should re-request if they’ve been rejected, because there’s so many requests? I am not sure about that, and I haven’t tried it.
Anyway, from my own experiences, I have yet to feel negativity about NetGalley and the big publishers there, but I do feel like.. I may need to brace myself for more rejections to review requests now. There have been people who mentioned on twitter getting rejected for a book that I feel have more readers on their blog than I do. I don’t know. This post definitely gives me something to think about when I next request something from NetGalley.
OK, I just went to look at the request criteria for HarperCollins. I find it interesting that the EOS imprint doesn’t have criteria (and that’s the imprint that most interests me because I read SF), but “HarperCollins imprints including HarperCollins Children’s Books, HarperTeen, Balzer + Bray, and Katherine Tegen Books” does (and one that asks for page views and followers). These imprints have the ONLY set of review criteria that has page views and number of followers listed. I did a search and no one else does! I wonder if the high number of YA book blogs has to do with this policy?
When I first started using NG (a year ago maybe) I think NG was the one that said – hey you don’t necessarily need a blog, just review at some outlet. But as bigger publisher started joining, I think the pubs then started making these stricter policies. I also think because NG has grown soooo much, maybe these have to be put in place?
I try to be very selective when I choose books from NG. It is so easy to go there and see a dozen you want to read – but realistically, will I actually have time to read all of them. Maybe people are abusing it in someway and just using it as a way to read free books rather than review appropriately.
I look at NG as I would requesting a print arc though. I always offer to submit my stats, and I get rejected all the time…LOL. So, these new hurdles don’t seem out of line to me.
You summed up my feelings perfectly, SonomaLass. Even though I have a blog and do blog consistently (one of the “new” requirements), I don’t like the shift in the atmosphere at NetGalley. Sure, it is largely the fault of the larger publishers with stricter requirements. But given the new focus on stats, reach etc. SITE WIDE it seems like a departure to me from the days when the site was open to the avid reader willing to promote a book, regardless of their quantifiable reach.
Oddly enough, I don’t have the same reaction to the rejections for print ARCs. Perhaps that’s because I see those as strictly finite. No one has been able to give me insight into how a publisher is billed for NetGalley services. Whether volume affects the amount they are charged. As a result, I can only guess that the new efforts to be more selective about approvals is a result of the fear of lost sales. Something I find a little ridiculous, with the possible exception of digital-only presses. Do publishers have to approve everyone? No, they don’t. But if they don’t value the positive PR that smaller blogs and regular readers bring to the mix, then I’m less inclined to promote their books.
I joined NetGalley precisely because it was more open and less like the traditional ‘jump through hoops’ system already in place for traditional ARCs. With the influx of larger publishers, it seems that many are now using it as a digital replacement for print ARCs, and that’s not why I used the site. I don’t need NetGalley. I have other sources for reading material. And that’s something that I think the publishers and NetGalley aren’t taking into account in their new dynamic of givers versus takers. A rejection for me means I’m likely not going to read or review that book on my site because I will be reading something else instead. That’s a net loss for everyone.
Jessica,
Thank you for this post. I think your feelings here are shared by many people. I am the president of NetGalley, and would like to attempt to respond to a few of your issues/questions.
There is no question that the growth of NetGalley has been a wonderful/terrible thing. On the one hand we have more publishers bringing more books online, and the opportunities for readers has never been better. On the other hand we have many more registered users requesting books than ever before and the process to sift through those requests has never been more difficult for the publicists assigned to making these decisions.
Before I delve into that, I do have one point that needs some defense. Since the beginning of the service offering, we have always claimed that NetGalley was for “Professional Readers”. That is not new. We – NetGalley – have never offered a definition of that term, but the term has always been there. And, when there were fewer publishers, and fewer people requesting books, there was no need to make any distinctions.
Unfortunately, there is nothing in this process that is an exact science. The concerns that you saw publishers having: piracy, eARCs cutting into sales, are all shared by many (but not all) of the publishers using the service. DRM is a flashpoint issue that all publishers feel strongly about, but some of them (a small minority) are as defiantly against it, as their colleagues are for it.
But the big point, is that there is no magic formula that let’s a publisher find YOU. Whether you consider yourself an amateur or professional reader doesn’t much matter. YOU are obviously passionate enough about this subject and about reading in general to write an eloquent piece on the topic. But, without an individual relationship built up over years, what is there to distinguish you from those that are just looking for free books? (And, while they are a minority, they most certainly exist).
The reaction to this problem is being discussed at every publisher we work with, and the results are all of those different policies you see posted on the site. Every publisher is different in terms of size, genre, and reason they use the service. We cannot dictate to them how they make their choices.
The other side of this equation is that NetGalley has not replaced any publisher’s print galley program. Those still go on. NetGalley is a completely extra process that our publisher clients go through. They may be reducing the quantity of some of their galley printing, but none have eliminated it yet.
That point leads to my last – which is to try and address a frustration that we see constantly for readers. That is, how long it takes to get an answer at all approved or denied. The publicists who manage these requests are in some cases literally swamped with them. And with the growth in registered readers, it is almost a full time job to try and keep up with them. How do they know or even remember that it’s YOU? If 5,000 people request a single title, it is an awful lot of work to try and understand who are the “Jessica’s” out there. And, given that this is only a small part of their overall job, you may see the conundrum.
We are working on some tools to help publishers “sift” through the requests more easily, but they are still a bit off in the future.
Again, I want to thank you for this post. NetGalley is only 4 or 5 people ourselves, and we are working very hard, every day, to earn your trust and the trust of our publishing clients.
I encourage anyone who wants to continue this discussion to write to support (at) netgalley (dot) com. We want NetGalley to be the best experience it can be for all concerned.
Thanks.
Fran Toolan
@ftoolan
@Fran Toolan:
“what is there to distinguish you from those that are just looking for free books?”
This is precisely the attitude I am now encountering. Something that wasn’t there in the past. I dislike the entire shift in attitude that requesting members are somehow looking to get something for nothing. That is condescending and largely untrue for the majority of users. If nothing else, members give of their time. A request for a title that lasts 60 days isn’t a request for anything “free.” It’s an offer to potentially promote a book in exchange for a time-limited, early access to a title.
If you’re going to curate, why not do so at the point of registration? Or by publisher rather than per title? It would create far less resentment than the current method.
@Amber:
Please offer any suggestions you have on how to “curate” on registration or by publisher. We’d be happy to hear them. It’s no easy task.
There is a problem that was probably inevitable from the beginning. We believe that the vast majority of NetGalley readers, are just as you describe – dedicated readers who are reviewing in exchange for your time.
But, when I was a little kid, my mother used to say something like, “now look at that, one bad apple had gone and spoiled it for the whole bunch”.
Believe me when I say, there are more than a few bad apples out there. Any suggestions anyone has on how to ferret them out would be great!
fpt
Amen!!!!At least someone actually put into words what I couldn’t for all these months!
I agree with you 100%!
I started using NetGalley a year ago and I was so happy a system like this existed for us poor bloggers who live outside of the US and are doomed to never get a printed ARC in our hands. I requested my first book and I got accepted the next day.I was so excited I can’t even tell you.
Since then I have been approved for every book I requested and I have reviewed them all.
That was until the big guns came in, of course, and then NG’s whole attitude towards its users changed for the worse.
When I first got rejected I thought it was a mistake within the system, something had gone wrong. After the 4th time I got rejected it dawned on me that yeah, something has gone wrong alright.
I emailed the specific publisher and they told me that I haven’t done some trivial (at least to me) thing in my contact information. I did it and got approved .I then decided to dismiss that incident as a one-time thing.
Needless to say, it happened again and by the same publisher and by another publisher, from whom I have gotten various books in the past. I again asked what is wrong and they told me to check the publisher’s criteria. I checked and everything was OK, I didn’t need to change anything. I told them so and their reply was: “Check the publisher’s criteria” . Again! I just thanked them and ended the “discussion”. Also a lot of publisher require that you have a direct link to your blog on your profile, which is understandable. I and some other people I talked to have a problem with the link bottom on the “editing profile” page. It doesn’t work. So, I figured since no one will fix it for me I’ll fix it on my own. I found some HTML code and added it.I am not sure if it works, I hope it does. Thing is, all the while I was thinking “OK.They have specific criteria now and they can chose whoever they want to judging by God knows what and they can’t even get the basics straight?” I mean is a working link button so much too ask? If you can’t provide, don’t demand. That’s what I think.
I think the rejection I had last week was the last straw for me. I hate to say it and I hope NetGalley will change its tactics soon so that I won’t have to do it. Because I hate feeling like that about an idea I was one of the first ones to support full heartedly. It’s like we are being “punished” because we just doesn’t cut it. I just don’t think it’s fair and right, that’s just my opinion.
One more thing. I have been told from a publisher that they only give away few copies of egalleys. This surprised me, to be honest. Printed galleys I understand, but egalleys? There’s no expense whatsoever, at least none, comparing to printed galleys. However, when I read in your post about ebook piracy, I got it and I completely understand now.
However, I have seen that a lot of bloggers get approved for egalleys from NetGalley and then receive printed ones as well. Now, it certainly is none of my business what other people do and what they request, but a lot of egalleys could have been given to people that aren’t as lucky as some. Just saying.
I never thought I’d feel this way about NetGalley. I love reading and for me the feeling of dread when seeing a new title I want on NetGalley and worrying about being rejected because I am just not good enough, is not something that I care for.
Thank you for the great post!
I feel ya.
The other day I got declined for the first time ever.
@Fran Toolan:
Actually it was Sonoma Lass who authored this post, not Jessica.
@Fran Toolan: Thanks to you and to everyone here for sharing your views on Net Galley and its evolution. To clarify, though, I am not the post author, just the grateful host! Sonomalass gets the credit for starting this discussion.
This was a really great article. I’d been noticing the changes in review terms by a lot of the publishers, and honestly, haven’t quite been sure what to make of them. I’ve been declined once, and unfortunately, when I began using Netgalley, it was like being a kid in a candy store. I requested too many things that I couldn’t keep up with: lesson learned there.
I know not everyone has that problem, though and I’ve cut down on my requests quite a lot. I’m not a blogger who gets physical ARC’s like a lot of bloggers do, so netgalley is my only resource right now for books not yet published. I still intend to use it, but only for books that I really want to read. I’m hoping that these strict guidelines don’t start biting many of us in the bum, but it very well may.
Anyhow, this was a great article and I really enjoyed reading it.
This evolution is sad to hear about. If the publisher really believes that readers are filching for free books, they’re so off base. How many printed copies of books from bestsellers are sent out for free? Even if a hundred book bloggers and good reads reviewers wanted a book, are these really “lost sales”? There are printed copies of books put on every seat at conferences. There are publishers that give away a hundred copies of a book on Goodreads.
As an author, I’d want the arcs to be widely available. When my first book came out, my editors made a decision to put it on NetGalley. This was such a blessing. The book was a category release and had no promotion budget. It’s not economical to do printed galleys of category books. I only had one box of author copies to try to send out and not until very close to release date. NetGalley was an equalizer – getting copies of the book to more readers than I could have ever reached and boosting a book that might have been lost in the shuffle.
If a thousand book bloggers or casual reviewers downloaded an ARC, I wouldn’t lament those as lost sales. It’s only in a very, very small way matching what publishers have done for years for big releases.
I’ve been using NetGalley for about a year now, maybe a bit less.
I also encountered the HarperCollins decline issue, but before they published the criteria. Here’s what I did. After receiving multiple declines, I found out who the head of publicity for their romance section was, and I emailed her. I asked her specifically what criteria I needed to have in order to be approved to receive eARCs. I am actually in touch w/a number of Berkley publicists on a regular basis regarding authors visiting my blog, so I was confused why I got approvals from them for print, but not electronically.
She sent me a really pleasant response, letting me know that they did have criteria, one of which was blogging/reviewing almost every day. I probably post 3-4 reviews a week, but not more, so I was short of their criteria. They also had a high level of concern about piracy, which is understandable. That being said, I chanced one more request from HC about a month later, and was approved. No idea if my email exchange had anything to do with it, or if it was just someone else approving.
I find that NetGalley is a useful tool, but only one in my arsenal. I mainly use author relationships to receive ARCs. Net Galley will be TONS more useful when they get the Kindle issue worked out. But that’s a different complaint, I think.
@Fran Toolan:
My suggestions are offered in my post. Change the method of approval to by publisher rather than per title. That would cut down on the amount of work publishing staff have to do because it would be a one time approval rather than continuous. And it would help keep potential reviewers from wasting their time requesting titles that the publishers have no interest in letting them read.
But I can see Netgalley isn’t going to do that.
Alternately, keep track of a user’s review completion %. Make sure those who have access to galleys are posting reviews for the majority of them OR explaining why they failed to do so. If someone is DNF-ing or declining to review greater than 50% of the titles they request, maybe NetGalley isn’t the place for them (or they’re the freeloaders you and the publishers are so worried about). You could also place a limit on the number of open review requests a reviewer could have and prevent the scenarios where people request far more galleys than they could reasonably expect to read or review.
That does nothing to address the elitist attitude brought by the larger publishers, though. Nor does it address the feeling that early adopters who were “good enough” to review in the early days of Netgalley are no longer “good enough” to review now that the number of site users has grown. It is that feeling of replacement that is part of the reason so many of us are considering scaling back or quitting our use of NetGalley.
Thanks, all, for your comments. It’s validating, but more than that, it may be a start on some ideas that might help.
Fran, I especially appreciate your coming over to contribute. I must point out, though, that this is a guest post. I’m not Jessica, and she is in no way to blame for my opinions. She just agreed to host this guest post and follow-up discussion, since her blog is bigger than mine. Ironic given the subject, perhaps, but I wanted to cast a wider net for input.
Thinking about this, a couple of specific ideas have occurred to me about ways to streamline the process and serve both publishers and readers. I have no idea how difficult these would be to implement technically, of course, but I’ll throw them out for consideration.
Basically, my thoughts focus on tiers or categories, of both books and readers. If there were a set number of classifications, it would be simpler for everyone to figure out where the matches were. While you don’t feel that you can dictate terms to publishers, wouldn’t you be doing them a service by pre-defining categories? If all publishers chose from the same groupings which reviewers they wanted to have access to their catalog, or which ones for certain books, then the approval process would be faster for everyone.
You could then make the user profile form much more effective than it is now. There are very few fields in the form; most of the information that publishers seem to want (and there is huge variety there) has to be entered in one big blank field. So the user is responsible for sifting through all the publishers’ requirements and figuring out all the different information they want. Not very user friendly, and I think that’s a problem (and the source of some of this frustration). I don’t think making the process difficult to figure out is the best way of deterring the “unprofessionals” wanting to use the site for free books. Plus this system risks devaluing your smaller publishers, since many users will focus on the criteria of the larger houses. I think it would be better to gather one set of data from all users.
As others have suggested, follow-through could become an important standard. Let new users have access to limited titles to begin with, and allow conservative publishers the option of putting their ARCs only in the hands of established users. If those requirements are clearly stated up front, there’s likely to be less frustration.
With more standardized criteria and clearer expectations could eventually come a degree of pre-approval, which would make the process easier and faster for all users, including publicists. Ideally, in my mind, a reviewer would have the option of selecting a limited view of the ARCs available, which would show only those from publishers who have pre-approved her (based on profile and/or history) and books where the publisher has indicated that this is the type of reviewer they would approve. For example, I can see a publisher wanting some books to get very wide exposure among readers with smaller blogs who review a lot on Goodreads and Amazon, while for another book it might prefer to distribute a smaller number of ARCs and limit them to readers with larger blogs.
There’s nothing wrong with publishers having those preferences, but there’s also nothing wrong with NetGalley users expecting those preferences to be more straightforward and easier to deal with. If NetGalley’s aim is to facilitate the interface between publishers and professional readers, both sides need consideration. Otherwise NetGalley risks becoming just an online version of the old print ARC system, where each reviewer must solicit each publisher separately according to varying criteria. I don’t think 22,000 users want to do that, nor do those overworked publicists you mentioned really want them to.
Ha! I see in the time it took me to compose my lengthy comment, others have commented and made some of what I said redundant. Thanks, Sylvia Sybil, Jessica and Amber!
I guess what I’m really getting at here is that NetGalley (or something like it) has the potential to keep up with the radically changing marketplace of information and opinions that the internet provides for readers considering buying a book. So far, it seems like they have streamlined the beginning and the end of the process of getting advance copies into the hands of early readers who will spread word of mouth. Electronic request submission and electronic ARC delivery are both good things. But the middle of the process really hasn’t changed yet, and that’s going to be more and more unwieldy as the number of people trying to use the system grows. Finding ways for publicists to consider groups of reviewers and readers, and for reader/reviewers to consider books they would actually be allowed to access, seems to me to be the the way to go.
Jeannie Lin makes an important point. For some books, broad early access IS desirable; maybe only a few publishers are capable of recognizing that now. But how is a smaller NetGalley user going to find those titles amidst the sea of shiny other offerings to which they are likely to be refused access?
I haven’t read all the comments yet but have I a question. I asked it on twitter the other day and never really got a response…
Amber (I think) kept saying it should be auto approved by the publisher for every book once they approve you.
If they do that doesn’t it negate the whole reason for NetGalley (as I see it). If you are only going to do x amount of eARCs and they ALWAYS go to the same smaller blogs (however many eARCs they give out for any given title to smaller blogs) then what about all the other small blogs?
Most of what I have heard is: I get approved for some books by a publisher then they deny me on some others.
So? First why should we get everything we ask for? A publisher does owe every blogger/twitter/reviewer a book because they want it. Second I would rather the reach be boarder and allow more people the chance to review the book then the same set. Why do you get every book and the person signing up today get no chance at all? And what if the ‘set group’ doesn’t want to read a book but 1000 others who would have liked to review it never even get a chance cuz rejection sucks.
As for Harper Collins, they limit how many times libraries can check out ebooks, do we honestly think they will approve 400+ eARC?
When the denials happened with It Happened One Season (I think that was the title) I kept seeing people tweet tell: me what you want from me!!! Now that Netgalley as a list up of “What each publisher is looking for” some of the same people are complaining how can you want that now!!!???!! When they always wanted it but now RIGHTLY tell you.
Isn’t that what we wanted? No?
Is giving stats (or whatev it is they ask for) on your profile and hitting a button to request an eARC really hoop jumping? Asking for stats, followers, review links, whatever isn’t out of the ordinary, isn’t something new, isn’t hard to provide and (unless I misunderstand) doesn’t mean you have to update it daily, weekly, monthly.
Sorry if this has already been addressed off to read the comments.
I’m registered with NetGalley and believe I’ve requested two books, both from Harlequin, that were delivered almost instantly. After I read and reviewed one, I noticed that I was asked to post my review on NetGalley. That confused me. My review is posted at DA and I don’t know if I’m allowed to post it elsewhere. Do I own that content, or does DA? Does NetGalley want a link or some kind of proof of my review? I’m not sure!
Anyway, that stipulation made me uncomfortable.
As a reader/reviewer, I’d like to have access to more lesbian, f/f and f/f/m books. So far I’ve seen only one.
As an author, I’d like for my books to be available there. Unfortunately they are not.
@Amber: “Perhaps that’s because I see those as strictly finite. ”
Why would eARCs not be seen as finite as well? Even if NG doesn’t charge more regarding X of eARCs approved, why would any publisher do 100s of eARCs? I always assumed publishers had a set number of how many eARCs they would allow just as they have a set number of ARCs.
Is that wrong?
@Jill Sorenson: I read somewhere on netgalley… you would put the link to the review. ::shrug:: I always send the link directly to the publisher when a review goes live but will be going back and putting in links just to cover both bases.
Figure it makes it easier for the person approving them as well if it is right there since they are looking at 100s of requests for some titles.
I have to agree with the commenter above who said this is a business. For you and me, perhaps not. But for the authors, publishers, publicists, editors, etc., it is. In order for them to send out ARCs, whether eARCs through NetGalley or traditional print ARCs directly, it has to make sense from a business point of view.
I completely understand what you’re saying about there being no set system in place, or the tone of what is in place now feeling unfair. But as more publishers and readers sign up for the service, some re-evaluating needs to be done. Probably on both sides.
Here’s what I wonder: 1) Do you get rejected for 100% of the books you request? 2) Of the ones that you’re rejected for, how many of them are the most popular and/or anticipated books with that publisher? 3) Would you feel better if you were rejected all the time vs some of the time?
But this means that a lot of the smaller blogs could potentially be passed over. Or that all the new blogs that signed up for NetGalley get passed over.
I guess I don’t see why getting rejected is a big deal. It isn’t like the publishers are saying ‘You aren’t good enough” or “I don’t like you”. It’s not personal. Obviously, if you’re getting some titles but not others.
And really..mostly I’m hearing about how HC is refusing requests. Unless I’m misunderstanding, most people are still getting approved for most titles.
I have worked in book retail and cannot tell you how many ARCs would arrive at our door without us even requesting them–I often questioned that practice because it seemed to be throwing away money to me (you may or may not get a book clerk to read the book and hand sell it, but it still seemed like a crap shoot).
I was not terribly surprised to see the new request requirements for certain/many publishers. I get it. I mean, as a blogger, I am not Netgalley’s customer–the publishers are. They pay money to use the services, not the bloggers. Since the money is going in that particular direction, it would make sense that Netgalley, as a service, would want to keep the publishers happy. Does this make me happy because certain titles are now much harder to get? No, but I am resigned to it. Perhaps I am being overly cynical but that is how I viewed the changes (NG needed reviewers to attract paying customers–the pubs–now that it has happened the smaller reviewers are now being refused in favour of more “bigger” blogs). While these changes were/are logical, they still sting.
Although, these changes could mean that smaller bloggers will move on and what this may mean for the service, I am not sure.
Sybil has a good point about spreading it around. If publishers specified a limited number to be distributed to smaller bloggers, then certainly it would be good if it wasn’t always the same small bloggers. But again, that’s a transparency issue: if we knew that system was in place, then we’d set expectations accordingly, I think. (I would, anyway.)
As for Holly’s question about rejections, for me it’s an issue of time and energy. I don’t want to sort through hundreds of titles, select a few to request, have my requests declined, then go back to look for different ones. But asking for too many at a time also causes a problem, because if you get more than you can reasonably read or review, then you look like a book freeloader.
If you follow the old model, then sure; publishers have all the good stuff, reviewers bring very little to the table, so we should ask nicely and be grateful for the ones we get. We should do all the work of figuring out who to ask, and how (on letterhead, right?), and whether we meet their standards, and then not complain if after doing all that, we still get told no. And all NetGalley offers is a centralized location to do the asking and a faster way of getting the books for which we’re approved. Lots of folks are happy with that model, and it has worked (sort of) for a long time. If Dhympna’s right, then that’s really the model NetGalley is looking for, and reader-reviewers with less reach won’t be wanted now that our numbers have served their purpose in attracting larger publishers (who are indeed the paying customers).
What I’m suggesting is that in the age of widespread reader review sites, maybe the old model isn’t the only one. A newer model would respect the power of cumulative quantity of reviews as well as the power of larger blogs’ “reach.” That’s starting to happen with some books, as Jeannie Lin said with Butterfly Swords; lots of people read it through NetGalley, because the publisher gave widespread approval. That got it some decent word of mouth and exposure, raising its profile and hopefully selling more copies than it would have. Not every book needs that, not every publisher wants it, but driving away smaller users from NetGalley by making their experience frustrating is going to make that kind of thing harder to do.
If NetGalley wants to have a range of reviewer types, from large blogs to small ones and even some non-blogging readers who use Goodreads, Amazon, or other sites to post their comments, and it wants to match them effectively with publishers’ preferences (either for their entire catalog or for particular titles), then I think it makes sense to make it easier for users to find the books that publishers want them to read. Otherwise the time and energy involved in being a user is going to have a low rate of return for a lot of us, some of whom will get frustrated and leave.
I am not saying that I should ever have been given an ARC I was declined for, although I know others feel differently. What I’m saying is that I would like to be able to figure out ahead of time, easily, which ones I’m likely to be approved for and have the choice of limiting my requests to those. And if there were some that I didn’t receive because the publisher put a numerical limit on them, I should receive a different notification than the form letter advising me to improve my odds by adding more information to my profile (using poorly defined fields). No, that’s not the old model at all, but it’s the model that I think would have the best chance of involving lots of smaller bloggers and reader-reviewers, and making them a resource for publishers who want them.
I joined NetGalley soon after I started reviewing at Dear Author. In the beginning I asked for more books than I could review, but then I figured out my review load a bit better and cut back substantially. In the last few months I’ve barely requested any books because I’ve concentrated on categories and m/m, and there are few of either.
This month I requested a book and was turned down, despite the fact that I had reviewed books for that publisher several times and DA is a pretty big venue. I emailed the contact person and she added me to the approved list; the next book I requested was approved so I guess I’ve made it past the barrier.
I haven’t tried to request books from the big publishers at NetGalley, because m/m and category keep me busy enough, I’ve got a permanent backlog of books to review, and I’m not crazy about the Agency 6 and their pricing. I tend to buy Agency books only when they come with persuasive recommendations (like the recent Julie Anne Long) or are by authors I regularly buy (like Jo Beverley). So what NetGalley’s new policies mean for me is that I almost totally ignore the major publishers, because I doubt they will approve me anyway.
I do think it’s a mistake to make the professional/amateur distinction, especially for midlist authors or limited-appeal books. I’m much more likely to get a book based on a review from a blogger I’m familiar with like SonomaLass or Amber, than from a “professional” or corporate-funded website where I don’t know the recommender’s taste.
If Harlequin is continuing with their original policies, I’m not surprised. They are so savvy about the usefulness of the online community. I’m also not surprised that the Agency publishers aren’t.
ETA: If publishers are really restricting themselves to sites that publish every day, then they are only going to get multi-reviewer sites like DA and TGTBTU, or corporate-sponsored sites like the new MacMillan one. Maybe they expect consolidation in the romance blogging community, but if they do, I think they fundamentally misunderstand how it works and what makes it valuable.
@SonomaLass: I think the problem I have with your arugement is based around this:
Because it isn’t just “small” blogs who are getting declined. Jane from Dear Author tweeted the other day that she had been declined. I don’t think any of us would argue that she runs a “small” blog. I’ve been denied. I think our blog IS small, though definitely larger than some.
The point here is that it happens. We all get denied or rejected. I don’t see why we need to publicly cry about it.
Regarding the old agency model for reviews: It’s come a LONG way. Now, you can get the name of a publicist and email them, asking for review copies. Back when, that was a BIG no-no. It was all faxed requests (yes, on letterhead) and ARCs were only for big media (ie The Times). Since then it’s really opened up.
I do understand what you’re saying. I think change and forward progress is always good. I guess I object to the underlying tone that “we deserve ARCs. We’re doing you a favor.” Because it goes both ways. Sure, you’re investing your time and energy going through NetGalley looking for titles. And sure, you’re investing your time and energy into reading some of those titles. But the publisher is also investing time and money. It’s not an us-against-them thing. It’s business.
I’m totally baffled by this:
I don’t understand why you only want to request the ones you’re approved for. Does it really take that much time to look through the titles and request them? Especially since you said you don’t read and review every title you request from them.
I guess what I don’t understand, more than anything else, is why we should expect the publisher to approve every single request. That just isn’t realistic, especially when there are over 22,000 users on NetGalley.
@Holly:
Could you point to an example of this underlying tone? Because SonomaLass’s original post, and Amber’s comments, explicitly talk about this as an exchange and a balance between two sets of interests. I didn’t see anyone suggesting, directly or indirectly, that NetGalley owes them ARCs. Rather, the system has changed, the change wasn’t well explained or flagged, and the new criteria are (a) confusing and (b) discriminate against the very bloggers who initially helped popularize the site.
@Jessica: Duly noted! now I know who to blame for this mess!!
Holly said:
I never said that, and I never would. What I said is that I wish we could do away with some of the load of requesting and approving/declining by setting some standards and categories that were easy to use. There’s no way all 22,000 users would request the same book (extreme example) if we knew which ones not to bother asking for, thus reducing the workload at both ends.
And yes, it does take time to sort through the titles and figure out which ones I’d be likely to try, especially if I’m looking outside my comfort zone to try something new. That’s time I could spend reading the books I’ve already got, or reviewing books that I just finished. As Sunita said, I’m learning to manage my review load, and I’m trying not to ask for a bunch of titles that I won’t get around to reading, and not just because that looks bad.
For now I’m limiting my searches on NetGalley to a couple of publishers who seem to value what I offer, and not taking the time to ask for books from publishers who have declined my request because my profile doesn’t have what they are looking for. I know that’s a form message, but because of that, I can’t tell the difference between a “no, you’re not what we want” refusal and a “no, not for this book” refusal.
And I’m really sorry if Holly or anyone else thinks this post constitutes “publicly crying” about not getting every book I want. I’ve tried hard to make clear that this is about good communication between partnering entities and getting the best value for all involved in a system. Because that’s MY profession. I’m not trained to just shrug and say, hey, that’s the way it is, about anything I’m actively involved in. YMMV.
@Amber:
Maybe it would help to explain some of the options publisher have:
1. The titles you see listed on http://www.netgalley.com are what we call our “public catalog”. Publisher have an option to put their titles in the public catalog or not as they see fit. Generally those titles NOT in the public catalog are available only to reviewers specifically invited to review that particular title.
2. Publishers can choose to add members to an “auto approve” list. If a reviewer is on the “auto approve” list for a particular publisher, their requests are automatically approved by the system, and the publicist never handles the request at all. In some of the comments above, it’s clear some of you have made some of those lists. The list is managed by the publisher. Your suggestion about managing reviewers by publisher IS an option if the Publisher chooses to use it.
3. We do supply publishers with statistics about how many requests were approved and denied BY REVIEWER, and how many eventually turned into reviews. However, we do that on a monthly basis, so they only see it over a period of time. Where we fall down on the job is by putting those statistics right in front of the publicist when they are evaluating a request. This is on our list to get done.
The last point about early adopters being good enough or not, is really missing some critical things.
NetGalley makes no decisions or recommendations about who publisher should give their galleys to. That is completely in the control of the publisher. So, the fact that that you might have received titles in earlier days, was a result of the decisions made by those publishers at that moment in time. Each publisher makes their own decisions using their own criteria.
Really, the point is that you don’t get your eARC from NetGalley, you get it from the publisher. We could do a better job helping the publisher curate those requests – and we will.
@Jill Sorenson:
NetGalley is looking for reviews so that we can amass statistics for publishers about who is actually taking the time to review a title. A link to another blog post is OK, but it would be better if there was an excerpt of the review and a link.
We are not looking to own your reviews. We are looking to see who is actually reviewing.
One last comment to dispel and rumors or myths. Our business model is that we charge publishers by the number of titles they have in the system, NOT by the number of downloads. This is why even the biggest publishers are somewhat restrictive in which titles are in the system.
I apologize for not explaining that better. I don’t think this post is about you crying over not getting all the books you wanted. My comments here reflect not just what you’ve posted, but also what I’ve seen from others on Twitter, in other blog posts and on Facebook. As you know (though I realize many here weren’t present), we had a discussion about this on Twitter the other day. That was the first time I responded or added to the discussion, but it wasn’t the first time it was brought up.
While the tone of your post wasn’t that way, many of the comments I saw on Twitter did suggest that as bloggers we deserve the ARCs. Someone even suggested that we were doing the publishers a favor, so how dare they deny us. I apologize for bringing that here to this discussion without explaining. I have a lot of respect for you (for writing the post) and Jessica (for posting it) and appreciate the discussion.
Right, but the point I was trying to make is this: If there are a finite number of books (and there should be, IMO, despite what Amber says about eARCs being unlimited) should the same bloggers/reviewers get them every time? Why not spread it out a little? Maybe this time I get approved, but next time I don’t and you do instead. Beyond that, it seems to me that having categories or standards could really hamper things. For example: We review a wide range of romance sub-genres, but also YA, fiction and mysteries on occasion. We would probably get put in the “romance” category..but then what if we wanted YA or non-fiction?
I agree with you that having a better system in place would help. Maybe a different response letter or more definitive guidelines. But I don’t think the publishers should have to explain themselves to us. I think Jane put it best on Twitter the other day when she said something like “I don’t want the publishers telling me how to write my reviews, so I don’t tell them how to distribute ARCs” (heavily paraphrased).
Honestly, I think my feelings about this stem from the fact that it wasn’t easy to get on ARC lists when I first started. There was no NetGalley, no Twitter, no Facebook. When we sent requests asking for review copies, we were basically laughed at, because bloggers were a dirty word then. So I got used to rejection. I never thought I’d get everything I asked for. I still don’t. Every time I request a book, whether from NetGalley or the publisher direct, I expect them to say no. I’m surprised when they say yes. So…getting approved for some and not for others doesn’t seem strange to me.
@Sybil:
why would any publisher do 100s of eARCs?
I guess my point is, why wouldn’t they? I’m not of the opinion that those eARCs are costing them sales. I don’t agree with that at all. Especially with DRM in place, those books expire for the majority of publishers within 60 days.
There is a clear divide in perspective that seems to originate with our original expectations. I joined NetGalley as an alternative to the traditional beg for an ARC process that likely wouldn’t work for me. Others, like yourself, joined it expecting the same rules as traditional ARC requests.
Therein lies the difference.
It has nothing to do with “gimme gimme” and everything to do with attitude and purpose. Now that the purpose has clearly shifted from getting word out about books to managing digital galleys for approved reviewers, I’m irritated. Is it rational? Probably not. It doesn’t change the way I feel about it, though.
@Fran Toolan:
Thank you for clarifying billing and approval procedures.
I’m well aware that the publishers are in charge of who gets what galley. There was never any confusion on that issue. That doesn’t mean Netgalley is blameless, though. Because as a host site, the actions and attitudes of publishers reflect back on the site as a whole.
the fact that that you might have received titles in earlier days, was a result of the decisions made by those publishers at that moment in time. Each publisher makes their own decisions using their own criteria.
My point is this: until the addition of “bigger” publishers, the majority of us had never been rejected. Now, nearly everyone has. That is a distinct change in the user experience. And it is recent.
Additionally, if you have all of that information about completed reviews, I am failing to understand how it can be difficult to sort the bad apples (the freeloaders) from the ones who review what they receive.
The changes at the site (with the influx of pickier publishers) and the inability to view only titles I am qualified to receive means that I’m probably not going to continue using the site. Best wishes for your continued growth and success.
I’m sorry, but for a publisher to expect a review a day on a blog run by one person is impossible. Perhaps if they’re multiple reviewers on a blog or a review site, but most blogs are run by one person.
Again, bloggers are not getting paid for their time, so for a publisher to except a blogger to put so much time in a review for a $8 book or even a $15 book is too much. Bloggers don’t work for the publisher and that should be remembered.
Sometimes bok reviewing seems more like a job than a hobby lately.
Holly, I see quite clearly the difference in perspective here. For those who are used to the old system, NetGalley seems like a pretty amazing improvement. For those of us who never bothered with the old system, the contrast is between the earlier feel of NetGalley and its current incarnation. I’m bringing to this the additional level of thinking what it could be, because I hate to see the potential power of this virtual gathering of readers lost to the conservative approach of most major publishers.
I agree with Amber that for most books, a wider distribution of eARCs (at no higher cost to the publisher — thanks, Fran, for clarifying that) would result in better sales. Readers have SO MANY books from which to choose, and especially those of us who read digitally or shop mostly on line (a rising number, as more brick and mortar stores close) are looking for ways to sort through them to find what’s worth our investment of time and money. For mid-list and debut authors, distribution of advance copies to get feedback up on small blogs, Amazon, Goodreads and so forth seems a pretty cost effective way of promoting the title. Those extra free books cost essentially nothing unless you persist in seeing them as lost sales. Which they aren’t.
That’s a point that certain publishers seem to have taken to heart. Those publishers are using NetGalley that way, at least for some titles. Other publishers may or may not catch on. What makes me a little crazy is the thought that the changes being made to accommodate those conservative publishers might be handled in a way that reduces the number of small fish like me using NetGalley, thereby taking away the more savvy (in my opinion) publishers’ ability to access those readers and use their collective power to spread the word about certain books. If better communication and organization can prevent that, if NetGalley can find a way to let us know who welcomes us as well as who rejects us (without each of us having to do a publisher-by-publisher search of completely un-parallel requirements), I think that would be a good thing.
Do they have to? Of course not. But why bother to recruit us if you aren’t going to do everything in your power to help us participate effectively? Because we aren’t the same reviewers who have been doing this for years, and a lot of us aren’t willing to jump through hoops. We do question the fairness of a system that seems not to value our time and energy as weighed against an unproofed temporary digital file. And those of us without blogs, who just review on the web sites where actual purchases are made or where plain old readers are encouraged to leave their opinions, will read what we want and talk about it, and publishers will lose a potentially important tool for encouraging us to read what they would like to showcase.
This.
And this.
I think publishers really underestimate the extent to which books are substitutable. Not because they are all the same, but because for any given reader, there are sub-genres she is not reading that she might find satisfying. And because sub-genres change and readers go looking for new ones. People’s reading time doesn’t expand much as a rule, but the number of books that could fill it does.
As ebooks and e-reading continue to grow (and brick-and-mortar stores continue to disappear), online resources to help sort those books will become more important, not less. The romance community is valuable, IMO, because it helps to direct readers to books. Small or individual blogs can be very useful in that process.
I just feel as if the bad strategies of the Agency PR and marketing world have invaded another space. Where we once had inclusion and encouragement to spread the word about good books, we now have increasing exclusion and suspicion about motives. In a world in which fewer and fewer people actually *read books* this does not strike me as a good thing.
SonomaLass, I read your incredible post yesterday and it kept mulling in my mind. The thing is that I talked on twitter with a few others about the rejections. I don’t mind getting rejected but I was up in arms because nobody would explain WHY. I wanted some guidelines or a decent response why I was rejected. So then the guidelines came when requesting an E-ARC and that’s where I hit a wall. Where NG was once an accessible tool to request eARC’s from, now your blog has to answer to quite a few requirements. Now I understand that from a publishers POV you want a certain ARC reviewed at the appropriate genre blog and that a link to your blog for easy access is required in your profile. That Publishers want a quality review and a blogger who makes an effort to do that. But I still don’t get why a minimum of daily blogposts, stats and followers have to do with anything!! I mean, IMO a small pebble, in this case blog, can cause far going ripples too.
I mean, damn, shouldn’t reading/reviewing/blogging be about sharing a passion together, sharing info, healthy discussions and letting your voice be heard in all that matters to you. Isn’t the message that’s send out now via some of those guidelines is; get as many followers as you can as fast as you can, get as many hits any way you can and then you might be good enough for our eARc’s! Isn’t there a ripple effect created where you need to meet these, IMO, superficial standards of stats/followers and if you don’t you feel at times like an epic failure.
When I first started to use NG it was because I was a European blogger who didn’t often get a book for review from the publisher and NG was a fabulous opportunity to request an eARC and allowing me to do what I love most; sharing my opinion on books with fellow readers. Now I feel I have to meet quite a few demands with my blog which I simply cannot achieve. And what is enough? How many unique visitors do you need to have, how many followers, how many comments posted, before your considered a “successful” blog? I rarely use NG anymore because I know now via those guidelines I often do not meet the requirements to get a request approved…
I have a question for Fran, if he’s still reading. Where are we supposed to post our review snippet and link? In our bio? How many snippets? One? My bio is turning into a grand opus with all of the information I’ve had to add to it, but if I should be putting a piece of a review in there too, I’d like to know how much of one. Is it better to post a few pieces of summaries and links?
This is probably a good time to second (or third, fourth, whatever) the recommendation that some of these suggestions/recommendations have their own boxes in our bio forms.
I’m a little perplexed, though it’s early and I haven’t had any coffee – how does posting a small snippet of a review prove something more than a link to an entire blog of reviews? Does our review completion percentage get passed on to all publishers or just the publisher for which that percentage is applicable? Or is it something you keep only for your own statistical records?
@Barbara: Der, I knew Fran is a she, not he. And that was meant as an honest question, not snarky, which upon re-reading it, it seems to be. And that’s a whole lot of commas.
I did e-mail customer support too, so I’ll have an answer either way. I’m just being thick and not understanding exactly where I’m supposed to put even more information.
@Barbara:
just for the record, I’m a “he”.
thanks for emailing support. Lindsey is great, and I am sure she will give you a much better answer than I would in this blog!
@katiebabs:
This! You run your blog however you want to. Jessica runs hers like she wants. I run TGTBTU like I want. I don’t know about anyone else but I made the decision from the very beginning no publisher, publicist, PR peep would tell ME how to run MY blog.
So why do we feel we can make demands of the publisher? It is their choice what they do with their ARCs. And to us it may not be a business but to them it is…
Not being able to get an eARC or print ARC does not equal publisher X hatessss you or doesn’t think your opinion is valid. That seems to be what I keep hearing. It is the same thing as an author bitching about a bad review because OMG THEY HATE ME. A view of the book is not a view of the author. A decision on who gets an ARC is not a personal view of the blogger.
@SonomaLass:
I don’t think the authors denied are mid-list or debut. I am sure each book and author have different ‘marketing plans’. Authors talk about that all the time. But whenever their are limits and more people asking for something then available some will not get it.
From what I can see if being rejected (which has been confirmed happened from the beginning) is something that will make a blogger feel that badly. they shouldn’t use Netgalley. Same with authors who go crazy seeing bad reviews… what do we say? Stop reading reviews
This isn’t bad PR for the publishers from what I keep seeing it magnifies why a publisher wouldn’t want to work with a blog. And for the other big publishers who haven’t joined NG, would this be a headache worth involving yourself?
Fran,
May I ask, what do you think Net Galley’s product is?
What an interesting post and discussion.
I appreciate NetGalley because as an Australian book blogger it is really the only source of ARCs available. I’m not that worried if my request is approved or rejected, I have posted a review of every book I have ever recieved through Netgalley and all of them within a week either side of their release and I hope the publishers get that information. I think that information should have more weight with them than how many GFC followers someone has.
I also kind of expect some rejections, I am an ecelectic book reader and blogger which might not suit a publisher who would rather the newest Urban Fantasy got promoted on blogs that exclusively review UF because it has a better chance of reaching their target audience, even though I regularly read and review UF. Sometimes I think its odd that I get approved for one title and rejected for another from the same publisher for a book of the same genre but I assume they the publishing company is making the best decision for their book and shrug it off.
While some of the bigger publishers are enforcing specific requirements, the smaller publishers that have been with NetGalley since its beginning haven’t really changes theirs. I wonder how many bloggers now request ARCs from the bigger publishers instead of the smaller ones and that is what accounts for the rise in ‘rejection’ not any specific changes to the culture at NetGalley.
Shelleyrae
@AQ:
NetGalley is not a product. It is a service. The purpose of our service is to help publishers create a pre-publication buzz about their books, by having their books reviewed by people who will influence other people to buy the book.
The issue at hand is that this is an inexact science. There are no best practices, there are no metrics for someone’s influence value for a certain book or even genre. Since it is an inexact science, every publisher has their own opinions and experiences about how to approach things. Every book is different. Every reviewer is different.
I have a question for all of you:
- How are you helping publishers with your reviews? (this is rhetorical) If you provide a negative review, that is a help as it let’s the publisher know they have a bomb on their hands. If you provide a positive review, will enough people be influenced by your review to help bump sales?
Publishers need feedback, and they need buzz. If over 1,000 people request a certain title, then they sort of have their answer, don’t they? That book is already in high demand, and will sell well once it hits the shelves.
One last point, to give you all some real data. I just checked of the over 110,000 requests made of publishers for review copies, only 9.7% have be declined. That’s alot of approvals.
The thing is, as a reader who is just a reader, I do not care if reviewers got access to ARCS or if they have less access.
I am still interested in reviews though. But considering blogger´s /reviewer´s reading time is finite, if a blogger gets more rejections from netgalley on what way does that harms the publising industry or the people reading reviews? People will still read and pass word of mouth to friends. If you want to have a book blog, and you get no freebie ARCs, you will likely read other things. Maybe older things, maybe even old things which picked up word of mouth and might be better than the new things of which there is only the official blurb to make you pick it up.
But seriously, and I mean this humbly as a start to discussion, why should readers care if publishers decide they want to be picky about who they give acess to ARCs? The one thing that would ring alarm bells in my mind would be the implication that people with access to ARCS are expected to give positive glowing reviews but nobody has ever even implied a shadow of that. People who got lots of ARCS to review getting less, particularly from major publishers who have other ways of passing word of their new books, how is that supposed to affect readers picking reads?
@Fran Toolan:
You do have a product and that is the reader trust network that you are attempting to access. You can define it as a service but it’s still your company’s product. Your focus appears to be on helping publishers create buzz when in reality I believe that it should be on creating, maintaining and perhaps even further developing the reader trust network so that publishers can utilize your “product/service” to create the buzz.
For long-term viability, I see that as a mistake because why should a reader bring their trust network to you instead of Amazon, Goodreads, Library Things, etc.?
I do understand that every reviewers, review site and book is different. I track reviews. I have approx 44,000 review links in a database from approximately 400 unique review sites from approx. 1,100 unique reviewers and a little under 24,000 titles so far. I can tell you that the reader review space has changed dramatically in the last year and the inter-connectedness of those networks are much harder to quantify than ever.
Page views/subscribers, frequency of reviews. Yes, those things should be considered part of the criteria; however, they are limited. Extremely, extremely limited data points because they are only a tiny piece of an individual’s trust network and unless one takes the time to understand those networks and how they work in the different genres then it will be difficult to get a handle on how to fully utilize them.
As someone who has worked with this data for approximately 3-4 years, I can tell you that if you allow publishers to drive the process Net Galley will lose access to some of the best reader networks out there. Readers and their trust network don’t really need Net Galley but Net Galley needs them. So Net Galley should be focusing on what the betterment of those trust networks which in turn will give the publishers what they’re looking for as opposed to what they think they want.
Sorry, it’s not the reader’s job to help publishers even if they are getting arcs. If you are focused on this question, then I don’t believe you understand your product/service.
No, this tells a publisher that this book didn’t work for this particular reader for the reasons given in the review. If multiple readers are saying the same thing then the question becomes how did the book get by the editorial staff? Or did the publisher believe that this book would sell regardless? Negative buzz can create sales just like positive buzz. I have in fact purchased books to see the trainwreck or purchased books because what didn’t work for one reader didn’t bother me in the least or that’s something that always works for me. And sometimes negative buzz is more powerful than positive buzz.
This isn’t quantifable. There is no way that a reader could ever actually know their individual influence. Readers don’t have access to sales numbers. Heck, publishers don’t have real time access either. Without that real time sales data combined with link tracking there’s no real way to know which review (if any) caused a reader to purchase a book. Additionally, it might not be a specific review. It could that 6 readers within a trust network read the book. Then a mention on a separate forum or twitter, etc. If publishers and by extension Net Galley believes that page views, subscribers and frequency of posts is the end-all-be-all of reader trust networks, I suspect that you are in for a rude awakening. That’s not how the trust networks work and more importantly as readers become bombarded with more and more choices online with limited brick-and-mortar options, they will turn even more fully to what has been defined here as amateur sites for recommendations.
Using Jessica’s site as an example. Compared to the bigger blogs, Jessica doesn’t do that many reviews over the course of the year. That said, when she does do a review, I absolutely pay attention to it because of the content she provides and the fact that something about the book resonated with her (good or bad) and she wrote a post. Dear Author on the other hand averages a review a day. I also read those but many of them slip through the cracks because once I get behind, I don’t always go back. So how would you personally quantify the reach of each blog site given these two examples?
I’d say that you still don’t have enough data to make that decision unless you can test the results that are wanted. Saying that one wants to generate buzz and sell books is all well and good but those phrases can’t be measured and if I can’t measure the results then how can I make a determination or do a cost / benefit analysis? Or is my real objective to have multiple mentions on what are viewed as powerful blogging sites?
Not necessarily. That would depend on the composition of your reader networks and who the author was to begin with. You also have to define what “sell well” means for a given title. The book might sell 50,000 copies but if the print run is 100,000 then it didn’t sell well enough.
Yes, it is, but that number really doesn’t tell me anything that I could use to determine the validity of the complaints within this thread. Total requests for what time period? over how many publishers? how many titles? how many titles had a 100% approval rate? etc.
I have a suggestion and perhaps Net Galley already does this. List the number of available arcs along with a live feed of the number of requests. This would help readers manage their own expectations. Net Galley could also set up a system cut-off request number say double/triple the total available number of arcs. Enough to give the publicist a variety of choices while still giving the requestor decent odds of receiving their request.
Sorry, I have to run.
@Barbara: I’m sure NetGalley has already answered, but in case others are curious about this as well:
There is a place, inside NetGalley – in your dashboard – to write reviews/post snippets/include links. If you click on “My Reviews” on the left toolbar, then “manage my reviews”, a list of all your requests will populate. Click on the pencil icon to add in your review. They aren’t suggesting you add those to your profile, only that you update them in your dashboard.
I rarely update my reviews in NetGalley. When I remember, I go in and send a link. I do, however, email a list of monthly reviews to each publisher direct. From what I understand, it isn’t a requirement that you add your reviews in NetGalley, but a courtesy. They aren’t saying YOU HAVE TO, but instead, would you mind?
I could be mistaken, but that was my take on it.
Some of what’s happened to you really sounds like a pain. The only emails I get are ones that announce a new publisher using NetGalley and listing some of the books and that tell me whether or not I’ve been approved.
Right now, I’ve had no trouble at all since I signed up for NetGalley last month. I got approved for seven of the eight books I requested within and I haven’t gotten an answer for the eighth yet. I’m kind of surprised I kept getting approved because I rarely met the full criteria. I hope it stays like this but after hearing your story, I’m scared it won’t. Maybe I haven’t noticed these problems because I’m such a newbie.
So far, I’ve read five of my seven requested books and I started the sixth yesterday. I hated one, loved two of them, liked the other two, plan to buy three of them when they come out, and fully read all of them. Maybe it’s just me and my sense of duty, but no matter how much I don’t want to finish a review book, I will just because it’s a review book. If someone gave it to me with the request that I review it on my blog, I will do so. I may post reviews once or twice at week at best and after three weeks or a month at worst, but I review all books–even ones I didn’t finish.
If they’re ever going to try and make me jump through the hoops to get one of their books, I’ll stop trying when they hold up the first hoop. I love books and love reviewing them, but my time is valuable to me and I can only go so far out of my way for a book. If they’re going to try and make me do tricks, I will happily wait until the book is in stores and buy it then so I can skip the tricks.
@AQ:
Maybe I misunderstand their service but I don’t think it is for readers to find reviews or info on books. Can we see the reviews? I don’t think they are aiming to compete with Amazon, Goodreads or the like.
@AQ: I just went back and looked at NG again and it is in line with what Fran has said (makes sense since he works there). Am I understanding that you think NetGalley should change their service completely? Or did you understand NG to be reader driven with publishers soliciting us?
It is an interesting idea bring readers to the publisher vs publishers to the reader?
As it is NetGalley is: “NetGalley is an inexpensive and green way for publishers to share their digital galleys securely.”
I don’t see where a ‘reader trust network’ enters the picture at all there.
@Fran Toolan:
Totally don’t agree with your idea of negative reviews being helpful to know a ‘bomb is on their hands’. A negative review is the same as a positive review in terms of promo. Just because 1, 5, 40 or even 100 people dislike a book or rate it negative doesn’t mean there aren’t another 100000 people to love it and create a hit.
But I do think this all goes back to expectations. If you went in thinking NetGalley was a new way for publishers to provide eARCs vs if you thought it would be a reader service. Since readers don’t pay the bills I always assumed it was publisher driven. If readers paid and publishers joined to request our services, we approved or denied then I would expect readers to set the rules.
Thanks AQ I think I finally see where the negative reaction came from if that was the mindset more readers had.
@Sybil:
Publishers want access to the reader/reviewer trust networks. Those trust network exist with the individual reviewer and really have nothing to do publishers, titles or arcs. Net Galley is offering publishers the ability to access the trust networks via getting arcs into the hands of the readers/reviewers who “own/develop/choose your word” those networks.
For example: TGTBU has worked very hard to establish a darn fine site. You have a stable of readers with varied tastes as well as subscribers, other readers who just happen by every once in while. So you have developed what I call a trust network. By joining Net Galley, you are granting temporary access to that trust network directly to the publishers via the individual requests that you make for an arc through Net Galley.
But the truth is that you don’t need Net Galley as your middle man. You could make requests directly to publicists, editors or agents. You could join the Amazon vine program or sign up for some of the giveaway via GoodReads or one of the other programs. Or you could purchase the books yourselves. In other words, the reviews you provide to your community aren’t reliant on whether or not you receive an ARC via Net Galley the system. And since publishers could conceivably find your site on their own with a little elbow grease on their part, they could (and probably do) offer you arcs directly.
So why does TGTBTU need Net Galley? You don’t. It might be more convenient. Reviewers for your site might get a wider range of titles that they wouldn’t normally receive but the truth is that your site would continue uninterrupted if Net Galley ceased to exist or you decided that there were too many hoops with too different of criteria for all these different publishers to jump through.
If I were tackling this marketplace, the first thing I’d do is decide what type of reader/reviewer community I wanted to create. And by this I don’t mean a place where readers would hang out and look at reviews but rather I’d know the makeup and flavors of each individual site along with each individual reviewer (as much as possible) before adding them to the network I’d want to establish. I’d do tons of upfront work in the development of that reviewer community space so that when the publishers came knocking I’d be able to customize the publishers experience as much as possible. Obviously the publisher is the customer here but the product is all about the reviewer space and therefore the experience need to delve deeper into the reviewer side of the equation.
For example here’s what I know about TGTBTU off the top of my head (please excuse me if I get something wrong I haven’t been to your site in a while because of personal time constraints). I have reviews dating back to 2005. Your site has more than 2,000 reviews since it opened and of those reviews I’d say that at least 97% of them are for the romance genre, or titles with a strong romantic thread, although the reviewers for your site as well as its audience typically read more than “just” romance. There are approximately 30 unique reviewers on your site but that number includes guest reviews as well as alumni reviewers.
Your site does a nice mix of novellas/short stories/novels traditional romance as well as erotic romance from e-publishers as well as the big 6 New York publishers. In addition to this, your site also does previews, opinion pieces and round-ups so the community you’ve developed is more than “just” reviews.
So TGTBTU has a rather specific niche even within the romance genre. If I’m a publisher buying a service or trying to place an arc, that tiny bit information gives me a starting place. If I’m Net Galley, then I want you in as part of my reader/reviewer arc requesting community. Why? Because you have established a base, have a well-defined niche that is broad enough to appeal to multiple publishers with many different titles. You could also act as a test market for certain titles that are expected to appeal to romance readers and your site does more than reviews so the opportunities for additional promotional opportunities exist.
@Sybil:
Wrote my other response before I received your second post.
No, I don’t think they should change their service completely. I think that their focus is in the wrong place based on what I’m receiving from this conversation. The focus should be on developing the networks that Net Galley wants access to so that they can sell the publishers on getting access to those communities. To me that means doing more work upfront on who gets to sign-up to request arcs, what type of access they get and what their needs are.
Questions I would be asking myself if this were my project: How can I keep these readers/reviewers happy? what processes are in place to streamline their experience and make sure that they are giving us feedback /information (e.g., links to their reviews)? What needs to done to have a site like TGTBTU get a higher percentage of their arcs from Net Galley instead of other sources so that it’s more convenient for a publisher to offer the arc via Net Galley than to go to TGTBTU directly? And so the publisher gets potentially more bang for the buck or better yet their expectations can be better managed? Because the information that might be gleaned from this endeavor extends far beyond creating buzz. Assuming one was willing to delve into research hell or heaven depending on your point of view.
@AQ: LOL that is a pretty good run down can I use it to update my profile *g* although wow I have had 30 different reviewers including guests? No idea it was so high, go me.
Yes again I agree
but doesn’t that make the point that again point to the publisher being able to approve or deny? Are you saying NG should start the process by making it harder to join?
I think you are right NetGalley IS a middleman (to a point all control rests in hands of publisher to approve or not or in the readers to request or not). It is as they say bringing readers to publishers.
And you make the point for why publisher would deny readers well. And WHY they want the info from bloggers to make their decisions on where their ARC’s would best work for them. Asking for that info (to me) isn’t at all ‘jumping through hoops’ in fact I would question it if publishers DIDN’T want the information.
I do think NetGalley SHOULD improve their sign up process to reflect you need to give stats, followers, blog dates (update schedule if u have one) all that to help set up reader expectation.
@AQ:
For what they are doing, who they charge and the response it seems their focus is in the right place. But I think I am getting different things from the conversation.
I mean from what I ‘think’ you are saying, basically some of the people discussing their annoyance at being denied should have never been approved for NG. But publishers want different things and sometimes the same publisher might want one thing for one book and another for another book…
So NG denying people out right would be wrong then wouldn’t it?
From what I hear and the number of 22,000+ members and growing, NG isn’t hurting for readers. And the publishers aren’t hurting for readers to pick from. The only person hurting are some readers when rejected sometimes…. something we are told upfront could happen.
So really it just seems like a model that isn’t going to work for some and will for others. And that is ok, nothing ever works for everyone… does it?
Let me apologize in advance if something below doesn’t make sense. I’m doing this hit and run while I do my final moving tasks. I probably can’t get back to further clarify until late tonight or tomorrow night. Really gotta run this time.
@Sybil:
I have no problem with publishers being able to approve or disapprove an individual request. But the criteria should be input into the system and the reader/reviewer should never see a title for which they aren’t qualified. The reader’s experience should be as straight-forward and clean as possible and their expectations must be managed. If they have a 1 in 10 chance of receiving that particular title then they should know that. But if they are getting rejected 3 or 4 times in a row then that’s doing a disservice to the reader/reviewer as well as the publisher because it’s a waste of everyone’s time. The reader because they will get frustrated with the system and decide to not to use it and the publisher who thinks they have to do way too much work to get the arc into the hands of their “ideal” reviewer.
Another problem here is that the reviewer who just got rejected might actually be the ideal reviewer for that title but either NG didn’t provide enough information to the publisher or the publisher only has a fuzzy idea of what they are looking for. NG needs to own and drive this process in order to keep both the reviewers and the publishers happy.
I have no problem with the information being provided. I’d asked for it myself. But I’d have already anticipated what the publishers might have wanted upfront during the sign-up process for the reader/reviewers because in my head that’s part of how I’d divide my pricing models. The more stringent the criteria, the higher the price for access to very targeted readership network. If you are constantly changing the information the reader/reviewer needs to provide and showing titles to those who don’t meet the publisher’s criteria then the planning/data analysis phrase needs to be redone and once new Net Galley criteria has been established then it gets rolled out to a test group within the reader/reviewer community. After it passes this test, then it moves out to the entire community with a major communications effort stating why the information is necessary and how it will streamline the process.
It doesn’t really sound like they have any idea of who their 22,000 users are. Or even how trusted reader networks work. So I have to disagree here because I think they need to dig into their reader/reviewer membership and create classifications within the ranks and those classification need to span beyond a single review site. And, yes, I believe that must be done upfront and that might mean that NG becomes much more selective in their sign-up process. On the other hand, I think that every reader/reviewer with the NG system would be considered as a valid reviewer not someone looking for free reads. Anything else is rather insulting for the reader and really calls into question the entire NG reviewer space.
I thought it was just me getting the declined requests.
I review a majority of the books I request and get approval from. Receiving the declined requests was shocking but I got over it. If the publisher doesn’t want the free press, so be it. I’ll skip over to the next approved request I received.
I applaud Fran for commenting on this post. I applaud that this post was written. Jumping through hoops for a free service (the reviews) doesn’t seem like something I’m willing to do, so I’ll move on to the next book I have for review, whether it’s print or digital.
@Barbara:
“If one of the things that would make the publishers consider switching to auto-approval vs. request/deny/allow for each title is maintaining or establishing a certain review rate, I wouldn’t have a problem with that.”
I think that’s not a bad idea. I try hard to choose books I’m interested in and read and review them in a timely manner and it isn’t always easy. (To be honest, there have been a few books I’ve requested that I disliked so much that even my negative reivew could not be nice. )
I woke up this morning and this thought was in my head. It came from two things within the conversation. One is the question of the “professional” reader. The second are the final questions that @Fran: asked way back in comment 52.
Let’s say that NG becomes the best darn outsourced PR department there is for publishers / authors / whoever want to utilize their services /products. Their reach moves far beyond the arc realm. NG becomes profitable. Publishers are happy. NG is happy.
This statement bothered me… a lot. Or at least more than I gave it credit for when I first read it. And heck, I don’t even review.
especially when I combined it with the phrase professional reader. Professionals get paid and reviewing books done on a regular frequent basis, developing and maintaining an audience is very hard work so beyond the potential payment from booksellers for link traffic, will these trusted reader networks receive payment for their “professional” reviews and the temporary access to said networks?
I know it’s a sticky wicked that the online communities had many, many conversations so I won’t go into here. But in a major sense bloggers have replaced professional media what was a professional space within the publisher business model.
So here’s my turn-the-question around question:
Why do publishers expect anything from readers/reviewers when they aren’t paying them?
ARCs are not payment and most readers are not Oprah Winfrey with a few of her favorite things which can be entirely underwritten by advertisers. And yet, there seems to be a lot of potential strings attached to ARCs and this worry that a few individual readers might be jacking the system to get free books or pirating books. Does anyone else see how hypocritical that sentiment is when the publishers aren’t paying readers for access to their networks and yet they want measurable results?
Did I mention that I’m extremely cynical these days?
And now I return to my special schedule of final cleaning and boxing. Well, after I see what Krugman have to say for himself. Must have one more tiny distraction.
Wow. This has been a fascinating discussion. I love Netgalley, but I’ve been frustrated by rejections that feel random and unclear criteria. I’ve been thinking a lot about how they can improve. I think the best, easiest, and most cost-effective thing that netgalley can do is replace or supplement the large “profile” box with more individual check boxes–where do you share reviews? How many reviews at X, Y, and Z? Followers etc? Instead of just relying on readers to craft the “magic” profile that manages to satisfy HC, HQN, etc,they should help readers (and publishers) out by having more defined fields in the form, then help publishers to select which variables they want applied to each title. If they did this, it would be easy to have a little red/yellow/green button by each title that would show your chances of receiving a requested title based on the criteria the publisher has selected for that particular release. Green requests would automatically get the title, yellow requests would be reviewed by the publisher/netgalley and red requests wouldn’t go through. My husband is a programmer, and one thing that I have learned from him is that undefined variables cause the most problems—when you have clearly defined variables and individual fields, you can more easily sort and use the data in a way that benefits everyone. I also think that Netgalley should display for publishers what % of requests a reviewer is actually reviewing–if I’m reviewing 100% or 90% of what I’m requesting, I feel that I should receive credit for that, versus people who are only reviewing 10 % or 20% of what they are requesting. I have no problems with this being a business and with netgalley limiting itself to “professional” readers–in fact, I think netgalley should be a little more stringent about signup so that not just “anyone” can join. For me, free books IS payment enough for the service I provide as a reviewer, but I understand that that may not be the case for everyone. I just want Netgalley to work with readers and publishers more clearly with more clearly defined standards that are easier to meet. The guesswork of doing a profile needs to be simplified for that to happen.
Just got rejected for a number of reviews from Disney/Hyperion and found this via google.
NetGalley was my first-ever source of ARCs, and I can’t discount the fact that access to these was a big help to my professionalization as a reviewer and blogger. They’re also no longer my only source: I now get review copies from Simon and Schuster’s Galley Grab (whose system I honestly vastly prefer), as well as paper ARCs from several publicist directly. I’ve had wonderful contact with editors and authors who have told me that they LOVE my reviews, and many readers have told me that they rely on me to help with their purchases. Very flattering!
But I find NetGalley’s system widely confounding. For example, they assure us that we’re not obligated to review copies we receive. I’ll be honest–I recently calculated, and have only completed and reviewed about 10% of the books I receive. I ALWAYS send these reviews to the publicists via their system, and promote reviewed books widely on my blog and on GoodReads. But now I learn that my relatively low review rate has been reported back to publishers. I probably look like a slacker!
(I would honestly think that this works in the publisher’s favor: the fact that I have access to more ARCs than I could possibly read means that I only finish–and I review every book I finish–books I enjoy, usually. Guess the fact that I generally give thoughtful and positive press doesn’t count for much!)
I agree with Chanceofbooks that NetGalley needs to adapt their profile system so that it’s actually clear what information we need to include. I think the system could use quite a bit of streamlining as well: it doesn’t make sense to have reviews and requests in different areas, and you need to make it easier for us to provide space for reviews.
I also think it would be awesome if a more genuine dialogue was opened up between publicists and reviewers on NetGalley. We’re really working for the same thing (the promotion and sales of books), and you get no sense of that here. There are WIDESPREAD rumors around the internet that HarperTeen, for example, rejects reviewers who have negatively reviewed their books in the past. I tried to contact a publicist there to see if they’d like to do a blog interview at my blog to talk up their review requirements–I thought it might help smooth over a lot of hurt feelings. But that was a month ago, and not a word since.
Though I DID hear that they rejected YAHighway–a huge YA writing blog–for a bunch of titles. Honestly, I have no idea what their criteria is. And though the new webpage stating their standards HELPS, those standards seem inequitably and inconsistently applied.
I’ve heard a lot about NetGalley, but I’ve yet to try it out. I don’t know what category I would go under as a book blogger. It’s just so confusing. It sounds like a cool thing, but the whole idea of rejection sets me off from it.