Internet saturation of your name and your profile is key to creating a strong author presence. Agents and publishers prefer authors who have already established themselves online--even before they have been published. You know the common drill:
- Author Website
- Author page on Facebook
- Goodreads
- Tumblr, Blogger, Twitter, Wordpress
- Group membership
All of the above take some effort and take you away from your writing. Well here is a new way to promote yourself, to build relationships with publishers, get some free reading materials and become a recognized "professional reader".
NetGalley connects you to publishers who want you to review books that are soon-to-be-published.
Why would you do this?
- Free reading material
- It's a good way to get your name and possibly your Web site or blogger links out there
- Your blog or group will get reviews of great books before they hit the press (timely)
- You may be able to build relationships with publishers
- You get to see what is being published (which helps with your writing decisions)
- You get to see what publishers like (which helps with submission decisions)
- You have access to a group of professional readers you may be able to network with
- You have to register
- You will have to provide some detailed information (that is kept confidential between publishers and NetGalley) in order to prove you are a reader of influence with the credentials to review books. (author, journalist, teacher, editor, librarian etc). (Hint: You can check publishers approval criteria first)
- You pick a book (galley) to review and send the request to the publisher.
- If approved, you read the book (provided in many forms PUB, Kindle etc)
- You can decline the review or you can publish the review. You own the rights to your review. You can send a link of the reviews location to the publisher (which gives you exposure)
Ease of use?
- Search by publisher, author, title, genre/category or most requested
- Fill in basic join form, read terms, submit and validate email
- Create your profile, which includes associations you belong to and a bio
- Your dashboard includes your activities, your reads (which can be organized), your writes and requests to and approvals from publishers.
Make your reading count. Sign up to NetGalley at https://www.netgalley.com/
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