Death of the traditional mail-out? NetGalley continues to make news.

POSTED BY elaine ON November 2, 2010

It’s faster, it’s greener, it’s more efficient and it’s the next logical step in the e-book phenomenon. NetGalley, a service that allows publishers to share digital content, made the news again today, signing a deal with Hachette Book Group to distribute the publisher’s advance review copies (ARCs) electronically. Hachette is the second of the big six publishers to sign with NetGalley – HarperCollins jumped on board this summer.

What does this mean for publishers, large and small?

1. The tedious and expensive process of packaging physical galleys and press kits may soon become a thing of the past. Not only can “professional readers” (reviewers, media, bloggers, booksellers, librarians) search for and download a galley to their e-readers or desktops, but they can also access the book’s digital press kit – press releases, photos, author Q&A, video and more – all for free. In this process, reviewers aren’t swamped with reading material they never asked for and aren’t expecting. If you’ve ever seen the inside of a book reviewer’s office littered with stacked mail bins, you can understand why many embrace this trend!

2. NetGalley allows your book to be seen by more reviewers than through an ordinary galley mail-out. Not only do the reviewers who use NetGalley specifically ask to see your book (thus increasing the “open rate” of the e-galley vs the physically mailed galley), but the number of people who have the capacity to use books in their platform keeps expanding. For example, you might have a good, go-to list of book review bloggers, but who did you miss? And who is new on the scene?

3. Say a reviewer browses NetGalley to determine the next handful of books they want to consider for review. If your new title isn’t there, you could get left behind. Reviewers of all types – traditional and bloggers – are turning to this one-stop-shopping, immediate-access model.

4. NetGalley also addresses a long-standing and unethical industry issue – review copies that mysteriously show up on retailer sites like eBay. There are few things as frustrating for authors than finding their book up for sale on Amazon….often before the pub date!

Of course there are many more reasons why the media and publishers find NetGalley useful, and the service will continue to make the news. There are more than 12,000 users signed on and that number is climbing. Are you one of them? What are your thoughts about NetGalley?

Tags: advance review copies, e-reader, galleys, NetGalley

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