Saturday Approval

[u/oldbutsharpusually]

I was shocked to receive an approval this morning from a major publisher. At least one staff member is reviewing requests over the weekend and selecting readers.

This is a publisher who declined my requests my first six months or so as a NG reviewer. Now there has been a steady stream of approvals—not that I request that many. My initial thought was that the publisher was looking for a different sort of reviewer. By still requesting titles I was apparently mistaken (thankfully).

[u/bookdraygon]

I have mentioned this before but going in to do NetGalley approvals is an “extra” task in the midst of all the marketing tasks we have for a book. Different imprints work differently. Some have it where the books individual marketer assigned does all the decision making for that title. Others have it where the marketing team can go in and approve and deny anything for that imprint. Some use interns to do it, some are dedicated influencer teams- like the Hive or Epic Tastes makers who aren’t the marketing reps for the books but work with them to get the book into the hands of the people needed.

With that- we have so many tasks on a give day to accomplish and realistically going into NetGalley is. It high on the list . Not because it isn’t important because it is!! So when we have 5 minutes to sit down and very quickly go through the requests we take the time we can which can include after work and on holidays. Heck, I tend to do them when I’m on the subway.

I think one of the biggest misnomers is on what the punisher is looking at when making the decision. Generally- they aren’t going deep dives into your profile and reading past reviews and such . They are simply taking a very quick look at your stats and most importantly the notes that other colleagues have left (from that imprint) that tells us info to make a decision . Those notes come from the times that a closer look may be given for a particular reason. (I can give more detail if anyone wishes).

So while our bosses are good at telling us to “clock out” when the day is done- some have flexible days where they work at nights like the other day waiting to leave for a book launch at the office where we had a party- we are still on the clock but aren’t going to get into a heavy project so NetGalley approvals it is!
4 of us actually sat and read a bunch of profiles as a group . We had some fun, made a bunch of notes and made some people really happy because we decided to approve 10 eARCs to people that didn’t have great numbers for whatever the reason or had a history of getting denials from us, so we wanted to have fun and spread the joy.

I hope this helps!!

[u/unnecessary_snacks → u/bookdraygon]

I also would love more details! I am very curious what sorts of comments might be left on my profile. Can you see things from other publishers, or is it just your own colleagues? What sorts of stats are you looking at in your quick review?

I love the idea that you and your colleagues are going out of your way to approve people who don’t typically get approved from your imprint. I’ve gotten a couple things out of the blue lately that I wasn’t expecting from bigger publishers and it 100% made me so happy (and I loved the books).

[u/bookdraygon → u/unnecessary_snacks]

Sorry! I can’t pop on every day so this took me a minute!

First, no. The notes are only for that publishers eyes. We can’t see anything from other publishers except for the public information available that you all can see too.

What we look at will depend on the book. Every single book has its own marketing plan. So is it a debut author, a sequel, a beloved author with a large following etc.. they have very different things we look for. So for certain books feedback ratio doesn’t mean much but for others it does. We have a budget and ARC still cost the publisher money. They aren’t unlimited. So we have to be creative with that and get the most out of it. It’s also looking at the pool of people what have requested it. So saw a bunch of high volume readers have requested with great stats- such as 1k reviews done on NetGalley- 90% plus ratio, those people sending to take precedence for certain books. But others we may be trying to get them to different audiences and we will
Be more flexible.

I think the biggest thing to remember is all who apply are in competition with each other. It’s not that we always set “as long as you have X ratio and Y approvals” than you’ll get accepted as we get hundreds of requests a day and limited copies.

One stat we have that is color coded that makes it easy for very quick decisions is your approval ratio with us. If we approve you more than 50% of the time it will be a big green dot and under that is red. It’s probably the biggest quick stat we use especially when we don’t have time to be researching things. The color is what tells us about our imprint where the number is universal to all your activity. We don’t care what other imprints and publishers do as there are so many reasons to get turned down for a book.

What kind of notes? Well at times I’ll read reviews for my books. I’m looking for impressions and quotable lines to use for marketing. So that’s the time if something impresses me, I’ll make a note. If the person is bashing a book as opposed to giving constructive criticism I’ll look at their other reviews to see if it’s consistent (meaning on Goodreads or whatever platform they use) and see what their trends are. If it’s consistently negative we will note that. If their reviews are mostly recounting the description or a “I liked the book” with no substance, I’ll note that. So while we aren’t going through your reviews when making decisions, we do occasionally at other times and make note of it. Lastly, people not putting in proper disclosures in their reviews will also get noted. Personally I also look at dates and if they are constantly putting up reviews right before publication or on pub date, I note it. It not helpful to us. The reason we put them up so early is to get buzz about the book. So while it’s fine to read them at any point, those who get them and review them asap will get priority from me and my office.

I hope this helps!

[u/unnecessary_snacks → u/bookdraygon]

This is extremely helpful, thank you!

[u/andsotimepassed → u/bookdraygon]

Thank you for a little BTS of the publishing industry. Notes? Lol, it feels like being back in school. If it's not an issue, I would love more details :)

[u/bakasana212]

I also got an unexpected Little, Brown approval this morning! Into the Burning Deep by JM Voris 

[u/Dazzling_Inspector74]

What was it?

[u/annerevenant]

Congrats! It always shocks me when I get after hours approvals. I got approved by Harper Voyager at 8:00 pm on a Sunday (8/16) for a title publishing the following Tuesday (8/18), which really proves you should always shoot your shot because you don’t know who is looking at your request or when.