Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Net Galley Gone Wrong

Net Galley is awesome tool that allows writers and publishers to upload ARCs for bloggers to download at no cost and review. It's win, win. It's an easy way for book promoters to get their books into the hands of reviewers and a great way for bloggers to find free books they're looking for. You can even search by genre, to avoid weeding through a thousand things you're not going to read. (If you're indie, indie arcs might be a good choice for you. It's the same concept, much cheaper, and I'm a moderator)! 
If Net galley is so great what's the problem? Well, there are some wrong ways to use net galley and if you're doing this you're hurting yourself or your authors or both. I've been using this handy dandy little site A LOT  lately because it seems to be the easiest way to find romance books yet to be released for my weekly roundup. I've found Landline by Rainbow Rowell in YA, I guess to appeal to her YA fanbase. Then I found another adult romance in YA. No idea why on that one. Maybe because it was relatively clean for adult romance? Yeah. If someone goes through requesting YA romances without reading the blurb you're going to annoy them with an adult book.
Then there is the whole rejection email thing. I get it. You can't give a free book to every person who asks, or you'd make no money. And bloggers with large platforms are to be desired. But how you handle that rejection email is all important and too many well respected publishers are doing it wrong. Getting a rejection that says my profile is not "strong" enough for you (read: not good enough) annoys me. It makes me not want to pay for the book and many times I won't. If it's something I really really want that I didn't think I would get approved for anyhow, I might. More importantly, it makes bloggers less willing to do free promotion for you. After all, why should they? Their profile is lacking anyway.
The e-arc world is awesome. Use these tools. Just use them right.


5 comments:

  1. I love to see a sample of what kind of rejection you think publishers (and indie authors) should use. Do you think they should just go with the generic "Thank you for your request, unfortunately we aren't able to supply arcs to everyone."? Or would you like to see something more specific? That would be a big help to authors who are doing it on their own. :)

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    1. Thanks for this question. I meant to put it in the post and must have missed it. I got a rejection that had the standard line about not being able to supply books to everyone. Then it said please review the list below for reasons you may have been denied so you can update your profile. The first first reason in huge font and bold "We have exceeded our limit of galleys for this title, so you didn't do anything wrong." I liked that one. I smiled when I saw it and while I know it may or may not be true, if I ever have to give a rejection it will be that one.

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  2. I've considered NetGalley for my own book, but can't afford it right now. Thanks for mentioning Indie Arcs. I'll check that out instead.

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  3. When I first started out on NetGalley I wished that publishers would have been specific on how many followers they wanted you to have before they would give out the books. That would have saved me some trouble in requesting. Even now with a larger following, I still get rejections occasionally. I actually got one a couple weeks ago and it said they were only giving out a limited number and they weren't giving out any more. Well then, take it off NetGalley. Either that or they are just saying that and they didn't want me to have one. :) I love NetGalley though. LOVE it.

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  4. I agree with you. I've been thinking lately how, for people whose stock and trade are words, publishers sure do pick the wrong ones in communication.

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