Sustainability in Book Publishing 2023

The call to address sustainability in the book publishing industry isn’t new. Yet ongoing news about the devastating effects of climate change has heightened the urgency for all industries to take action towards reducing their environmental impact. Last year, we wrote about challenges to publishers’ sustainability efforts that we heard at the London Book Fair. Last week they introduced a whole lounge dedicated to these conversations at this year’s Fair. And yet, has there been traction on reducing our industry’s carbon footprint? NetGalley recently surveyed our client publishers about their sustainability strategies.

More and more publishers are making commitments to reducing their carbon emissions. From reducing paper waste to decreasing carbon emissions, publishers are looking for ways to minimize their impact on the environment. And yet nearly half of our survey respondents told us that they are not sure whether their organization has a sustainability or carbon-reduction strategy. Even worse, 33% said their organization does not have a strategy.*

After ABA Midwinter earlier this year, Publishers Weekly pointed out, “Boxes stacked nearly to the ceiling, plus the resulting packaging, garbage, packing tape, and waste, prompted one bookseller to ask if there might be another way to manage all those tempting ARCs.” At NetGalley, we know there is a way—and we’re thrilled to be part of the solution.

Publishers have uploaded about 24,000 books and approved 3.3 million requests from members to read them digitally. That is 3.3 million books that were not printed, and yet still reached the intended, enthusiastic audience they deserve.

March 2022 – April 2023, NetGalley.com and NetGalley.co.uk

In the last 12 months alone, publishers have uploaded about 24,000 books to NetGalley.com and NetGalley.co.uk, and approved 3.3 million requests from members to read them digitally.** That is 3.3 million books, including review copies, that were not printed, and yet still reached the intended, enthusiastic audience they deserve. Booksellers, librarians, educators, reviewers, and media who want to make an impact have leaned into digital reading for their work, and over 300 publishers and hundreds of authors are using NetGalley to meet that demand. (In addition to helping to ‘green’ the publishing industry, we know NetGalley has the added benefit of reducing costs to the publisher, compared to printing and shipping all those ARCs!).

In further good news, companies like Springer Nature Group are leading the charge by reporting on their efforts. Their report, “Driven by Discovery: Sustainable Business Report 2022”, released earlier this month, looks beyond the supply chain, delving into employee engagement with their SDG Impact Challenge (saving 86 tonnes of CO2 and matched by Springer Nature), reporting on carbon offsetting and business travel (business flights remain low compared to pre-pandemic levels), and reduced resource use since they have moved to hybrid work. 

For more on the state of sustainability in the book publishing industry:

*NetGalley Sustainability Survey, April 2023
**April 2022 – March 2023

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Firebrand Group Welcomes New CEO Angela Bole

Angela Bole, CEO, Firebrand Group

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 23, 2023—Firebrand Group (FBG), the book industry’s leading technology company for cutting edge software and services, announced today the official placement of Angela Bole in the role of Chief Executive Officer. Her appointment to succeed previous CEO Fran Toolan was initially announced on June 9, 2022. Since then, Ms. Bole has worked alongside Mr. Toolan, the FBG Board of Directors, and various members of the FBG management team to ensure a smooth transition.

Ms. Bole joins Firebrand Group—a collection of companies including Firebrand Technologies, NetGalley LLC, and Supadu Ltd—at a pivotal moment in the company’s 35 year history. Firebrand Technologies and NetGalley were acquired by Media Do International (MD-i), the US-based subsidiary of Japan’s Media Do Co., Ltd, in 2021; Supadu in 2022. Today, this unique collection of companies, now all co-located under the Firebrand Group umbrella, provides publishers with cohesive tools to effectively manage internal workflows, external marketing, and eventual sales.

Previous to Firebrand Group, Ms. Bole served as CEO of the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA). Throughout her time at IBPA her mission was “to lead and serve independent publishers through advocacy, education, and tools for success.” Ms. Bole is highly regarded in the book industry for raising the profile and visibility of the IBPA, and for encouraging book publishing best practices and the highest industry standards.

“We are excited to be joined by Angela Bole who will head up Firebrand Group,” says Daihei Shiohama, President and CEO of Media Do International, Inc. “We are fortunate to have secured Ms. Bole whose considerable experience and knowledge of the industry will take our family of companies forward in its next phase of development.”

About the Firebrand Group – The Firebrand Group, consisting of Firebrand Technologies, NetGalley, and Supadu, provides leading software and services to help publishers achieve success. The Firebrand Group is owned by Media Do International Inc. (MD-i), the US-based subsidiary of Japan’s Media Do Co., Ltd, one of the largest ebook distribution companies in the world retaining the largest share of Japan’s ebook market. For more information, visit firebrandtech.com. For more information on Media Do’s services and corporate divisions, visit mediado.jp/english.

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We Heard Your Audiobook Questions!

Audio on NetGalley, two years in

How early are Audiobooks added to NetGalley?

How long do Audiobooks remain Active?

How much Feedback should I expect for my Audiobooks?

Since NetGalley introduced Audiobooks on our platform in 2020, publishers have been interested to know answers to these questions and more. Over the past two years, we’ve been paying close attention to how audio publishers are using NetGalley, and we’re excited to share what we’ve learned so far!*

How early should I upload my Audiobook to NetGalley?

The most frequent comment we get from audiobook publishers is that there is a much smaller pre-pub window for Audiobooks because of the production requirements for this format. Files are not usually available until very close to the pub date.

First, let us emphasize that books can be promoted using NetGalley if they’re already on sale, or even deep backlist. We encourage publishers to add any of their books to NetGalley, regardless of pub date.

Upon analysis, we have seen that most Audiobooks are uploaded to NetGalley within the one-month period before the pub date. However, some are made available much earlier!

Most Audiobooks are uploaded to NetGalley within the one-month period before the pub date.

Books can be promoted using NetGalley if they’re already on sale, or even deep backlist. We encourage publishers to add any of their books to NetGalley, regardless of pub date.

We know from conversations with our clients that some publishers are starting to adjust their pub dates to add some pre-pub buffer time so they can benefit from opportunities to build early buzz, and we’ve also spoken to publishers who are experimenting with AI to create early audio files using realistic synthetic voices. Using early AI files is an effort to quickly get the content in the ears of important early listeners, without having to wait for the final version of the Audiobook. These types of strategies contribute to the number of Audiobooks added to NetGalley much earlier than the pub date.

How long do Audiobooks remain Active on NetGalley?

Regardless of when an Audiobook is uploaded, a little more than half of them have remained Active on NetGalley for six weeks or less.

55% of Audiobooks remain Active on NetGalley for six weeks or less.

Although just over half of the Audiobooks uploaded to NetGalley are active for six weeks or less, it’s still a close split. Nearly 650 titles remained active for longer, resulting in higher Impressions, Requests and Feedback.

Does time on site impact Impressions?

YES. The longer a book remained Active, the more Impressions it received.

The longer a book remains Active on NetGalley, the more Impressions it is likely to receive.

There are many factors that may impact Impressions, in addition to how long the book remains Active. Publishers may have scheduled NetGalley Promotions, or directly invited their own list of Audiobook fans to access the book on NetGalley. There may be strong appeal if it’s read by a popular narrator, or written by a bestselling author. Time on site is just one of many pieces of the puzzle.

Activity on NetGalley is a funnel, which means that the more Impressions a book has, the more overall activity it will receive. Once members submit requests, it’s up to the publisher to approve requests so they can start to listen. Depending on how many requests the publisher approves, a portion of them will result in Feedback.

Generally, the more you fill the funnel with Impressions, the more requests you can choose to approve, and the more Feedback you can expect.

Publisher comparison of activity. Each of these four publishers uploaded over 100 Audiobooks to NetGalley in a 12-month period.

In this chart, and those below, we are comparing four similarly-sized Audiobook publishers. Each of these publishers uploaded over 100 titles to NetGalley between August 1, 2021 – August 10, 2022. 

In all cases, you’ll notice the funnel of activity in effect but there’s one interesting exception related to time on the site. Although Publisher 4 kept their titles Active for 77 days on average, their Impressions and overall activity are much lower. This publisher actively limits which types of members can request their titles, which is a very different strategy from the other publishers. Keep this in mind as you view the other comparisons below. You’ll really start to notice that activity is directly impacted by how the NetGalley tools are used.

How much Feedback can I expect for my Audiobooks?

As you saw above, the strategies you employ will directly impact the activity your books receive. This makes it challenging to share specific expected stats for any particular book, but we can glean some insights from digging further into these four publishers’ activity.

Most publishers approve more requests than they decline.

Each publisher has a different strategy for managing requests, as well as how they incorporate other types of approvals like Read Now, Auto-Approving members, and using the Widget. These strategies may differ on a title-by-title basis, too. 

As we saw before, Publisher 4 chooses to limit their reach into the community. Here we see that they are also the only publisher who declines more people than they approve, even within their already-limited requests. In the previous chart, we saw that Publisher 2 has fewer requests than 1 and 3, but they approve nearly all of them.

So, how does that impact the Feedback Rate?

Total number of Approvals compared to total amount of Feedback.

Here, we’re looking at the total number of Approvals compared to the total amount of Feedback received. These numbers make perfect sense with the funnel we’ve seen so far—the more Approvals granted, the more Feedback is submitted.

Although Publisher 2 approved nearly all of their requests, they still only had about half the total number of requests as the other publishers. Their books’ average time-on-site was also half as long as Publisher 1. 

Publisher 3 has the highest feedback rate: 50% of approved members submitted Feedback, with Publisher 1 close behind. If we look at the strategies used to achieve this: books were active for more than one month and Approval Rate was close to 70%.

Publisher 3 has the highest feedback rate: 50% of approved members submitted Feedback, with Publisher 1 close behind. If we look at the strategies used to achieve this…

Books were active for more than one month

Approval Rate was close to 70%

Since Publisher 4 is such an exception, we’ve separated their Feedback Rate from the rest. These numbers are on a very different scale than the other three. For instance, Publisher 4 approved a total of about 650 requests, compared to nearly 45,000 by Pub 1. As a result of their limited use, their Feedback Rate is relatively low as well.

Publisher 4’s strategies have resulted in a lower Feedback Rate.

Keep in mind that their goal may not be entirely related to Feedback! Success on NetGalley can be defined any number of ways. Some publishers may rely on NetGalley as the secure digital fulfillment tool they use to offer a book to a very specific list of existing contacts, whether to drive trade reviews from one particular outlet, or offer an audio format to help booksellers more quickly assess content in their TBR pile. Others are taking advantage of the NetGalley community to fill a need for more widespread reviews for the Audiobook format, and still others are using NetGalley to drive discoverability and awareness of their books across all formats.

What’s next for Audiobooks on NetGalley?

Audiobook Promotions

Audiobooks can be promoted to all types of members in any NetGalley Newsletter! We also offer seasonal Audiobook Newsletters, targeted specifically to members who indicated an interest in audiobooks. Boost your consumer marketing efforts by activating our highly engaged community to generate both reviews and sales. The 2023 Media Kit is available here!

Spanish-language? ¡Sí! 

Keep an eye out for a Spanish-language category coming soon. We are excited to introduce an easier way for members to discover and request these books.

DRM for Audio

In 2023 we anticipate adding DRM protection to Audiobooks available on NetGalley. This will add an extra layer of security to our already-secure NetGalley Shelf app. The NetGalley Shelf app is the exclusive way that approved members can access Audiobooks.

We love digging into our data to help answer your important questions, so we’ll continue to update you on how Audiobook publishers are using the NetGalley tools. What other questions can we answer for you?

*Dataset for the charts in this article included 1,452 Audiobooks uploaded to NetGalley between 8/1/2021 – 8/10/2022. Audiobooks that were never added to the Find Titles catalog were removed from this dataset.

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Don’t miss the Firebrand Group Community Conference in Baltimore!

NetGalley is thrilled to co-host the Firebrand Group Community Conference next week (Sept. 26 – 28, 2022) in Baltimore. We can’t wait to present you with this stellar lineup of sessions, featuring speakers from across the industry including keynote addresses from Kirsty Melville and Alistair Croll, plus an introduction to incoming CEO, Angela Bole!

Connect with Your Audience: Marketing Sessions

Building & Scaling Influencer Programs Effectively: TikTok, Instagram, & More

Presented by: Emily Lyman, CEO & Founder, Branch & Bramble

Activating social media influencers is one of the fastest and most effective marketing tools to drive awareness—but it can also be one of the most time consuming and challenging. This session will focus on the tactical elements of building influencer programs based on individual titles as well as entire genres across TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms. Learn how to scale collaborations and maximize budgets with long-term partnership advice, negotiation tactics, and efficiency ideas.

Insights Into Action: The Making of a Bestseller

Presented by: Andrea DeWerd, book marketing strategist, consultant, author

As publishers are competing with streaming services, TikTok, podcasts, and every other hobby for consumers’ attention, book marketers have to adapt new technology for the competitive edge. In this session, book marketing strategist and consultant Andrea DeWerd will present a simple and effective approach for leveling up your organization’s MarTech stack to streamline and scale campaigns for success. We’ll look at the audience insights that drove a New York Times bestselling cookbook, as well as the steps to:

  • Become a data-informed marketing organization
  • Solicit buy-in for new technology at every level of the organization
  • Create a culture of teaching, training, and learning for new tech adoption

Beyond the Book Review: Leveraging Media Placements for Lasting Author Success

Presented by: Publicity Manager Andrea Kiliany Thatcher and Marketing Associate Olivia McCoy, of Smith Publicity

While securing book reviews is a major goal for almost every author, what happens after is just as important. During this session, discover how to leverage book reviews from NetGalley and other sources for well-rounded author success. Topics include:

  • The different types of reviews including endorsements, trade, media, and consumer reviews and the impact each has an on author’s brand
  • How consumer reviews affect retail algorithms
  • How to leverage reviews to line up author events, speaking engagements, etc.
  • The long-lasting impact of book reviews—reviews serve as a foundation to further opportunity
  • Placement and use for NetGalley reviews

Finding Your Audience/Growing Your Community

Presented by Tarah Theoret,  Senior Director, Community Experience, and Kelly Gallucci, Executive Editor, We Are Bookish

Join the NetGalley Member Experience team to learn how targeted acquisition efforts can help expand your audience. This session will explore using data (from NetGalley as well as external sources like Google Analytics, social media platforms, & newsletter subscribers) to identify product/brand champions and inform your community engagement and retention strategies. 

Discussion: Maintaining Momentum Beyond the Pub Date

Book publishers know that they have a wealth of IP in their backlist, but what is the most effective way to mine it? In this session, we will explore creative ways to surface the most relevant backlist titles of the moment, in order to drive their momentum when the time is right. For this group discussion, we hope attendees will come ready to share their concerns, ideas, and successes!

NetGalley 101 

Presented by Darcy Piedmonte, Senior Sales Manager, NetGalley

Rediscover the roots of your NetGalley publisher account! Kristina Radke, VP of Business Growth & Engagement, will guide you through each important moment of a book’s life on NetGalley. We’ll cover everything from creating new titles, setting Availability, incorporating the Widget in your day-to-day efforts, managing requests, building your Auto-Approved List, as well as looking at and using the robust reports available to you. 

NetGalley Promotions Overview

Presented by Lindsey Lochner, Executive Vice President, NetGalley

Learn how publishers use NetGalley Promotions to launch their frontlist and leverage their backlist to reach trade professionals and early influencers, generate reviews, run giveaways, collect pre-orders, advertise around the pub date, and connect directly with their audience. With advertising options for every budget, goal, and type of book, NetGalley’s popular programs are highly valued for their strong engagement rates—delivering outstanding results while remaining at a competitive price. 

More sessions will be announced as they are finalized! While you wait, be sure to talk to your colleagues about attending the Firebrand Group Community Conference. Each track focuses on different aspects of the publishing process.

  • Connect the Dots with Data | Sessions for data analysts, business ops, and marketing teams, including Eloquence on Alert and NetGalley users.

Register today to ensure your space and take advantage of the Early Bird Discount rate! A Group Discount is available for multiple team members attending from one company. Please email us for details.

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Angela Bole to Succeed Fran Toolan at the Firebrand Group

Angela Bole, current CEO of Independent Book Publishers Association

(Manhattan Beach, CA & Newburyport, MA – June 9, 2022) – The Firebrand Group (firebrandtech.com), the book industry’s leading technology company for cutting edge software and services that enable publisher success, announced today that Angela Bole, current CEO at the Independent Book Publishers Association (ibpa-online.org), will succeed Firebrand CEO Fran Toolan on February 1, 2023. Toolan, who founded Firebrand as Quality Solutions, Inc. in 1987, passes the reins to Bole after 35 years as the company’s sole CEO. He will remain on the Firebrand Group Board of Directors post transition. 

Today, the Firebrand Group includes Firebrand Technologies, NetGalley, and Supadu.  Firebrand Technologies Title Management Enterprise Software and Eloquence on Demand service headline a group of technologies that help publishers track and manage titles from pre-acquisition through their long tail of sales. NetGalley helps provide excitement about titles by connecting eBook and audio content with reviewers. And the newest addition to the Firebrand family of services, Supadu, is the leading provider of publisher e-commerce solutions in the US and UK. 

Upon launching Firebrand Technologies, Toolan understood that the publishing industry was a unique and creative business that needed efficient tools and workflow processes to thrive and be profitable. “These tools must accentuate the creativity in publishing,” he said at the time, “not hinder it.”  

Fran Toolan, current CEO of the Firebrand Group

In February 2021, Firebrand was acquired by Media Do International (MD-i), the US-based subsidiary of Japan’s Media Do Co., Ltd, one of the largest ebook distribution companies in the world retaining the largest share of Japan’s $4.5 billion eBook market.  

“With the support of MD-i, the Firebrand Group is growing and innovating at an unparalleled rate of speed,” said Toolan. “The opportunities in front of us are very exciting, and I’m equally excited that Angela will be here to guide us going forward.” 

Said Daihei Shiohama, CEO of MD-i: “Both here and in Japan, we are so excited to have Angela succeed Fran. We are determined to provide utmost support to Firebrand Group with Angela as new CEO. With the annual growth rate of close to 20% in Japan’s digital publishing market where NFT, XR, and other diversified elements stimulate the publishing industry, we are convinced that Angela will lead the group to uplift the global publishing industry’s expansion.” 

Bole, a 2019 Publishers Weekly notable person of the year, began her career at an independent bookstore in Jackson, WY before moving to NYC in 2005 to pursue a Masters in book publishing from New York University. While in NYC, she held various positions with the Book Industry Study Group (BISG)–including a stint as interim executive director–where she spearheaded research into consumer attitudes toward ebook reading, oversaw initiatives supporting the industry’s transition to ISBN-13, and developed best practices and other documentation for use of the ONIX and EPUB standards. Bole served as treasurer of the International Digital Publishers Forum (IDPF) from 2011 to 2014, before moving to Manhattan Beach, CA to become ED and later CEO of IBPA, where she has stabilized and grown operations for the past nine years. 

“During her years leading IBPA, Angela has transformed the organization into the leading association for advocating and supporting the growing community of independent publishers,” said current IBPA Board Chair Karla Olson (Director, Patagonia Books). “During the last two challenging years in particular, Angela made certain IBPA provided innovative and essential member support and increased efforts to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion within all aspects of the association. IBPA will be forever grateful to Angela for her leadership, her vision, and her passion for publishing.” 

Bole officially assumes the position of Firebrand Group CEO on February 1, 2023. When asked what she hopes to achieve, she said, “Firebrand has been powering the publishing industry for over 30 years through quality software solutions and a dedicated and committed staff. Given all we’ve learned over the past few years, I hope to build upon what’s already working to enable even more efficiencies for the companies Firebrand serves. I know this will be a team effort; I couldn’t be more excited to join and lead the team.” 

About the Firebrand Group
The Firebrand Group, consisting of Firebrand Technologies, NetGalley, and Supadu, provides leading software and services to help publishers achieve success. The Firebrand Group is owned by Media Do International (MD-i), the US-based subsidiary of Japan’s Media Do Co., Ltd, one of the largest ebook distribution companies in the world retaining the largest share of Japan’s ebook market. For more information, visit firebrandtech.com. For more information on Media Do’s services and corporate divisions, visit mediado.jp/english. The Firebrand Group’s bi-annual Community Conference shall be held in September this year in Baltimore, MD. For more information, please visit firebrandtech.com/conference.

About the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA)
Founded in 1983 to support independent publishers nationwide, the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) leads and serves the independent publishing community through advocacy, education, and tools for success. With over 4,000 members, IBPA is the largest publishing association in the U.S. Its vision is a world where every independent publisher has the access, knowledge, and tools needed to professionally engage in all aspects of an inclusive publishing industry. For more information, visit ibpa-online.org

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Sessions Announced! Firebrand Group Community Conference

Join us for a very special opportunity to connect with the NetGalley team and your peers from across the publishing industry!

We are thrilled to announce some of the sessions that will be presented at the Firebrand Group Community Conference, September 26- 28 in Baltimore! Experts from across the publishing industry will be speaking about topics critical to your work. This track is dedicated to book marketers and publicists, including NetGalley users, and is specifically designed to help you connect with your audience.

Building & Scaling Influencer Programs Effectively: TikTok, Instagram, & More

Presented by: Emily Lyman, CEO & Founder, Branch & Bramble

Activating social media influencers is one of the fastest and most effective marketing tools to drive awareness—but it can also be one of the most time consuming and challenging. This session will focus on the tactical elements of building influencer programs based on individual titles as well as entire genres across TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms. Learn how to scale collaborations and maximize budgets with long-term partnership advice, negotiation tactics, and efficiency ideas.

Insights Into Action: The Making of a Bestseller

Presented by: Andrea DeWerd, Senior Marketing Director at Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins

The Harvest lifestyle marketing team at HarperCollins has adopted a unique MarTech stack to streamline and scale campaigns in a traditionally very old-fashioned industry. Please join us for this session with Senior Marketing Director Andrea DeWerd and learn how this team adopted new technology to launch a New York Times bestseller and leads the organization in marketing experimentation driven by audience insights and data synthesis.

Key Takeaways:

  • Becoming a data-informed marketing organization
  • Soliciting buy-in for new technology at every level of the organization
  • Creating a culture of teaching, training, and learning for new tech adoption
  • The path to a New York Times bestselling cookbook

Finding Your Audience/Growing Your Community

Presented by Tarah Theoret,  Senior Director, Community Experience, and Kelly Gallucci, Executive Editor, We Are Bookish

Join the NetGalley Member Experience team to learn how targeted acquisition efforts can help expand your audience. This session will explore using data (from NetGalley as well as external sources like Google Analytics, social media platforms, & newsletter subscribers) to identify product/brand champions and inform your community engagement and retention strategies. 

Discussion: Maintaining Momentum Beyond the Pub Date

Book publishers know that they have a wealth of IP in their backlist, but what is the most effective way to mine it? In this session, we will explore creative ways to surface the most relevant backlist titles of the moment, in order to drive their momentum when the time is right. For this group discussion, we hope attendees will come ready to share their concerns, ideas, and successes!

NetGalley 101 

Rediscover the roots of your NetGalley publisher account! Kristina Radke, VP of Business Growth & Engagement, will guide you through each important moment of a book’s life on NetGalley. We’ll cover everything from creating new titles, setting Availability, incorporating the Widget in your day-to-day efforts, managing requests, building your Auto-Approved List, as well as looking at and using the robust reports available to you. 

NetGalley Promotions Overview

Learn how publishers use NetGalley Promotions to launch their frontlist and leverage their backlist to reach trade professionals and early influencers, generate reviews, run giveaways, collect pre-orders, advertise around the pub date, and connect directly with their audience. With advertising options for every budget, goal, and type of book, NetGalley’s popular programs are highly valued for their strong engagement rates—delivering outstanding results while remaining at a competitive price. 

More sessions will be announced as they are finalized! While you wait, be sure to talk to your colleagues about attending the Firebrand Group Community Conference. Each track focuses on different aspects of the publishing process.

  • Connect the Dots with Data | Sessions for data analysts, business ops, and marketing teams, including Eloquence on Alert and NetGalley users.

Register today to ensure your space and take advantage of the Early Bird Discount rate! A Group Discount is available for multiple team members attending from one company. Please email us for details.

NetGalley is a member of the Firebrand Group, which provides leading software and services to help publishers achieve success. In addition to sessions geared toward marketers and publicists who use NetGalley, the Firebrand Group Community Conference will include tracks dedicated to users of Firebrand’s Title Management and Eloquence services, as well as Supadu’s website and ecommerce solutions.

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Sustainability – a challenge for all.

At the 2022 London Book Fair there were four separate sessions devoted to sustainability in the industry, making it one of LBF’s most debated topics. At the start of the second panel discussion, Stephen Lotinga, CEO of the Publishers Association, summed up the common theme that bound them all: “We want our industry to be around for as long as possible,” he said. “This is clearly the challenge of our time.” The question is, how do we all rise to meet it?

Open book with a tree growing from its pages

The answer, as those LBF panels attested, is complex, and comprises a huge range of potential initiatives and strategies. The one thing that everyone seems to agree on, however, is the importance of taking action now. As EJ Hurst and Julie Raddysh from New Society Publishers said in a recent interview, “It is imperative. Business will only thrive on a stable, healthy planet”.

Where once sustainability might have been primarily a moral or ethical consideration, or something multinationals might add to their Corporate Social Responsibility statements, it is now a commercial imperative too: consumers are demanding ‘greener’ products, just as much as environmental groups are urging root-and-branch changes to the way products are made and distributed. This means sustainability is no longer something to be deferred: everyone, from boutique house to corporate monolith, is implicated and impacted.

In software company knk’s Publishing and Sustainability 2022 whitepaper, two key areas of concern were identified: one, the polluting nature of physical book fulfilment; and two, the problem of power consumption from data centres. While the latter can be mitigated by using providers who provide more renewable energy and better systems, industry responses to how best to print, store and ship books will come to define how sustainable the publishing world really can be.

There are many disparate factors that need to be addressed here – from paper stock to print on demand; from where books are printed to more effective warehousing and distribution channels – but for many, the decisions taken on a daily basis are the ones which will ultimately shape the future. One of the most important of these is pre- and post-publication reading copies.

Exact figures are hard to come by, but, were publishers in the UK and US to produce the same number of physical ARCs as they made digital copies available on NetGalley, this would equate to around 3 million books*, the vast majority of which are packaged and mailed to individuals around the world. Notwithstanding the huge cost of printing, then sending these books, the ‘book miles’—the environmental impact of their shipping—accrued by this strategy are staggering. Reducing the number of ARCs produced and sent is a quick and easy way to increase sustainability—but at the same time, it requires a mindset shift from all stakeholders in the process. Publishers must reiterate to influencers that physical ARCs are not the norm, while authors will have to understand why only a small number of ARCs are being printed. Influencers might need to accept that they need to read at least some of a book digitally before requesting a physical ARC, while publicists might have to change the decades old practice of stuffing envelopes with books and press releases. It is a small part of the puzzle, but one that will reap huge benefits if taken seriously by all players.

*Total number of digital review copies approved on NetGalley.com and NetGalley.co.uk from March 2020 to February 2021

A former bookseller, editor and marketer, Stuart Evers is Director of NetGalley UK. He is also an award-winning writer of short fiction and novels. 



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How to Stay Informed and Push Back Against Book Bans

Originally Posted on We Are Bookish.
Visit We Are Bookish for more Bookish Lifestyle content!

Book bans and attempts at censorship are currently spreading across the U.S. and are disproportionately impacting diverse titles and authors from historically marginalized communities. Both as publishing professionals and as readers ourselves, the NetGalley team stands against book banning and wants to ensure our members have tools at their disposal to fight back against censorship in their communities. Book banning touches every member of the NetGalley community from library workers and educators to authors and readers, and all can use these tips to work together to protect intellectual freedom.

Listen to those most affected
The impact of a book ban is far-reaching and touches different communities in unique ways. It’s important to listen to those affected in order to put your own efforts towards making a positive change. 

Although not exhaustive, here’s a short list of places to start listening and learning: The Stacks Podcast has an excellent series of interviews—featuring authors, students, educators, politicians, and booksellers—that explore everything about book banning from a legal standpoint to activism. Former librarian Kelly Jensen’s coverage of the ongoing bans is incredibly informative and packed with resources and action items. Penguin Young Readers put together this document of resources for educators and library workers.

Request books from your library
If you see certain books or authors missing from your branch’s shelves, ask your local librarian about submitting a request for the library to acquire them. This not only helps put those books on your library’s shelves, but it’s a trackable measurement of community interest that library workers can use if a certain book is challenged.

Show up
Find out when your local city council, library board, and school board meetings are being held. Attending these meetings allows you to stay informed and gives you the opportunity to not only speak out against book bans but to voice support for the library workers, educators, and politicians in your community who are working to protect intellectual freedom. Your voice can be a source of much-needed support to those who are pushing back against censorship.

As you begin to attend meetings, you may find yourself wanting to take an even more active role. Consider joining your town’s council, library, or school board.

Vote
In the upcoming elections, use your vote to support candidates who are actively working against censorship. Pay close attention to local elections, which have a major impact on your community. If you notice that a candidate doesn’t have information available regarding their stance, ask!

Keep your community informed
Chances are that your friends, family, and coworkers care about these issues as much as you do. Invite them to attend board meetings with you, or if they can’t attend, update them on what you learned. Talk together about candidates you think will make a difference in the community and make a plan to go vote together.

Follow and support those making a difference
Whenever you find yourself frustrated and wanting to help make a change, first look to those who have already been hard at work making a difference. Organizations such as the National Coalition Against Censorship have valuable resources for readers, library workers, educators, and students to use when facing censorship in their community.

You can also look to organizations such as We Need Diverse Books, a non-profit that advocates for inclusive changes to the publishing industry. They’re currently offering grants to educators who need financial support for diverse literature programs, as well as those impacted by COVID. You can donate to support those here.

Donors Choose allows you to help specific educators in need. Teachers share what their classrooms and children require—including many requests for donations that will go towards stocking classroom libraries.

These tips are just a starting place—help us share more!

What advice do you have to help stop book banning in your community?

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George Slowik, Jr. on the 150th Anniversary of Publishers Weekly

BookSmarts Podcast

Get smarter about your books! The BookSmarts podcast features discussions about publishing data and technologies and interviews with industry experts, deep thinkers, and doers, bringing you insights that will help you sell more books.

Episode 22: George Slowik, Jr. on the 150th Anniversary of Publishers Weekly

In this episode of the BookSmarts Podcast, Joshua interviews George Slowik, Jr., the Chairman and Owner of PWxyz LLC, the parent company of Publishers Weekly, who joins us to discuss the magazine’s history, the digital archive, and more.

Transcript available here.

Publishers Weekly was launched in 1872 as a bibliographic source for all publishers to list forthcoming titles. Over its 150 year history, the magazine has continued to provide news and features about the publishing industry, and has even expanded to provide over 9,000 new book reviews every year.

George gives a brief overview of the magazine’s history, discusses the development of the digital archive, the special anniversary edition to be released in April, and his thoughts about the future of publishing. 
You can learn more about Publishers Weekly and sign up for their free email newsletters, at their website, https://www.publishersweekly.com/.

Joshua Tallent is an acclaimed teacher and guide on the role of data in publishing, and a vocal advocate for high quality book metadata. In his spare time, Joshua enjoys playing complex board games, playing Minecraft, and fiddling with his 3D printer.

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Takeaways and Trends from 2021

We’ve all learned a lot over the past couple of years, and 2021 has taught us some especially interesting things. Here are a few takeaways and trends from 2021 that we’ll carry with us as we continue to grow, evolve, and serve the book publishing industry!

Book publishing is in a period of renewal

Often, the things that challenge us the most also create great opportunities. The world has nearly two years of this pandemic behind it, and many publishers have seen surprising gains as consumers turn to books to fill their hours at home. On the BookSmarts podcast, Michael Cader, Founder of Publishers Lunch and PublishersMarketplace.com had this to say about additional opportunities the industry has at this moment:

“As we go through this COVID transition [we] redefine what work looks like and how work becomes meaningful….In the pandemic, people stopped going to book fairs and they stopped touring authors, and a lot of them stopped sending out [printed] galleys, and cut back on marketing expenses and did all kinds of things, some out of necessity, some because those things just didn’t exist, and some for ease, and some because they wanted to conserve. So, there’s this really interesting chance to rethink: Where are we spending our dollars? How are we spending those dollars consciously? And what’s driving ROI?

“There’s an interesting opportunity to rethink every role within the organization. What have people actually done during COVID, when they’ve been working with less direct supervision more on their own at home? And how has that worked well? And how can we enfranchise people to keep doing more of that, and less of what they didn’t like doing? 

It’s this really interesting reset moment. The good news is that publishing is coming at it from a position of strength.

– Michael Cader, Founder of Publishers Lunch and PublishersMarketplace.com

“We’re also in this interesting moment of the industry finally reckoning with diversity in a more meaningful way. Part of diversity means having an industry that’s not just centered in New York. Only certain types of people can afford to live and work in New York, and New York has all sorts of different people and viewpoints in it, but it’s not the nation at large. 

“I think writ large it’s this really interesting reset moment. The good news is that publishing is coming at it from a position of strength… the sales are there, the readers are there. The retail channels have been resilient… So there’s a really strong foundation to build from. So, where people go from there, I think will determine a lot of what the trajectory of the business looks like, over the next few years.”

Listen to Michael Cader on the BookSmarts podcast.

Book discovery is context agnostic

We know that NetGalley is just one of many ways that readers discover books. According to our 2021 NetGalley Member Survey, Goodreads, Friends/Peers, and Amazon also top their list for finding new books. For audio listeners, the library is also a very important means of discovery.

In the Panorama Project’s Immersive Media & Reading Consumer Survey, Dr. Kathi Inman Berens (Associate Professor of Book Publishing and Digital Humanities, at Portland State University) and Dr. Rachel Noorda (Director of Book Publishing and Assistant Professor in English) conducted a consumer behavior study focused on how book discovery works and how libraries fit into the book discovery ecosystem. In April, they spoke about their work on the BookSmarts podcast.

Dr. Berens notes, “In roughly equal numbers, people find a book online and then buy it in a bookstore, or discover a book in a bookstore and then buy it online. It’s actually far more fluid than just looking at sales data would suggest.

“The diversity of ways that people discover books suggests that there’s no one formula for discovery. We do know that people have multiple touch points… We also know that people are largely unaware of how metadata works, how algorithms and recommendation algorithms work. So a question that would be super hard to capture in self-report data would be: How many times did you encounter this book before you finally decided to open your wallet? Or you finally decided to check it out from the library? That’s hard for consumers to be aware of.”

Immersive Media & Books: Consumer Behavior and Experience with Multiple Media Forms, Portland State University 2021, Published by Panorama Project

Dr. Norda adds, “Our study was a cross-media one, and what we found is that avid readers are also avid media consumers in other categories. They’re gaming, they’re watching TV and movies. And there is a really high discovery rate cross-media. About 60% of people are going from engaging with a book to then finding a new TV series, or movie, or game. 61% are going from TV or movie to then finding a book or a game. Games was the lowest [category for cross-media discovery]—but still, about a third, 33% [are] engaging with a game and then finding other media like a book or TV/movies. Cross-discovery is something I don’t think we engage enough with in the industry, to think about readers as cross media consumers.”

Listen to Dr. Norda and Dr. Berens on the BookSmarts podcast!

Data is only as useful as its context

We at NetGalley firmly believe in giving publishers access to their data about NetGalley activity. Information like early impressions, numbers of requests and, of course, the Reviews and Feedback they receive give marketers and publicists the tools they need to analyze the effectiveness of their strategies. This early data helps build context for not only their NetGalley efforts, but their work as a whole. (Have you read our article, The Importance of Early Data?)

Earlier this year, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Chief Content Officer at LibraryPass spoke with the BookSmarts podcast, saying, “My issue with ‘data-driven’ is [that] it’s become kind of a buzzword that’s lost its original meaning. I compare it to the early days of GPS, where if you’re not paying attention, GPS will drive you off a cliff.

“Data is only as useful as the context you’re pulling it into, and the other insights you bring to it. Otherwise it can cause you to make some rather myopic decisions. [If] you’re getting all this sales data that says, 70% of our sales are from Amazon, a data-driven approach might say, ‘All right, we’re gonna put 70% of our resources and effort towards maximizing sales on Amazon.’ And data-informed says, ‘Okay, well, we know Amazon is a transactional point, for a lot of people, but it’s not necessarily the point of discovery. [There are] sites that include links to Amazon, social links…’ 


“Data is only as useful as the context you’re pulling it into, and the other insights you bring to it.“

– Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Chief Content Officer at LibraryPass

“There’s a lot of reasons people go to buy a book on Amazon, and half of them have nothing to do with Amazon helping them discover that book. So if you decide to shift 70% of your resources towards Amazon advertising, and you’re only prioritizing metadata on Amazon, you potentially are losing all of the other touch points that drove those sales to Amazon and suddenly, your Amazon percentage may stay at 70% but your overall sales may drop. And that, to me, is one of the key differences between we’re data-driven versus data-informed. That’s where you really draw a line.”

Joshua Tallent, Director of Sales and Education at Firebrand Technologies and BookSmarts host, adds, “The amount of data you have and the type of data you’re pulling in…  if you’re only looking at a subset of real information, then you’re only going to have enough information to make a very narrow choice. But when it comes down to the data that publishers receive, a lot of times, they don’t get enough data to really be able to be data-informed in the first place. And so you feel like you have to be data-driven, and just make decisions based on what you’ve got.”

Data informed publishers constantly analyze their raw data from as many sources as they can find—from their own internal databases as well as data from their partners’, even beyond sales data. What data points do you use to inform your strategies?

Listen to Guy LeCharles Gonzalez on the BookSmarts podcast.

Backlist is the backbone

Although most titles available on NetGalley are pre-pub, frontlist books (“galley” is in our name, after all), we often work with publishers to promote backlist as well! Often, a publisher wants to promote an author’s previous works on the cusp of a new release, or an important current event may make an older book suddenly relevant to audiences again.

In his interview with BookSmarts, Michael Cader notes, “It’s sort of extraordinary that the business is doing so well given the depth of the real challenges we’re seeing. One is just the increasing difficulty of selling new books, right? You know, what we’ve seen during the pandemic is the backlist sales continue to rise. Backlist sales have been rising for years, which is in part a function of the increased percentage of book sales online, right? Because an online environment is less conducive to displaying new titles, and stacking them up and putting them in prime real estate [as happens in brick and mortar stores], and more conducive to people browsing or searching, or going to look for the book they want at the price or vendor they want to get it from.”

Chief Marketing Officer at Open Road Integrated Media, Mary McAveney, in a separate interview adds, “Lots of publishers saw great increases in revenue and in sales during that time when people were turning to online search, or browsing [retail sites], but a lot of what was happening is readers were gravitating to books they knew about. They either remembered, or they were classics or somehow the book had an audience.”

Referencing BookNet Canada’s study Aged like a fine wine: What’s the ideal age for a backlist title?, Joshua Tallent says, “When you get into two-to-five years, things really pick up. And so there’s an opportunity there for publishers to take advantage of that—especially with debut authors, or lesser known authors, or those midlist titles that aren’t necessarily the ones that are really going to push a ton of marketing on at the beginning, because they don’t have the time or the energy or the or the money for that. Hitting that middle time period, that two-to-five years, might be just a benefit to go back and say, Hey, let’s just put a little more at this, let’s think about these titles that really haven’t… they’ve kind of been selling a little bit here and there. Let’s put a little bit of effort behind them.”

In a few different conversations, Joshua wants to focus on practicalities. He notes the opportunity and asks, “Where do you think discovery comes from? What do you think that can be doing to really push more discovery?”

Drive discovery by joining communities

Connecting directly with readers has long been at the forefront of publishers’ efforts. Within NetGalley, we see publishers directly invite important media contacts, reviewers and influencers, and use their reports to follow up directly with them. As you can imagine, a number of the people who Joshua interviewed spoke about direct-to-reader efforts as well.

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez says, “A lot of the practicalities come from a direct connection to readership. One of the first things I look at is: if you’ve got a clear vertical that you serve, you’ve got opportunities to capture data beyond just the sales data that gets fed to you from your partners.

“…There is a community for everything on the internet, you can get a pretty clear sense of how big it is and how engaged they are. And you can build a business model around that, if you can develop the right content or services—you know, it’s not just about books—for those communities. But it starts with really understanding those communities. And to do that, you got to be a part of them. So you can’t just go buy, you know, Reddit’s mailing list, or do an ad buy on Reddit, and think you’re engaging with the community, you’re just, you know, shifting traditional marketing approaches to the internet.”


“It’s critical to make sure that you’re thinking about the consumer more than you’re thinking about the book.”

– Mary McAveney, Chief Marketing Officer at Open Road Integrated Media

Mary McAveney adds, “If you have a media hit around a book, it’s like manna from heaven…. but you know, what you have to do is actually build your own verticals, to build your own content sites, because there are people looking for books, and they may only know Dan Brown’s name. They don’t know anybody else in that genre, but they know they like that book. It sounds sort of simplistic, but you want to bring in those people who like that book, and it’s really important to make sure that the [next] book you’re putting in front of them when they’re doing that search is something they’re going to enjoy just as much as that book. 

“Authors spend their lives writing [fantastic books] and they shouldn’t be punished just because the demand isn’t evident. You should be able to build that. But it’s work. It’s really creating your own owned media through funnels and content verticals and articles. And if you can harness those readers and really continue that relationship and build it. If you become like a hand-seller you know what [anyone] likes to read, right? Because they’re clicking pretty consistently on the books that they like to read. And as that reader stays in your system for years, you become even more and more familiar with what they’re looking for. And you can really segment the titles well for them, and so that becomes really critical.”


Presented by NetGalley, We Are Bookish is an editorial blog, presenting an independent voice to highlight books and a bookish lifestyle. Recurring features include: book recommendations, author interviews & guest posts from publishing professionals, cover and stepback reveals, gift guides, book club resources, NetGalley member spotlights, and more.

“I know that so many publishers, of all different sizes, are building mailing lists and really trying to develop that one-to-one relationship with the consumer. And it’s critical, but it’s also critical to make sure that you’re thinking about that consumer more than you’re thinking about the book. You have a book you spent a lot of money on to purchase, and you want to push that book out to every consumer you can think of, but that isn’t necessarily going to win the day at the end. You want to really cultivate those customers.

“It’s not an easy proposition. It’s extremely costly to do that. But the way we [at Open Road] started, is really to start with demand. What are people currently searching for? How does that map to the kinds of books that we have available to put in front of them? It starts there, and then you can use those audiences to build—it becomes sort of a pyramid, you get your base of consumers, and then you use those to build on top of it more, more and more. Whether you’re using social channels, or you’re using external newsletter ads, or you’re using just your content and your search engine optimization, or you’re using search engine marketing, there are a number of tools. And they all require a good amount of expertise to function well.”

Interviews have been edited for clarity and length.

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