What Is NetGalley?
When I first started being a librarian in 2006 I was sometimes given free Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) of books that were not published yet. I sometimes got these books from my supervisor at librarian meetings. I was given them in the exhibit hall at conferences for library workers. My supervisor who handed out the ARCs also handed out printed notecards and we were to review any books that we took and write our reviews on a notecard. The understanding, when receiving these ARCs, was that we would read the copies that we took and recommend them to patrons and or purchase the books if we liked them for our library (if we had purchasing power).
Sometimes we also received copies of books called galleys. These books were not completely finalized versions. Galley’s might not be completely through the proofreading process. Back in the day, librarians might often bring an extra suitcase to a conference to take home all of their ARCs and galleys.
Times have changed. While I have seen a few ARCs here and there over the past few years (granted I have been to only one conference since I had Mr. Man) many galleys and ARCs are now available digitally. About a year ago, I noticed some of my librarian friends mentioning NetGalley on Goodreads so I decided to investigate.
Here is what the front screen of NetGalley looks like:
NetGalley is a free to join website, for booksellers, book trade professionals, educators, librarians, book reviewers, journalists, and book influencers can request digital copies of galleys to review. Perhaps you fall into one of these categories?
There are other websites where book people can obtain galleys but so far this is the only website that I have investigated so far.
I have found that using Netgalley has a learning curve. It is not completely intuitive but in time I have figured out some of its facets. First, users register to use the website. Once they are registered they can request to have individual digital copies of books. Just because you are approved for one title does not mean that you will be approved for another title. I worried at first about how I might not be approved for certain books and how this could be a blow to my ego. However, so far, I don’t think I have ever been denied if I requested to obtain a title.
Netgalley has both audiobooks and eBooks.
I have found that it also is important to put the Netgalley app on your phone. You can listen to the audiobooks on your phone by opening the app. However, I believe that ARCs can only be requested by logging on to the website. eBooks can be read on your Kindle. It took me a while to figure this out. Here are some instructions if you want to read the Netgalley books on your Kindle. Netgalley can be a free way to get Kindle books.
Is Netgalley the easiest process I have ever used? Short answer, no. However, I have slowly been acquainting myself with it and I have been getting some new books to read from it.
Here is a book review of a book that received for free and reviewed for Netgalley. It was published in March of 2024 and can be found on shelves at your library or bookstore now.
Book Review of The Divorcées by Rowan Beaird
Published: March 19th, 2024
Page Count: 259 pages
Genre: Historical fiction, Literary fiction, Debut novel
I primarily listened to the audiobook of this title. The reader of the book is Bailey Carr.
The Divorcées by Rowan Beaird is the story of a young woman, who married because she was lonely after her mother’s death. After four years of marriage, she leaves her husband and travels to a “divorce ranch” in Nevada. The year is 1951.
[We learn in this book that the Nevada divorce ranch industry, which centered around dude ranches located near Reno, helped pull Nevada out of the Great Depression. Wealthy woman traveled to Nevada and stayed for six weeks to obtain a no fault divorce. Ranch employees witnessed in court that the woman had been at the ranch the entire six weeks of their stay. This along with the casino industry helped Nevada stay afloat after being hit hard by the Great Depression]
While at the ranch she learns how to make friends, ride a horse, build muscle, and explore her desire to live alone and never marry again.
It sounds like Eat, Pray, Love doesn’t it? Well, it is and it isn’t.
The biggest thing I can say about this book is that it is a slow, slow burn. I mostly listened to the audiobook of this title which is listed as 9 hours and 49 minutes long.
After many walks with my headphones listening to this book, I found that listening to this book left me feeling ill at ease for the main character. So I checked out a copy of this book at my local library to finish the final tenth of the book.
One thing that surprised me was how short this book actually is.
It turns out The Divorcées is only a 253 page book. To me, it seems like almost 10 hours of listening is a lot of listening for a short-ish book. In fact, I began listening to this book in April and only finished up this week.
Not a lot of action happens in this book but that is not necessarily bad.
I would say that this book is characterized by atmosphere. If it were a film you might you might compare it to a noir. There aren’t any private detectives but everything has a murky feel and there are a lot of flashbacks.
While I liked The Divorcées I found it a little too dark for me at times and there is almost too little action until nearly the end of the book. That is why I am awarding this book three stars out of five.
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an audiobook ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Happy reading!
