lgbtq+ WRITING

I recently posted my book for review on NetGalley through the Victory Editing co-op, which allows you to list your books on NetGalley for a month for $50.

• I received 149 requests for a copy
• I approved 89 of them
• I declined 60 of them
• I received 20 reviews on NetGalley, averaging 3.4 / 5
• At the time of writing, I have received 44 ratings on Goodreads, with 29 reviews, averaging 3.89 / 5. Not all of these were through NetGalley but some were.

I have also posted the audiobook on NetGalley which has accessed a new audience. I will post the data from that once it’s completed.

I certainly received far more engagement and reviews through NetGalley than any other platform. BookSirens were not interested, and others proved quite hollow. I probably have had more success by directly contacting social media influencers, but that has involved far more hours than NetGalley did.

I approved reviews based (in order of importance) on whether they had:

• (a) a large following that I wanted to reach, e.g. on Instagram, TikTok or Goodreads and they actually post regularly,
• (b) they run book clubs that I wanted to access,
• (c) they indicated that they recommended books to the Goodreads groups I wanted to access, and
• (d) their average rating was high.

Hopefully the above list is helpful to reviewers looking to access free copies: give us a reason to accept!

Some NetGalley reviewers quite rude, but for the most part reviewers were fair, kind and helpful. Fewer of them have actually converted into increased engagement than I hoped, but this may change as some reviews are hopefully still to come in.