Hello guys, have a wonderful day especially in this Ramadhan Kareem. As im strolling my blog to gather new blogpost ideas then my eyes stopped on the words NetGalley, why not to publish a post about it right?
My first experience with this kind of thing were resulted from hanging out on Fatina’s blog and also discovered afterwards that Rasya’s blog also have the same Net Galley button. So I search for the netgalley thingy and gosh as a book lover I feel like yeah this is what we are made for! Reviewing and influencing other on reading more books – this thing is my thing right?
Love at the first sight
To be frank, my first experience signing up on netgalley was not that great because I dont have any idea on what should I do. There is this one section, where you need to key in your social media (places where you talk about books) and a simple bio to tell the publisher of who you are. After filling the spaces rojakly, the next thing to do is to request a free book copy to be review…
Only to be turn out to be such a disappointment
All the book that I request had been rejected?! Argh, that was so frustating. So I began to walk away from netgalley for awhile and busying myself with other thing to hide the disappointment.
I came back prepared
There is this thing within me, I cant let myself feeling down too long, I need to detect the problem and working on it. Hence I began to search tips from the netgalley directory itself and also reading some articles on pinterest. I wonder why on earth I havent done that on the first place? Ha ha ha. I found that I’ve been lacking in terms of describing myself to the book publisher.
I try to put myself on the publisher shoes, if I were a publisher, who would be the person I trust enough to give my free books copies to?
It was as simple as that! So I began to construct my biography in a more detailed way, saying who I am, what I do, and as a blogger who are my target audience were. It works!
Shortly after I updated my bio, I began to request some books and how happy I am after receiving email from netgalley that my application had been approved!
Some of my Net Galley Approved Titles
Reading some of the books I requested, I began to think the responsibility that I owe with the publisher. That I need to review this book on the time given (not all have due date, but best to do before it release to the market I thing so?). Therefore, from my short reading about Net Galley, I learn that:
- Not all books that we received need to be review but it is the first thing that the publisher expect us to do. After all as a book reviewer we owe the publisher an exchange of free ebooks with a words of mouth. Blog fortunately is one of the cheapest way.
- In order to gain trust from the publisher, the requester must put sufficient details on what they do and how exactly that gonna benefits the publisher. Like getting more details in the bio, who you are, where you from, target audience etc.
- I need to learn on how to pick the right book (that I’ll not DNF) only based on its cover, summary, the author and words of mouth as there is no other way to glimpse on its first chapter. I’ve state before that in order to choose the right book I highly recommend to read the overall first chapter. You may find details here : How to Start Reading and Actually Understand English Book.
That is a short story on how I get my first E Book and it entitled Golden by K.M Robinson, and that was the first book that I send my feedback resulting in to be Auto Approved reviewer from the publisher itself. Thank you Red Adept for the opportunity.
Have you know about NetGalley yet? Do you have any tips you want to share?