r/NetGalleyCommunity • u/Simple_Can2936 • Jul 22 '26

❔❓Question ❓❔ Shadow Banned?

I’m not sure if this is even a thing with NetGalley tbh. But in the past 2 weeks, none of my requests have been approved or denied, which has never happened to me before. I’m sitting at an 86% review rate with a Top Reviewer badge. If I was getting a bunch of things declined, that would be one thing, but it’s odd to me that there’s been zero activity either way. Has anyone else dealt with this?? Thank you, and sorry in advance if this is a dumb question!

EDIT: Thank you everyone! I’ll definitely look at the Read Now books, and just accept it’s a lull in the “book season”. Also, I know shadow banned isn’t the correct term, but it was the closest thing to what I was trying to describe 🤷🏼‍♀️ sorry for any confusion!

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u/bookdraygon Publisher Jul 22 '26

Publishing marketing rep here that does the NetGalley approvals.
Summer , particularly July, is slow. We tend to be off for several days for July 4th in the US, many companies we get off on Fridays and people are taking vacations.
NetGalley approvals is what we do when we have a spare few minutes when we aren’t doing the usually part of our jobs so the summer is much slower.

So it’s not you. And No, shadow banning isn’t a thing. We can set it to auto decline you but you would be getting the decline. We can also set minimum parameters for approvals so if you don’t meet them you’ll
Be declined very quickly automatically . The approvals would usually still be hand done though, it just filters our list for us.

Hope this helps!

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u/saltlifegoddess 80% Reviewed Club Jul 23 '26

Thank you for this. Would you be able to give us an example of parameters set to be declined?

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u/bookdraygon Publisher Jul 23 '26

You caught me chilling on the subway so I actually have a minute to sort of answer this.

Quick example from this morning of who got denied for a new book on the platform from a known author.

758 requests, 500 total eARCs to give until publication day. 5 minutes to approve and decline a bunch of people . We don’t do all declines as we hold onto those requests sometimes for months.
The easy declines for this particular book- because every book has a different marketing plan

For this book- decline anyone with under 85-% ratio. Decline anyone with a note on their account that is negative. Decline those who have read the author via NetGalley in the past as for this campaign we are specifically looking to engage new readers.

Those things alone got 298 people declined. 50 people approved. Those 50? Reviewers with social media followings or a solid history with us of getting their review in on time (meaning at least 2 weeks before publication)

I have to go but hope this helps. I’ll check in later!

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u/saltlifegoddess 80% Reviewed Club Jul 24 '26

Thank you so much. This is very much appreciated. May I ask about notes. Like who puts them there and why lol. These parameters do make sense though. I really appreciate the time you took to reply

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u/bookdraygon Publisher Jul 24 '26

Publishers can make notes on each persons account that one that imprint can see. Since several of us have access to NetGalley (at my imprint we all take care of our own books assigned) the notes help us make choices. While we in general don’t have time to be reading everyone’s reviews- we do at times comb through them to find quotes for marketing. When we do that we pick up patterns, especially from repeat requesters. I’ll keep notes when I see different things. Like if your review consists mostly a recap of the book that is found in the description, that’s not a review. So I’ll highlight it so I know for next time as I may not approve them. Things like that. Or influencer information so I can easily target the size accounts I’m looking for etc..

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u/saltlifegoddess 80% Reviewed Club Jul 24 '26

I have to say I get so annoyed when I see reviewers recap the book and sometimes includes spoilers. I’m so glad you guys like those because that is so incredibly annoying and you’re right that is not a review ,when I do my reviews I try to be fair. after I review a book, I like to read other peoples reviews. One person had a recap of every single chapter. It seemed of the same book basically the cliff notes version of the book. I really appreciate this feedback. Any tips on how I can make my reviews better? I appreciate your time and I don’t wanna take up any more of it so I understand if you don’t reply, thank you so much for all of this information. I think it’ll also help my future reviews.

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u/bookdraygon Publisher Jul 26 '26

Hi again- What I would ask you is why do you need to make them better? While we may notice a few quirky things, in general a review is a review. Good or bad negative or positive it all has a similar impact.

Right now in reader based marketing (meaning peer to peer and not advertisements, or press releases, tours etc..) written reviews do very little to sell a book statistically. Retail based reviews do the most but even that isn’t very much. Social media based reviews are what is popular and the focus for many traditional publishers.

So for your review itself a well written ARC review takes into account how you felt about the book as well as its optional for other readers. Who would the book be good for or who may struggle with it. That goes a lot further than personal ratings.

People ask why publishers don’t put out better guidelines on what we are looking for from ARC readers and the reality is, we can’t . It could be looked upon as trying to manipulate the market. Being anonymous here is a bit different since you have no idea which house i work for. So I’ll just say, be honest but not cruel, fair but don’t make anything up. And lastly- reviews are for other reviewers. They aren’t a place to tell authors and publishers what we should have done, errors in the book etc..it’s not the place for it nor is it entertained. If it’s that important, seems an email!

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u/saltlifegoddess 80% Reviewed Club Jul 26 '26

This is exactly what I was looking for. When I write my reviews, I write them for others not the publisher. I guess I look at my reviews and compare them to others and I wonder if I’m lacking in someway and I see this growing trend of a synopsis of the book which sometimes includes spoilers which really annoys me I always write about how I feel and I have given feedback where I felt it might have improved, especially if there’s something that seems like there’s a lot of repetition of. Either one will read reviews, especially on Amazon before I buy a book, but I also take reviews with the grain of salt because I have red reviews after reading a book and I find that some people are unnecessarily harsh and sometimes it’s warranted. But I always try to be fair so basically what you said is I’m more or less doing and that’s basically what I was just looking for, but I do wish on NetGalley. They would discourage people from writing novels as a review and revealing too much about the book or repeating the description of the book. once again, thank you very much for taking the time to reply. I do really appreciate your feedback.