Net Galley

[Lorie]

Someone please explain this to me...does it cost anything? how long do you have to review the book etc...THanks

[Rachel]

Hi Lorie,

There is no cost to join NetGalley, you just have to have a blog or website where you can post a review of the book when you've finished reading it. Some books have a time limit - it will say in the description when you must write a review by - but most don't. I've got a backlist of about 10 books that I'm planning to read and review in the next few months but there were a few books that I requested that the publishers rejected. It really depends on what books you review on your website - I mainly review Christian fiction, Amish fiction, chick-lit and family sagas.

Let us know if you have any more queries - I know that Diane and Brenda also review for NetGalley so they can advise you too, I'm sure.

[Diane U]

Lorie~

Here is the link to Net Galley explaining how you get started and how to get your book:

http://www.netgalley.com/catalog/befo...

If you do not have a kindle or other e-reader, there is a link on that website for you to download Adobe Digital Reader and you can read it on your PC. Also, if you have a phone that accepts Apps, you get download the app from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Borders so you can read on that.

I love it! I have 20 books downloaded that I need to read a write reviews on. There are some great Amish authors that use it including Marta Perry, Wanda Brunstetter, Nancy Mehl, Barbara Cameron and Vannetta Chapman. Free books for a review, that works for me!!!

[Lorie]

I signed up. All I found was a box that you wrote about yourself, I'm assuming that's where you write about your blog. I did not see any place else to put that info. Thanks everyone for your help.

[Lorie]

Found the page I was looking for think I got it all set up. thanks

[Diane U]

Just a suggestion: Let's start posting any Amish or Memmonite novels that we find on Net Galley here! That way no one misses anything!

Here is what is available now:

Grace - Shelly Shepard Gray
Murder in Plain Sight - Marta Perry
Betsy's Return - Wanda E. Brunstetter
Linda's Charm - Wanda E. Brunstetter
Simple Secrets - Nancy Mehl
Kelly's Chance - Wanda E. Brunstetter
A Simple Amish Christmas - Vannetta Chapman
A Time To Love - Barbara Cameron

Go and grab them while they are still available!

[Lorie]

Good idea.

I got approved for Grace but not Marta's book. I'm sad lol

[Rachel]

These are the same one's I have! Good idea, Diane. So far I've read and reviewed the novels by Chapman and Cameron, excellent new authors.

[Diane U]

Me too! I am about halfway through Nancy Mehl's book now too.

Lorie, what was the reason for not approving you to read Marta's book? I wonder if they only have a limited number of copies that they can give away. It may also be since you are new and have not reviewed any books yet. I wonder!

[Lorie]

I only have one post on my blog and its old. I will get it back in shape and maybe try again? Grace has to be read before the end of the month so I'll be busy with that one.

[Camille]

I didn't get approved for Marta's book either. *sigh*

[Rachel]

Hmm, this is interesting. I'm wondering if they're only picking people who have previously reviewed Amish books for NetGalley?

[Camille]

Sooooo how do you know when you have a deadline to read your netgalley books by?

[Diane U]

Sometimes they say it right on the summary page of the book. That is the only one that I have downloaded that has a deadline.

[Rachel]

Yep, unless it says it in bold font in the summary there isn't a deadline.

[Lorie]

So, I got the android Kindle, its on my cell phone. I can't figure out how to download my netgalley's to it? I can download them to my computer though. Just wondering if anyone has ever tried this and can help me?

[Lorie]

I updated my blog and got approved for Marta's book. So, maybe my blog was not up to their standards? They said I had not been blogging long enough? But I redid it and got approved.

[Diane U]

Cool, I'm glad to hear that!

[Camille]

Yay I got approved for Marta's new book too! So excited!

[Diane U]

Simply Deceit by Nancy Mehl is now available over at Net Galley. It is the second book in this series after Simple Secrets! Thanks for letting me know Lorie!

[Rachel]

Barbour Publishing just put up a whole load of new books on NetGalley! I've requested four of them - I seem to get auto-approved for this company, which is nice :) However, even if I read three NetGalley books a month I'm not going to get through all the ones I've requested until about March!

[Diane U]

I grabbed some of them today too! It will take me quite a while too. But don't stress over it or it won't be fun anymore!!!

[Brenda]

I know the feeling the books keep piling up, but what a great problem to have! Thanks for the heads up I am off to Net Galley!

[Camille]

I agree! Luckily there aren't deadlines for so many of these that I feel free to get through them at my leisure. :)

[Rachel]

I know, it's a nice problem to have :) I'm planning on getting a Kindle now so that it'll be easier to read these. Definitely worth the money, I think, considering how many free books I'm getting!

[Diane U]

Rachel, you will be so happy that you did! I promise! Sorry if I was a kindle pusher, I get that a lot at work!! LOL!

[Rachel]

Haha, no problem! I find that reading 1 ebook a month on my laptop is okay, but anything more that can be tiring - especially if you want to read in bed. My laptop's fairly heavy so you don't really want to sit with it when you're sleepy. I don't think I'll ever give up reading regular books, but for all my review books (I must have at least 20 now) and for light reading that I know I won't want to keep I think it'll be a good investment. My parents said they'd pay half towards it as a Christmas present, so I'll let you know what I think of it at the end of December!

Also, how does it work with getting books from NetGalley on to your Kindle? Do you have to pay anything to do that? I got confused reading the FAQ.

[Diane U]

When you have a kindle you have an email address. It is usually your current email@kindle.com. When you send documents through your email to your kindle, Amazon charges $0.15 per MB rounding to the nearest MB. If you go to Amazon, then Manage your Account and then to Your personal document charge limit. If you set the limit to $0.00, then you will get an email with a link so you can connect your kindle to your computer and transfer the document for free.

I did that in the beginning because I downloaded over 12 books. Now I just pay since I can never remember to connect my kindle to my home computer. Almost all the book have cost me about $0.30 to $0.75 so I don't mind.

[Lorie]

A NetGalley question. How long do books stay on your page that you have been approved to read? I have about 20 on there now. I am slowly working my way through them. Just wondering.. Thanks

[Diane U]

I have no idea! I just went through all of my Net Galley books that I may not read. I deleted them off my kindle and changed my review to declined. I am only going to request books that I know that I will read (like Amish ones). I hope that doesn't mess me up in the future for new companies! I now have 19 books to review instead of 35!

[Rachel]

All of mine are still there - I think the only ones that expire and "disappear" are from publishers who give you a deadline, like HarperCollins. I have a ton too, but I'm going to give them all ago and if there are some that I know I won't like after the first two chapters I'll decline them.

[Lorie]

I usually don't download a book until I accept to do the review or start to read the book. Do you go ahead and download them as you are approved?

[Rachel]

Lorie - I generally don't download them until I plan to review them, although I've occasionally downloaded one then changed my mind and read another one first.

[Diane U]

I was grabbing any book that might sound good to me. I would download it and approve it right away. Then I did some cleaning on Friday and declined about a dozen books. Now I am only going to download books that I know that I would love. I guess I was started to think of it like the kindle freebies, grab everything since you never know what may hit you.

[Rachel]

I have 23 books waiting to be reviewed on NetGalley! But I think I'm going to be picky when I actually start reading them - if I can tell immediately that I'm not going to like the book or that it's not my kind of thing then I'll decline. It's just nice to try new books, especially when so many Christian publishers subscribe to NetGalley, as it helps me to find new authors.

But yeah, I've been on NetGalley since August and my books have never disappeared. I read mine online, too, without downloading them since I don't have a Kindle/eReader (yet!)

[Lorie]

Well today I went into Netgalley and I can't get into some of the books on my home page that I was approved for. It won't let me view them so I cna download the book. There were two series that I was planning to read next but I can't get to them anymore. They are still there but there is no link to click on them to download them. Some of the Wanda Brunstetter books for example.

[Rachel]

I had this too - Barbour seem to have deleted a few of the books, including Kelly's Chance by Wanda Brunstetter and Simple Secrets by Nancy Mehl. Maybe there was a time limit and they just didn't tell us?

[Diane U]

I guess it was a good thing that I downloaded all of mine to my kindle. I would not want to miss out on those books from Wanda Brunstetter.

[Brenda]

Lorie, When I was downloading to my digital editions some books had thirty days some had sixty. What I always did if the book was close to expiring, I would just re download it and it would renew it. On the other hand I have a couple of books from July that are still accessible on Netgalley. I really think it depends on the publisher.

[Rachel]

It looks like Barbour deleted any books that were published in June or earlier, from my investigations. Guess I've missed out on a couple then!

[Diane U]

Sarah's Choice by Wanda E. Brunstetter is available at Net Galley. Here is the link to it:

http://www.netgalley.com/index2.php?m...

[Diane U]

The Journey by Wanda E. Brunstetter is available over at NetGalley!

[Barbara]

I got it!

[Diane U]

I just got an email from Net Galley that's kind of a bummer (for now). Here it is:

"You may notice a slight change in NetGalley when you next log in: where's my Kindle button?

Due to changes in the way Amazon's personal document delivery service works, we've had to temporarily disable the Kindle button.

All of our other reading options will still be available, in accordance with what the publisher enables for each particular title."

Hopefully it will be fixed soon. Remember, you can download PDF files onto your kindle if that option is available from the publisher. I hope it gets fixed before A Time to Heal by Barbara Cameron comes out or any other Amish book for that matter!!!

[Lorie]

I just read that too, yes a bummer! I think a lot of people will complain about it though and they will do something about it before long.

[Abbie]

Yeah I saw that too. I am glad I got 4 more books last week before this happened so I have quite a few books to review. I do hope they can fix it.

[Rachel]

It looks like Thomas Nelson have joined NetGalley! If you look under the recent additions, you can find An Amish Love: Healing Hearts/What the Heart Sees/A Marriage of the Heart (Inspirational Amish Anthology on page 4 - hopefully good for those of you who missed it on BookSneeze?

It is a pain about the no-Kindle button, I hope they get it fixed soon. I don't mind putting PDFs on my Kindle but a lot of the books show up as Adobe Digital Editions and I can't get that to work on my computer :/

[Diane U]

Here is a way around using Net Galley for now. I requested some books and clicked on the button Download Galley. If the item is an UNPROTECTED PDF, then we can get it onto our kindle. If it is protected then we are out of luck (for now)! What you have to do is save the PDF file onto your computer. Then send an email with the files attached to your kindle email address and you will receive like an other Net Galley book.

It does not show up on your kindle if you try to transfer it to your kindle when it is hooked up to the computer. I tried!

[Rachel]

Really, you can't manually transfer PDFs to your Kindle, Diane? I've transferred half a dozen from NetGalley and it worked fine. I just dragged them across and they appeared a few minutes later :/

But at least we have ways of getting around the system!

[Diane U]

They were not showing up on my kindle when I did it that way. That is okay I figured it out!