In this post, reflections on my experience with NetGalley, a service that helps publishers to get books into the hands of reviewers.By far the greatest challenge for any author is finding readers. Thanks to the jungle of Amazon, reader reviewers have been essential to the success of most books, but getting people to actually post reviews is even more challenging than finding readers.
Among the many solutions publishers and indie authors have turned to is NetGalley. NetGalley's landing page offers this invitation: "Join media, librarians, booksellers, educators, reviewers and bloggers who use NetGalley to discover, read and share reviews about new books before they are published. It's easy to get started: just sign in or join for free. Welcome!"
New, buzzed about books for free! That sounds like a great deal.
How it works:
Publishers and authors pay NetGalley to list books on the site. Readers join for free and can request books. Publishers can pick and choose which potential reviewers get copies, so reviewers who are known to trash books can be turned down, and reviewers who are very active and faithful in posting reviews can be granted books. Books must be listed for at least a month, longer if you want to pay for it. Reviewers can post their reviews on NetGalley, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, i-Tunes, GoodReads, personal blogs, social media--wherever they want. That said, they are under no obligation to post a review anywhere if they don't want to, and it might be months before they do post a review.
For an individual author, NetGalley is a huge expensive, several hundred dollars per book per month. Publishers can get deals to list multiple books at discounted rates. Until recently, I had assumed NetGalley was completely out of my price range.
Then I discovered that there are authors' groups out there that offer NetGalley listings at a discount to members, which is how I was able to list The Latecomers Fan Club. For a mere $45, I got a one-month listing for November.
Because I listed my book through a group, I couldn't approve to reject requests, but the group I was with automatically rejected some reviewers who are known for being overly harsh. Today I got a report with data from my one-month listing.
My results were not overwhelming, but that's not surprising. For one thing, my book isn't a galley. It's been out for two years. Most NetGalley readers want pre-release or new releases. For another thing, I choose a month with a holiday when people probably had other things on their mind besides finding their new favorite novel. Also, I suspect many NetGalley reviewers are young and prefer YA and genre books, not realistic, contemporary adult fiction.
That said, I figured even a handful of reviews could help my book and I really really wanted to try NetGalley, so I knew I wasn't going to be a top choice, and I am satisfied with the results I got.
My NetGalley report told me how many requests the book had, how many were approved, how many were declined, how many times readers shared my book to social media, downloaded it, or sent it to their kindles. It also gave me stats on how many readers stated that they liked my cover, blurb, author description, and the book's "buzz." I also provided me the names of users who requested my book and their affiliations, such as libraries, colleges, etc, and any reviews and ratings that have already been posted directly to NetGalley were provided for me in full.
The consensus: Most readers found The Latecomers Fan Club be worthy of 3 or 4 stars, and most reviewers seemed to enjoy it. Hopefully there will be more reviews from other people who downloaded it in the months to come.
The bottom line:
I will use NetGalley again, assuming I can get a discounted month, but I will only use it for to generate reviews prior to the book's release. I think NetGalley can be a great addition to a launch plan that includes a GoodReads Giveaway and local in-person events (to generate press).
If I had to pay full price, I'm not sure it would be worthwhile for my genre.
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