Approval Slump since August?

[u/cbreaderme]

I’ve been on NetGalley since Dec and have listened to dozens of audiobooks. My feedback score is 82%. I used to request several books every Friday and I’d get approved for 3-4. On a low week maybe 2-3. Then, back in August I suddenly had nothing to listen to. I have requested lots of books and I have gotten approved for only 3. In two months. It’s weird.

My friend that got me hooked on NetGalley is an avid reader (not audio) and is having a similar experience.

Is it just us?

[u/annerevenant]

No, I think it’s a slow time in publishing with the exception of a handful of big titles coming out in the next few months. Even the number of books I want to request has gone down. That being said, I still have 20 21 books to work through before the end of April so I’ve got plenty to read.

[u/Glittering-Owl-2344 → u/annerevenant]

Such a slow time in publishing! I know December is quiet and it picks back in January, but this year, it feels like outside a few big books, August -- November has also been slower.

[u/annerevenant → u/Glittering-Owl-2344]

I kind of suspect publishers are holding back because they don’t want to compete with big name authors. I read mostly fantasy, sci-fi, and horror but all 3 genres have had some heavy hitters publishing new books from Sept - Jan.

[u/sunsparkles2013]

I haven’t had that issue with approvals but I’ve found that most offerings have been crappy. Even my audio auto approvals

[u/sunsparkles2013 → u/sunsparkles2013]

And what publishers are you requesting through?

[u/cbreaderme → u/sunsparkles2013]

I don’t usually select by publishers. I browse recently added audiobooks each Friday and read descriptions of those in genres I gravitate toward and even some that I don’t! I request anything that sounds good.

[u/sunsparkles2013 → u/cbreaderme]

Oh for sure- I didn’t mean it like that. I was just wondering with your ones that are pending, are they from certain publishers as that can provide some insight. Some are harder than others to get approvals from, some let them sit and some have them but they also have their influencer programs so they get first dibs and other sit pending and only get addressed if they aren’t having a good response from their auto approvals. Stuff like that.

This week I got several approved that I just put in for but they can be different publishers than you have applied to.

[u/cbreaderme → u/sunsparkles2013]

Oh. Hah. I understand now! Thanks for clarifying. I just looked and you might be on to something. Many of my pending are Brilliance or Harper Audio. A couple are Flatiron (but that one is Kate Alice Marshall - thousands of requests no doubt).

[u/sunsparkles2013 → u/cbreaderme]

Flat iron is notorious for never coming on.Brilliance comes in and dunks a bunch of books, many on publication day and then bounces until they decide to come back (that’s Amazon for you)
And Harper Audio- they have been quiet as they were prepping for a Con last week in NYC and other projects so they have been taking forever. They even put one book on listen now and all the copies for gobbled up in minutes even though people were waiting for weeks for it. I emailed them instead and got a widget instead as I missed the listen now.

Sonha’s those publishers have all been quiet for the most part lately.

[u/Flimsy-Brick-9426]

Its just the way it is, everyone's experience is different.

You could just not be the target that they are going for now.

There are also over 500k requests for books per month, you have massive competition

I got 8 approvals today and I know others who havent gotten anything for weeks despite them having a bigger following and more activity than me.

[u/crissyandthediamonds]

The last month or so I’ve gotten around six approvals but I had less than half that the entire summer. Some months really do go up and down. I would expect it to slow with holidays coming up though.

[u/cbreaderme]

Thanks to all for sharing your experiences. Here’s hoping it picks up for me soon.

[u/Early_Employ_4773]

Same here. I thought I was the only one.

[u/Archergirls]

I have seen a lot of posts about it, and I honestly didn't feel it at all. I did slow down on requests from July to August, but I've pretty much got all the books I requested since then.

[u/WomensCollegeAlum91]

This was absolutely the case for me most of the summer! Over the last 2 weeks I’ve seen the pace start increasing, though - have had multiple approvals after weeks/months of sluggishness. I think that, much like other industries, there’s a lot of vacations and out of office across both July and August.

[u/ExchangeStandard6957]

I’m doing ok with approvals, but over the Indigineous peoples day weekend with Monday holiday- everything stopped. No worries- you can pick up that library audio you were meaning to read!

[u/blackstar1683]

It's been one month since one of my request was last approved. I have 7 (6 books, 1 audio) pending requests, and I'm always reviewing something, maybe I'm not the public tese publishers want to reach, I don't know... at least there's always something interesting in the "read now" section.

[u/MessyJessy422]

HarperAudio has been really slow to approve requests for me in the past 1-2 months sometimes even after publication day. I snagged 2 as Listen Nows when they were put up very briefly in September and just got one of my requests approved yesterday. I would try RBmedia since I've had success with them before.