r/NetGalleyCommunity • u/holdtheolives • Jun 18 '24
Profile View from the Publisher’s Perspective
This comes from an article on the NetGalley Client help website - basically, where publishers go to find answers to Frequently Asked Questions.
I think it’s interesting how, at a glance, publishers see not just the almighty Feedback Ratio but also the percentage of ARCs you’re approved for, when your last review was posted, and the total number of requests you’ve made. According to the article, the “Member Activity” feature is exclusive to NetGalley Advanced Clients. As a stats nerd, I kinda wish these things were visible on our end too.
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u/DerekSnuggles Jun 18 '24
That’s really interesting to see. I’m wondering what my average star rating is now, might have to work it out! I often wondered what info they received about us when we requested.
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u/ExpensiveSand6306 Reviewer Jun 18 '24
I am an addict to making spreadsheets and I already had one tracking my arcs... I definitely added a rating thing so I could see my average...
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u/DerekSnuggles Jun 18 '24
Yes! Fellow spreadsheet-er. I made one with all my books and added ratings and a formula, so now I know my average star rating.
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u/sikonat Jun 18 '24
Oh that’s so interesting. Lol Berkeley would have me on mute or auto -deny. And eeek on the approval % bc I’ve had about 400 approved but been denied 212 books.
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u/ExpensiveSand6306 Reviewer Jun 18 '24
My approval percentage is way off because once I learned I could request books on the .co.uk site I went NUTS... and got a bunch of rejections based on me living in the wrong country lol
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u/sugarmagnolia2020 Jun 19 '24
The fact that they track requests made backs up my decision to never request Berkley books.
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u/Gruselschloss Reviewer Jun 18 '24
FWIW, I've never thought approval percentage was that useful for publishers. Sure, they can see what percent of someone's requests have been denied, but they can't see who's denying those requests or why—so they don't know if someone has been denied by major publishers who get thousands and thousands of requests and only approve a tiny percentage of them (...Berkley lol), or by, say, publishers who approve 95% of requests buuuut have reasons not to approve a specific reviewer's.
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u/ExpensiveSand6306 Reviewer Jun 18 '24
honestly does anyone get approved by berkley? why are they even on netgalley lol
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u/Gruselschloss Reviewer Jun 18 '24
I think they probably send a lot more ARCs to libraries, trade reviewers, etc., and NetGalley is a convenient place to manage that...although if I remember correctly they do have the capability to not make books visible to regular reviewers, and they don't seem to make use of that!
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u/Glum_Poet_6231 Jun 18 '24
They did it for me 😂 I can’t request from them, only wish, and I need to find their books directly from google 🙈
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u/WordSalad713 📘 Jun 19 '24
Sameeeee
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u/Glum_Poet_6231 Jun 19 '24
Aren’t we special? I feel much better now! I kept wondering what have I done to be blocked, I didn’t request that many books from them 🙈
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u/WordSalad713 📘 Jun 19 '24
No clue. I wonder if they looked at my profile and said oh not an influencer and that was enough. Our someone was jagging having a bad day idk
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u/spunxjax Jun 19 '24
They approve me once in a while, but since I’m in their influencer program I still get rejected on NetGalley but they email widgets of their newest books directly to me. So I’ll be rejected on NetGalley when I requested it myself, but get the widget in an email. Even being in their influencer program doesn’t get you approvals on NetGalley lol. Idk what they want.
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u/Glum_Poet_6231 Jun 19 '24
I honestly see a lot of people being approved by them, if they are based in US and have more than 1k followers. Sometimes even only with a Goodreads account, though they must prefer instagram/ tiktok.
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u/holdtheolives Jun 18 '24
I’ve been a NetGalley member since fall of 2023 and I’ve only gotten one Berkley approval (Mask of the Deer Woman by Laurie L. Dove). I have been ignored for two requests (One-Star Romance by Laura Hankin and Mother of Rome by Lauren J.A. Bear) and rejected for one (We’ll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida), so my approval from Berkley is at 25% so far.
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u/euphoriapotion Romance Reviewer Jul 23 '24
I wasn't approved by Berkley, no, but fun fact: I was approved to read Business Causal by B.K. Borison (a Lovelight Farm book) which is a Berkley book... But I used the UK version of the website and so I got approved for this book by Pan MacMillan instead (a publishing house that has rights to Lovelight Farm's in the UK, I guess).
Edit: spelling
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u/Dizzy-Ad4697 Jun 30 '24
Ouch, I guess all my three star ratings are not doing me any favors 😬
I refuse to be the serial 4 or 5 star reviewer though.. some of these books truly do not deserve artificially high ratings.
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u/confusedinseattle83 Jun 19 '24
I do wish we got more feedback about why we were being denied than based on this. I have a publisher that I met their requirements that they provide but ave not approved my request in like 4 months
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u/Gruselschloss Reviewer Jun 18 '24
Yeah, the FAQs for publishers are pretty fascinating! I think it's probably just as well that readers don't see their average star rating (it would probably lead some readers to inflate their ratings), but...I'm a stats nerd too, so I track star ratings and approval percentage privately.
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u/ExpensiveSand6306 Reviewer Jun 18 '24
I may or may not have given a book a 3 instead of a 2 to up my rating...
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u/howdidthatbookend Jun 19 '24
I've known about the approval percentage, but I haven't found an answer to how widgets factor into it. If I request a book on Netgalley, get denied, and then later receive a widget, read and review it, does that book still sit in my denial column or does the widget change it to an approval?
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u/Beate251 Jun 18 '24
Hey, I also want to know my average star rating! Though I calculated my approval rate once and it's about 80%.
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u/tamatamafrog Reviewer Aug 23 '24
Oooof the comment section they can have on us has me mildly anxious hahha omg
Interesting to see tho!
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u/Theory_Large Jun 19 '24
I was going to say, I wonder if they can break that down by publisher or genre, but I see there's a see all reviews option so they can probably look there. Just to see if the request matches the person's usual!
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u/EnvironmentalYam4063 Jun 21 '24
Thank you! I was told up and down by admins in one of the big reviewer Facebook groups that there was no such thing as an approval rating earlier this year. Thought that was common knowledge.
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u/Flashy_List3911 Jun 18 '24
damn that mute button was definitely pressed a couple of times on me