Did you miss BEA? NetGalley to the rescue!

Last week the publishing world convened in New York for BookExpo America—the largest book trade fair in the U.S. BEA is an annual event that gives publishers an opportunity to launch their biggest upcoming titles and meet with colleagues across the publishing industry. NetGalley attends BEA to connect face-to-face with our members and publisher clients to share information about new features on the site and reminders about how to get the most out of your NetGalley account.

This year our Concierge Team met with over 50 publishers to help them better connect with readers on NetGalley. From independent presses and authors to the Big 5, we had fun hearing which books they’re most excited about, and gave them lots of ideas for utilizing NetGalley in their campaigns. We encouraged them to customize their new Publisher Profiles—readers, go ahead and “favorite” the ones you love!

Tarah, your Reader Concierge, also met with many NetGalley members. During these meetings members had the opportunity to ask questions about using their accounts, how they can utilize their account best for their specific member type and previewing needs, and also a quick profile review to make sure they have the best possible chance of being approved by publisher for titles.

These meetings also focused on the NetGalley Wellness Challenge theme: “Do you book talk?” Tarah shared information about what publishers are looking for when you submit Feedback, so they can see how NetGalley members are building buzz to help launch new books. Learn our tips by participating in our Wellness Challenge—if you haven’t signed the Pledge, there’s still time! Pledge to submit meaningful feedback for a chance to win a $100 gift certificate to the book retailer of your choice.

Don’t miss next week’s Wellness Challenge Webinar (click to register), where Tarah will review the basics of leaving feedback, what types of feedback are the most valuable, and common themes she came across during her meetings with readers.

Now, let’s get back to the books! Whether you were at BEA in person or spirit, you still have a chance to snag the featured titles. Check out our BookExpo America Wrap-Up where we roundup titles hand-picked by our publishers because they don’t want you to miss them. Plus, read excerpts from the biggest books of the season (and click through to full titles on NetGalley) in the BUZZ BOOKS (Adult and Young Adult). Just click the covers to download instantly!

NetGalley is going to BookExpo America – we hope to see you there!

Every spring publishers, authors, booksellers, librarians, book bloggers, and publisher and/or book services, such as NetGalley, pilgrimage to BEA to meet those new to the industry, to see old friends, and to be part of the conversation in publishing today.

Make sure to add these events to your Conference Planner:

Thursday, May 29, 2014, 2:00 – 2:50pm in Room 1E09:
Panel: <a “””href=”http://bea14.mapyourshow.com/5_0/sessions/sessiondetails.cfm?ScheduledSessionID=1E&CFID=35276172&CFTOKEN””” =d352589a1307b95-47730649-D2ED-6875-8CA8B1221A8F57B2″ target=”_blank”>Creating eBook Bestsellers–Marketing Tips & Tricks for Publishers & Authors
Speakers: Kelly Peterson, Erin Gorham, Nathan Maharaj, & Susan Ruszala (NetGalley President)
Friday, May 30th 9-11am in Meeting Room 214:
Booksellers – stop by the ABA Lounge to meet with Tarah Theoret, NetGalley’s Reader Concierge

All Conference:
Stop by the NetGalley/Firebrand booth located in the Digital Zone (booth #2257) to meet us and to pick up a button!

If you won’t be attending BEA we have created materials that you can utilize to enhance your use of NetGalley:

Sign the Wellness Challenge Pledge for a chance to win 1 of 5 prizes on June 20th!
Watch our recent webinar that focuses on new features available to you, what types of feedback are the most helpful from each member type, and how to leave that feedback in your account.

Check out our Reader Checklist that includes a list of best practices when leaving feedback to publishers in NetGalley.
Read our Recipes for Success blog series that includes tips from book bloggers, publicists, marketers, and more! And look at the profile examples and suggestions in our Before You Request section.

*Read more about the NetGalley Wellness Challenge here.

We hope to see you in New York!

We continue to hear first-hand from publishers how word-of-mouth can truly help make or break a book’s success.

Today Dina Sherman, School & Library Marketing Director at Disney Book Group, has some words for our members:

“‘Professional’ reviews are essential as marketing tools, but it’s reader reviews (from teachers, librarians, booksellers, bloggers) that really get us excited about our books. Both staff and authors want to know that people like, or even better, love, the book as much as we do!

Probably my favorite NetGalley review of all time was for CODE NAME VERITY. It was an in-house favorite (OK, let’s be honest, an in-house obsession) from the first time we read the manuscript. We talked about it all the time, shared it with every person we met, but couldn’t quite sum up our feelings.

Then came this wonderful reviewer*, who wrote, “Suck it, Hemingway.” Exactly! It became our rallying cry and we would say it in meetings whenever we were trying to express our feelings about the book. It certainly helped us keep pushing to get it out into the world.”

* Written and submitted by Katherine Montgomery, educator

You can view Disney Book Group titles on NetGalley here to request and review.

Take a peek at our best practices for Feedback here (whether you’re a blogger/reviewer, librarian, bookseller, media professional, or educator), and don’t forget to sign the Wellness Challenge Pledge!

Cover Love

I know that we all have BEA on the brain, and are being bombarded with all the great titles that will be promoted there. I’m excited to get in on the recommending-action with something as simple as these beautiful covers. If you enjoy these lovely book covers, click through to read the full description and request the title from the publisher.

Have you already read these? Don’t forget to share feedback with the publisher and with your social network! What other titles have you requested after falling in love with the cover? Share the link in the comments below, or via Twitter #NGextras

Be sure to join the NetGalley Wellness Challenge to make sure publishers hear you when you “book talk”. Sign up here!

St. Martin’s Press   Disney Book Group Bloomsbury USA   Glenmere Press   Random House Children’s
Pub Date Jun 17 2014   Pub Date Oct 14 2014   Pub Date April 30 2014   Pub Date Oct 23 2013   Pub Date Aug 26 2014

We’re focusing this year’s NetGalley Wellness Challenge on Feedback and Reviews, because we’ve heard first-hand from publishers how word-of-mouth can truly help make or break a book’s success.

Today Pamela Brown, Marketing Director for Mulholland Books, has some words for our members:

No one is more important to a book’s success than you, dear reader.

“Marketers can spin their wheels coming up with creative contests, viral videos, and sought-after swag, but at the end of the day, we know it’s your recommendation—to your friends, to your family, to your colleagues—that matter.

Take, for example, Lauren Beukes’s The Shining Girls. I made myself hoarse singing its praises, but it was not until reviewers like you started talking about Kirby Mizrachi and the time-traveling serial killer that it became one of last summer’s must-reads. Thank you. Please wield your power wisely by reviewing what you read and recommending what you love.”

You can view Mulholland Books’ titles on NetGalley here to request and review.

Indie Next List

June edition

Today the American Booksellers Association announced the selections for the June Indie Next list, drawn from the recommendations of indie booksellers throughout the US. You can request many of these titles on NetGalley right now, and view more information on the ABA site.

If you are a bookseller, you can nominate titles for the Indie Next list via NetGalley, and receive special access to new galleys via the Digital White Box program. Sign up today!

View title on NetGalley View title on NetGalley View title on NetGalley View title on NetGalley View title on NetGalley

View title on NetGalley View title on NetGalley View on NetGalley View title on NetGalley View title on NetGalley

View title on NetGalley View title on NetGalley View title on NetGalley View title on NetGalley View title on NetGalley

Available on NetGalley by invite Available on NetGalley by invite Previously Available on NetGalley

Additional Indie Next Titles, not currently available on NetGalley:

Bird Box: A Novel d by Josh Malerman
ISBN 9780062259653

Fourth of July Creek: A Novel by Smith Henderson
ISBN 9780062286444

Pledge to take the 2014 NetGalley Wellness Challenge!

I am excited to invite you to join the second annual NetGalley Wellness Challenge, which kicks off today!
Take the pledge and join the 2014 Challenge now!

This year’s theme is “Do You Book Talk?”

This year’s 7-week Wellness Challenge focuses on Reviews and Feedback. Let’s make sure publishers hear you when you “book talk!” We want publishers to see how you build buzz and help to launch new books. We’ll provide tips for sharing your reviews with your friends and followers, and recommending books to your customers or patrons. Those who pledge will also be entered for a chance to win a prize (click the link below for more info!)

Visit our NetGalley Wellness Challenge resource page for more information on how you can participate.

Connect with publishers (and their books!) on NetGalley

Unlike an online bookstore where visitors interact primarily with BOOKS, NetGalley members have always had a distinct relationship with PUBLISHERS via the site. After all, it’s the publisher who decides when or if to make a title available for request, approves or declines member requests, and auto-approves members. While we, of course, also promote books (and while most members find titles through category browsing), it has long been our intention to deliver a showcase of all a publisher’s titles via the NetGalley platform. Today we’re delighted to announce that the first set of features is live, in a redesigned Browse Publisher section of the site.

Members can click any publisher name to:

View logo, summary, approval preferences and social media links.
Add a publisher as a “favorite.” When members are browsing the full list of publishers, their list will be personally annotated with special icons for their favorite publishers, or publishers who have auto-approved them.
View recently added titles; most requested; AND titles previously on NetGalley which are now archived. This is a quick way to see titles that were promoted on NetGalley and to purchase a title if you missed it while it was available for request.
We’ve seen a growing trend of members who search for private or archived titles that they EXPECT to find on NetGalley, and this feature meets that previously unfulfilled demand. Plus, we’ve added a way that publishers can feature NetGalley member reviews (with appropriate credit to the reviewer) on any title detail page on NetGalley—making the archived title pages more valuable as a source for consolidated feedback from the community.

We expect all of these features to evolve over time, as we measure usage and hear from publishers and readers (for example, to include notifications to readers when their reviews are added.) You can read the full press announcement here.

Don’t forget, members can always share reviews with their personal Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn communities via NetGalley at any time. Enjoy!

Summer/ Fall Indies Introduce Debut Authors and New Voices

Today the American Booksellers Association announced the selections for the Summer/Fall Indies Introduce Debut Authors and New Voices list, drawn from the recommendations of indie booksellers throughout the US. You can request many of these titles on NetGalley right now, and view more information on the ABA site.

If you’re a bookseller, don’t forget to sign up to receive special access to new galleys via the Digital White Box program!

Children’s

View title on NetGalley View title on NetGalley View title on NetGalley Available on NetGalley by invite Available on NetGalley by invite

Additional Indies Introduce Children’s Titles, not currently available on NetGalley:

The Glass Sentence by S.E. Grove (Viking)
ISBN 9780670785025

The Secret Hum of a Daisy by Tracy Holczer (Putnam)
ISBN 9780399163937

Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang (Greenwillow)
ISBN 9780062295040

Available on NetGalley by invite Available on NetGalley by invite

Adult

View title on NetGalley View title on NetGalley View title on NetGalley View title on NetGalley

Additional Indies Introduce Adult Titles, not currently available on NetGalley:

Bulletproof Vest by Maria Venegas (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
ISBN 9780374117313

Us Conductors by Sean Michaels (Tin House Books)
ISBN 9781935639817

The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even by Chris F. Westbury (Counterpoint)
ISBN 9781619022904

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Notes from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty (W.W. Norton & Co.)
ISBN 9780393240238

Dry Bones in the Valley by Tom Bouman (W.W. Norton & Co.)
ISBN 9780393243024

Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson (Ecco)
ISBN 9780062286444

Recap: London Book Fair 2014

If the atmosphere at this year’s London Book Fair was a little more subdued than 2013, it was probably due in part to this being the final time it will be held at the iconic Earls Court exhibition centre. It will be sorely missed when it is demolished to make way for more houses. But enough of nostalgia, the London Book Fair is all about the future – what is coming up and what is going to be hot in the forthcoming years. And there was lots of excitement around the halls.

There has been an appreciable but significant shift in perspective over the last year or so. Many people from all aspects of the industry appear to be more positive about the state of the bookworld. On the eve of the fair, Tom Weldon – CEO of Penguin Random House UK – challenged the nay-sayers and doom merchants, telling them that publishing was rude health rather than in deep decline. We shall see who was right!

There were some brilliant author talks – Jim Crace and Evie Wyld especially – as well as a huge array of industry panels and seminars. What was interesting to us at NetGalley was just how many of them were centred on book discovery, and how to get more people to find and recommend titles. This was also the subject of my presentation – Book Discoverability, what indie authors can teach mainstream publishers and vice versa – which was very well attended, despite taking place at 5.30pm when most people are usually in the bar!

There was no ‘book of the fair’ this year – the title that gets everyone talking and everyone’s chequebook out – which is usually a good sign. For me though, the great excitement is always walking through the halls finding out what is coming soon from both the big and the small publishers. The sight of new books by David Mitchell and Sarah Waters really caught my eye, as did a colouring book devoted to Benedict Cumberbatch – there really is every kind of book under the sun at LBF!

It was great to catch up with NetGalley publishers and show them the exciting developments planned for the site over the coming months, and as always, a delight to see so many NetGalley members there. I do hope to see you again next year –this time at Olympia!

– Stuart Evers, UK Community Manager