NetGalley

Last updated
NetGalley
NetGalley logo.png
Type of site
Review
OwnerFirebrand Technologies, Rosetta Solutions, Inc.
URL netgalley.com
RegistrationPaid and free
Launched2008 (2008)
Current statusActive

NetGalley is a website initially launched in 2008, aimed at the distribution of digital galley proofs of books, some of which have not yet been released. NetGalley was developed as an alternative to the production of paper galleys and has since evolved into a key marketing and publicity platform for publishers and authors. [1] [2] Publishers that offer e-galleys include Hachette, HarperCollins Publishers, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, and many others in the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and Japan. The site offers electronic galleys to "professional readers" such as booksellers, educators, librarians, media professionals, and reviewers.[ citation needed ]

Contents

History

The NetGalley website was created in 2008 as a joint venture between Firebrand Technologies and Rosetta Solutions. Initially launched shortly before the 2008 BookExpo America, the site was founded by Rosetta Solutions, and Firebrand Technologies took over in December 2008. [3] NetGalley has since widened its roster of publishers and range of reviewers, and has begun offering services to publishers in the UK, France, Germany, and Japan. [4]

In 2012, the site began offering expedited approvals to librarians who added their American Library Association member number. [5] [6] NetGalley also began a partnership with the Library Journal for reviews of original ebooks in the romance genre; Library Journal stated it was "a move designed to address 'the skyrocketing popularity of ebooks in U.S. public libraries'". [7] [8]

In October 2012, the NetGalley website relaunched, [9] addressing numerous performance and scaling issues related to an old architecture, improving existing features, and introducing new ones.

In December 2020, NetGalley sent out an email to its users explaining that they experienced a data breach and the personal information of many users has been exposed. This included usernames, passwords, first and last names and addresses specified in their NetGalley profiles. [10]

Features

The site layout allows users to search the books available for review by publisher, genre, or date of upload onto NetGalley. Users request the books they want, while a representative for the publisher makes the decision to approve or decline the request. [11] If approved, the user usually has a choice among EPUB, PDF, MOBI, or audiobook formats. [12]

In July 2020 NetGalley introduced Audiobooks as an additional format for publishers to provide readers and simultaneously launched the first NetGalley mobile app - the NetGalley Shelf app (available for iOS and Android).

Reception

Reception to the site has been mixed. ALA TechSource wrote: "whatever it lacks in aesthetics, NetGalley makes up with simple ease of use and great content." [13] Galleycat reported that in 2011, the site had seen a 500% increase in reviews in comparison to previous years. [14]

Related Research Articles

An advance reading copy, advance review copy, advance reader's edition, advance copy, or a reader's edition is a free copy of a new book given by a publisher to booksellers, librarians, journalists, celebrities, or others, or as a contest or school prize, before the book is printed for mass distribution.

<i>The Free Dictionary</i> American online dictionary and encyclopedia that gathers information from a variety of sources

The Free Dictionary is an American online dictionary and encyclopedia that aggregates information from various sources. It is accessible in fourteen languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EBSCO Information Services</span> Distributor of eBooks and other digital media

EBSCO Information Services, headquartered in Ipswich, Massachusetts, is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a private company headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. EBSCO provides products and services to libraries of many types around the world. Its products include EBSCONET, a complete e-resource management system, and EBSCOhost, which supplies a fee-based online research service with 375 full-text databases, a collection of 600,000-plus ebooks, subject indexes, point-of-care medical references, and an array of historical digital archives. In 2010, EBSCO introduced its EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) to institutions, which allows searches of a portfolio of journals and magazines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jessamyn West (librarian)</span> American librarian, information activist

Jessamyn Charity West is an American library technologist and writer known for her activism and work on the digital divide. She is the creator of librarian.net. She is the Vermont Chapter Councilor of the American Library Association, and was Director of Operations at the massive group blog MetaFilter from 2005 to 2014. She is now the owner of MetaFilter.

Michael Gorman is a British-born librarian, library scholar and editor/writer on library issues noted for his traditional views. During his tenure as president of the American Library Association (ALA), he was vocal in his opinions on a range of subjects, notably technology and education. He currently lives in the Chicago area with his wife, Anne Reuland, an academic administrator at Loyola University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Library 2.0</span> Idea for new type of public library

Library 2.0 is a proposed concept for library services that facilitate user contributions and other features of Web 2.0, which includes online services such as OPAC systems. The concept is based on Radical Trust, and proponents suggest it will eventually replace traditional libraries. The term "Library 2.0" was coined by Michael Casey in 2006 on his blog Library Crunch.

<i>Booklist</i> American book review magazine

Booklist is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. Booklist's primary audience consists of libraries, educators, and booksellers. The magazine is available to subscribers in print and online. Booklist is published 22 times per year, and reviews over 7,500 titles annually. The Booklist brand also offers a blog, various newsletters, and monthly webinars. The Booklist offices are located in the American Library Association headquarters in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood.

Readers' advisory is a service which involves suggesting fiction and nonfiction titles to a reader through direct or indirect means. This service is a fundamental library service; however, readers' advisory also occurs in commercial contexts such as bookstores. Currently, almost all North American public libraries offer some form of readers' advisory.

Goodreads is an American social cataloging website and a subsidiary of Amazon that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and reading lists. They can also create their own groups of book suggestions, surveys, polls, blogs, and discussions. The website's offices are located in San Francisco.

Scribd Inc. is an American e-book and audiobook subscription service that includes one million titles. Scribd hosts 60 million documents on its open publishing platform.

LastPass is a password manager distributed in subscription form as well as a freemium model with limited functionality. The standard version of LastPass comes with a web interface, but also includes plugins for various web browsers and apps for many smartphones. It also includes support for bookmarklets. GoTo acquired LastPass in October 2015. On December 14, 2021, GoTo announced that LastPass would be made into a separate company and accelerate its release timeline.

ebook Book-length publication in digital form

An ebook, also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Although sometimes defined as "an electronic version of a printed book", some e-books exist without a printed equivalent. E-books can be read on dedicated e-reader devices, but also on any computer device that features a controllable viewing screen, including desktop computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barnes & Noble Nook 1st Edition</span> First generation Nook e-reader developed by Barnes & Noble

The Nook 1st Edition is the first generation of the Nook e-book reader developed by American book retailer Barnes & Noble, based on the Android platform. The device was announced in the United States in October 2009 and was released the next month. The Nook includes Wi-Fi and AT&T 3G wireless connectivity, a six-inch E Ink display, and a separate, smaller color touchscreen that serves as the primary input device. In June 2010 Barnes & Noble announced a Wi-Fi-only model of the Nook. On June 5, 2018 Barnes and Noble announced support for logging in to BN.com and adding new content to the device will end on June 29, 2018. The second-generation Nook, the Nook Simple Touch, was announced May 25, 2011 with a June 10 release date.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">E-book lending</span>

E-book lending or elending is a practice in which access to already-purchased downloads or online reads of e-books is made available on a time-limited basis to others. It works around the digital rights management built into online-store-published e-books by limiting access to a purchased e-book file to the borrower, resulting in loss of access to the file by the purchaser for the duration of the borrowing period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hoopla (digital media service)</span> North American provider of digital media for public libraries

Hoopla is a web and mobile (Android/iOS) library media streaming platform launched in 2010 for audio books, comics, e-books, movies, music, and TV. Patrons of a library that supports Hoopla have access to its collection of digital media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Play Books</span> Digital distribution service for ebooks

Google Play Books, formerly Google eBooks, is an ebook digital distribution service operated by Google, part of its Google Play product line. Users can purchase and download ebooks and audiobooks from Google Play, which offers over five million titles, with Google claiming it to be the "largest ebooks collection in the world". Books can be read on a dedicated Books section on the Google Play website, through the use of a mobile app available for Android and iOS, through the use of select e-readers that offer support for Adobe Digital Editions, through a web browser and reading via Google Home. Users may also upload up to 2,000 ebooks in the PDF or EPUB file formats. Google Play Books is available in 75 countries.

In July 2015, a group calling itself "The Impact Team" stole the user data of Ashley Madison, a commercial website billed as enabling extramarital affairs. The group copied personal information about the site's user base and threatened to release users' names and personally identifying information if Ashley Madison would not immediately shut down. On 18 and 20 August, the group leaked more than 60 gigabytes of company data, including user details.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Have I Been Pwned?</span> Consumer security website and email alert system

Have I Been Pwned? is a website that allows Internet users to check whether their personal data has been compromised by data breaches. The service collects and analyzes hundreds of database dumps and pastes containing information about billions of leaked accounts, and allows users to search for their own information by entering their username or email address. Users can also sign up to be notified if their email address appears in future dumps. The site has been widely touted as a valuable resource for Internet users wishing to protect their own security and privacy. Have I Been Pwned? was created by security expert Troy Hunt on 4 December 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2018 Google data breach</span> 2018 data breach affecting the social network Google+

The 2018 Google data breach was a major data privacy scandal in which the Google+ API exposed the private data of over five hundred thousand users.

References

  1. Kate, Terry (March 18, 2010). "Netgalley". BlogTalkRadio.
  2. "Death of the traditional mail-out? NetGalley continues to make news". PR by the Book.
  3. "NetGalley Hits Paydirt". Publishers Weekly.
  4. "NetGalley Expands into the UK". Media Bistro.
  5. "NetGalley, ALA Offer Librarians Benefit Program and More". Publishers Weekly.
  6. "ALA Partners with NetGalley for Member Benefit Program". Digital Shift.
  7. "Library Journal and NetGalley Announce Partnership for Reviews of Ebook Originals". Library Journal. November 10, 2011. Archived from the original on November 10, 2011.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  8. "Dark Horse joins NetGalley". Comics Beat. May 16, 2011. Archived from the original on September 26, 2011. Retrieved September 26, 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  9. "Relaunch Press Release" (PDF). Amazon. October 2012.
  10. Bannister, Adam (December 24, 2020). "NetGalley data breach: Publishing industry website forces password reset following 'security incident'" . Retrieved December 26, 2020.
  11. "To E-galley or P-galley: That Is the Question". Publishing Trends.
  12. Gold, Laurie. "Critical Mass: Are You Ready for e-Galleys?". BlogCritics.
  13. "Why NetGalley is the Best Kept e-book Secret on the Web". ALA Tech Source.
  14. "NetGalley Users Wrote 45,000 Reviews Last Year". Galleycat.