Author Anne Browning Walker began her love affair with NetGalley a few months ago. It was a timid relationship at first (who wouldn’t be nervous about giving the goods away for free), but it soon turned out to be one of the best decisions she made as a writer.
NetGalley is an online library of sorts that allows authors and publishers to post free copies of their book. The expectation is that individuals who download a copy will eventually post a review online or spread the word in some way. Expectations are often far from reality, but not in Anne’s case and not when it comes to NetGalley. Anne experienced great success in eliciting reviews and publicity from NetGalley—40 reviews to be exact!
For a marginal fee and with the follow-through from PR by the Book, Anne was able to garner more media attention in a few months than many authors are ever able to recieve. 223 book reviewers downloaded the book, and 40 of them posted reviews. That’s an 18% follow-through rate (which is actually a steller rate) NetGalley is an effective tool that gets books into the hands of the influential few that post reviews and love sharing great books.