NetGalley Access for Self-Publishers

Many of us are familiar with NetGalley and its ability to get advanced reading copies of books into the hands of reviewers, but what opportunities does an individual author have for partnering with NetGalley?

NetGalley’s primary goal is to act as an online service connecting book publishers, reviewers, bloggers, and librarians. It facilitates the transfer of digital book copies to professional readers in order to help promote titles and in the hopes that readers will post positive reviews about books on places like Amazon, Goodreads, or blogs. Though reviewers can join NetGalley for free, publishers have to pay for the service. This puts independent authors in an awkward position. How can they get their books onto the NetGalley site?

Net Galley offers two options for individual authors, and sadly both of them involve a fairly significant financial investment.

1. List books directly through NetGalley – Authors can list books directly through NetGalley using one of two packages. The first costs $599 and includes a 6-month title listing as well as the presence of the title in a newsletter. The second costs $399 and includes a six-month title listing. It also has less technical support than the first option.

2. Partner with the Independent Book Publishers Association to list books – Authors can also work with the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) to have their books listed on NetGalley. Members of the IBPA can purchase the same two packages at a $50 discount, which means that package one costs $549 and package two costs $349. However membership with the IBPA also costs $129 annually, so for people who do not already belong to the association, this is the more expensive of the listing options.

The listing options are a bit complicated, but to read more about them, you can explore NetGalley’s Individual Authors page.

Overall NetGalley can be a wonderful way for independent authors to send advanced reading copies to as large of an audience as possible. Unlike other methods, it is easy for people outside of an author’s immediate network to have access to a book for reviewing purposes. However NetGalley is also expensive, and unless an independent author is dedicating a lot of time to their career as a writer, it can be a waste of money. For these authors, forwarding reviewers digital book copies made using something like  Calibre might be a better option. I suggest independent authors take the time to consider which system is best for them.

What do you all think of NetGalley’s system? I’ve used it to receive advanced reading copies but don’t plan to use it to host my own books. I’d love to hear other perspectives though, especially considering how new I am to using the site.

 

—     —     —

On a very different note, though I may someday discuss the recent US election here, it will not be today. I am however spending a great deal of time thinking about my fellow country folk.