Readers bring books to life. The act of reading—taking in the words an author has written and translating them through the lens of our own unique understanding—creates a highly emotional connection between the reader and the book. Books teach us, challenge us, validate us, reflect our fantasies, help us understand our realities. When a reader truly connects with a book they cannot help but talk about it, and in sharing their experience they quickly find that every other reader knows this feeling. It creates a kick of dopamine—the neurotransmitter responsible for pleasure and motivation—that reinforces their desire to connect with others, encouraging people to continue to share their thoughts with friends, family, and strangers online. In the process, these readers increase the visibility for the books they’ve read and kick off a positive emotional loop: more people share more thoughts, which leads to more people sharing theirs as well. This looks like organic momentum (see: BookTok!), but there are ways to get the snowball rolling. So how do we harness this power?
First and foremost, remember that the book itself will create the initial emotional response in the reader. The suggestions below are ways to help readers continue living in the world of your book, whether fiction or nonfiction, to identify and share all the feelings the book generated in them.
1. Give them visual assets to share.
Make it easy for readers to post on the platforms they already use by creating easily-shareable, well-designed digital images or gifs. They should match the emotion or mood of the book and could be beautiful or scary, funny or serious. Everyone loves to answer the question of “what should I read to fit my mood?” and your assets can help define the mood visually for others who see it. Consider making them customizable or interactive (choose colors, add text, etc.)
By giving readers something to share, you are helping them collect likes and comments, releasing little bursts of dopamine every time someone engages with their post. Plus, you are reinforcing the book’s branding through consistency of design, making it recognizable in its repetition across multiple readers’ posts.
2. Engage with readers, not trends.
Instead of chasing fleeting trends, trust your audience to engage with them naturally—just give them the right tools to do so. Online communities can quickly spot when brands force their way into trends, often labeling these attempts as “cringe.” Rather than trying to fit in, empower your audience to take the lead. Beyond providing assets (mentioned above), give them something worth sharing that sparks excitement and pride. Let them brag: I won a giveaway! I got this free sticker at my local bookstore! I identified this easter egg online! I completed this challenge! I was asked to participate in this special event! These experiences encourage organic participation.
When people have something meaningful to share, they spread the message in an authentic way that resonates within their communities. Gamifying engagement through challenges, achievements, and interactive experiences keeps audiences invested and excited. These moments not only generate buzz but also tap into the brain’s reward system—triggering dopamine and reinforcing participation. By shifting the focus from forced brand participation to community-driven engagement, you create a more natural and lasting connection with your audience.
3. Plug in to communities outside of the typical reader-centric communities.
A sense of connection is a powerful way to release the brain’s reward chemicals, and one of the best ways to cultivate it is by engaging with established communities beyond reader-centric spaces. When people feel seen and included in something that aligns with their interests and values, they’re more likely to participate and share. For example, if you have a cookbook to promote, collaborate with a local cooking school to teach one of your recipes (and encourage them to share their photos of the dish with a hashtag). This not only creates excitement but also fosters real-world engagement.
Similarly, if your book features a character who has their own hobbies (like surfing), run a book giveaway in an online surfer’s forum, or at a surfing competition. You can do this digitally very easily, without needing to worry about printing and shipping. A targeted giveaway like this taps into a passionate, built-in audience that already values the subject matter.
Be sure you’re practicing Empathetic Marketing to generate warm feelings of inclusion and recognition throughout the community, resulting in shared enthusiasm for your book. By meeting people where they already are and giving them something meaningful to engage with, you create authentic, lasting connections that go beyond just promoting content—they build genuine engagement and excitement.
Readers transform a solitary activity into a shared experience. By giving them the tools to do so, you’re not just marketing a book; you’re connecting with the individuals who make up a community.
At its core, book promotion isn’t about chasing trends or forcing engagement—it’s about nurturing the emotional connection readers naturally form with your content. When readers love a book, they want to talk about it, share it, and celebrate it with others. These readers are transforming a solitary activity into a shared experience. By giving them the tools to do so, you’re not just marketing a book; you’re connecting with the individuals who make up a community. When readers feel empowered to bring a book into their world and share it in a way that feels personal, the excitement grows organically, creating a ripple effect that keeps the book alive in conversations long after the final page is turned.
Update: 680,000 active members, as of October 2025.
Unless otherwise noted, all information is based on the Annual NetGalley.com Member Survey, conducted January 2025.
Each year we ask NetGalley members to tell us more about their reading habits and preferences, and this year more than 11,000 highly-engaged reviewers, booksellers, librarians, educators, media/journalists, and book trade professionals answered the call. We are thrilled to share the latest update with you, and invite you to view the full report, which includes tips for engaging with specific segments of the community.
When we say NetGalley’s 605,000 active members are highly engaged, we mean it! NetGalley.com saw a record-breaking 11 Million pageviews in January 2025 alone, representing a 4% increase YOY, and all stats from Requests to Feedback submitted have grown by the thousands.
BooksellersMedia/JournalistsLibrarians
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 read. Depending on how many requests the publisher approves, a portion of them will result in Feedback.
Audiobooks continue to have an extremely strong Feedback Rate! 59% of members approved to listen also submit Feedback via NetGalley.
Click through on the images above to see more detail about the most popular Fiction and Nonfiction Categories that NetGalley members browse!
NetGalley’s Community Growth & Engagement team is always hard at work encouraging NetGalley members of all types to become even stronger advocates for publishers’ books. Free resources like NetGalley’ Reading Journal and the Book Advocate Toolkit give members the tools they need to track their reading, submit valuable Feedback, and spread the word about the books they’re reading. Browse all of the resources, including Book Club Kits, on NetGalley.
Guest post by Emily Lyman, CEO & Founder of Branch & Bramble
As book communities grow and develop, their expectations for publishers evolve with it. According to the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, overall trust has declined significantly, particularly trust in businesses. With people increasingly distrustful, this makes cultivating brand trust difficult, yet more important than ever before.
Luckily, the key to achieving trust and preventing backlash or boycotts is simple (but definitely not easy): empathetic marketing. This approach is a complete game changer with how you engage with readers, ensuring you stay relevant and achieve your sales goals.
What is Empathetic Marketing?
At its heart, empathetic marketing recognizes, understands, and appeals to the role that emotions have in the decision-making process. Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio famously said, “We are not thinking machines that feel; rather, we are feeling machines that think,” so it only makes sense that emotions would drive our buying behavior. However, too often, marketers across industries overlook the emotional motivators and focus solely on data—instead of effectively marrying the two.
For publishing, this means readers don’t just expect quality books—they expect publishers to align with their values, show transparency, and engage authentically. Book communities are vocal and interconnected, and they’re going to speak the loudest for brands that share their ideals. Publishers who cannot meet these expectations risk losing trust and their ability to remain competitive across widespread demographics. By practicing empathetic marketing and connecting with readers on an emotional level, publishers make genuine relationships that create lifelong fans.
Emotional Motivators for Connection
At the heart of empathetic marketing lies a deep understanding of emotional motivators. Readers aren’t just here for the books—they’re looking for an experience that resonates with them on a deeper level. They’re not reading dragon books just because they want a pet dragon—they also long for the relationships, community, and self worth the main characters develop along the way.
Knowing this, publishers can craft marketing campaigns that feel personal and purposeful. For example, instead of focusing solely on a book’s content, a campaign might highlight the themes of found family or the immersive setting of the story. An in-person activation is a great way to bring books to life in ways that are meaningful and marketable.
Putting Empathy into Action
Empathetic marketing isn’t just a concept—it’s a practice that publishers can start implementing right this minute. Start by listening to your target audience. Pay attention to reviews, social media conversations, and content that resonate most with your audience. Studies show that even the best marketers can have empathetic blind spots, so it’s important to view this as more than data gathering. It’s about understanding the values and emotions that drive their decisions.
Next, shift the focus of your storytelling throughout your marketing materials. Instead of centering your marketing around a book, share what kind of reading experience your audience can expect to have with the title. How will this story make them feel? How does it reflect their experiences or open their eyes to completely different points of view? If a reader can see themselves in your messaging, they’re more likely to connect, engage, and ultimately convert.
Finally, make engagement simple and meaningful. Whether it’s through a preorder incentive, an interactive newsletter, or a community-focused event, give readers clear and compelling ways to connect with your brand in a manner that will mean something to them. Forget a cheesy tchotchke (although everyone still loves bookmarks) and instead cultivate an experience that aligns with values data you’ve collected. These engagement efforts don’t have to be big to build trust—even small actions cultivate profound loyalty.
With BookTok and other marketing channels hanging in the balance, practicing empathetic marketing is crucial for publishers who want to survive and thrive. By recognizing the power of emotions in decision-making, aligning with reader values, and building meaningful connections, publishers can build trust that lasts and sells books.
Emily Lyman has spent a decade working in-house with global publishers such as Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster managing both corporate and title marketing initiatives. Today, she is the CEO and Founder of Branch and Bramble, an award-winning marketing agency for lifestyle brands.
Emily’s specialty is in blending data with heart and values to create meaningful audience connections for my brand partners which include Patagonia and Paramount. She’s worked with companies with household names to individual authors just trying to get their books out in the world.
Publishing professionals from across the industry descended on Nashville, TN at the end of September to attend the Publishing Innovation Forum, hosted by the Firebrand Group. This premier in-person event was designed to unite individuals from various segments of the book publishing industry to share insights, explore new trends, and discuss strategies to adapt to a rapidly evolving publishing landscape. With approximately 150 participants, the forum encouraged collaboration and innovation, ensuring attendees gain valuable knowledge and connections to drive future success in the industry. Expert keynote presentations, and three dedicated breakout tracks for Business, Technology, and Marketing, resulted in lively conversation and important takeaways. For our audience at NetGalley Insights, we have collected some key themes and tips from the highly experienced speakers.
Attendees at the inaugural Publishing Innovation Forum, 2024
Session: Innovations in Book Promotion: Publicity Trends That Move the Needle
Speakers: Kimberly Sneed (Digital Media Director, PR by the book) and Marika Flatt (Owner, PR by the Book)
Kimberly Sneed and Marika Flatt of PR by the Book kicked off this session by explaining that the goal for publicity efforts is to drive author and book recognition, visibility, and overall exposure. The wider the name recognition in the world, the greater chance that book and that author have to build and grow. Exposure is extremely important in early promotional efforts because you are planting seeds for a long trail that follows, even into the backlist. Some important avenues for modern publicists to focus on include:
Podcasts: There are hundreds of thousands of podcasts available. Find the right ones in both subject matter and audience for your individual authors.
NetGalley and other platforms: Maximize title pages on every platform to include assets like videos, advanced praise, author pages or social media, etc.
Social Media: Both presence and promotion matter. Identify and engage with niche, micro audiences, prioritize authenticity, align your messaging with their values.
Immersive Storytelling Techniques: Design “expert” pages for your authors, create additional materials like exclusive content, serialized content, short videos, and adjacent narratives to drive engagement and customize media outreach.
One size does not fit all in book marketing and publicity. Step outside the box and don’t be afraid to try something new! No matter what, always connect and build on what you have. Sneed’s and Flatt’s approach is centered on flexibility, experimentation, and working closely with authors to tailor strategies to individual needs and audiences.
Session: Influencers vs. Community: Strategic Activation for Your Book Campaigns
Speakers: Sarah Walsh (Brand Strategist, Branch & Bramble) and Hallie Fields (Social Media Assistant Manager, NetGalley)
Each speaker presented two distinct yet powerful marketing approaches: Sarah Walsh highlighted influencer campaigns, while Hallie Fields emphasized community-driven campaigns.
Walsh showcased how partnerships with influencers can boost brand awareness, leaning on examples like #marcreadsabook and HarperCollins’ #shelvesinthecity. These examples demonstrated the importance of personalized and trend-focused initiatives. It’s important to note that these campaigns were certainly in the high-budget realm; however, there are lessons to be learned from these exciting campaigns that even a publisher with a smaller budget should keep in mind:
Jump on trends and interact with followers as part of the community, not an administrator or organizer.
Consider the best type of influences to engage. Micro influencers can have big engagement numbers.
Give influencers time and opportunity to tell their stories. Bring them to beautiful spaces, or give them Instagrammable assets.
Form ongoing partnerships, not just one-off posts, which allows the influencer to create ongoing content that is more organic and authentic.
Fields focused on examples from Camp NetGalley, a community-based challenge campaign, and #MyNetGalleyYear, an annually recurring checkpoint campaign. These examples encourage user-generated content (UGC) by asking audiences to complete a task and share it with their followers. These campaigns allow you to engage with, and unite, the entire community, and allow you to secure your brand’s place in a recurring social landscape.
Know your community. At NetGalley, we know our members love fun, nostalgic, interactive experiences, so we built Camp NetGalley with that in mind.
Prizes can be simple and digital! In the case of Camp NetGalley, it was a digital badge members can share, and which appear in their NetGalley accounts. For #MyNetGalleyYear, a template we created for them makes it easy for them to brag about everything they’ve read.
UGC is excellent to share back to your community, help them feel involved, and take some load off your own content creation.
Consider creating campaigns that can be recurring, which gives the community something to look forward to.
Both strategies – influencer campaigns and community engagement – underscore the importance of creating meaningful, relatable experiences that resonate with audiences, while maintaining authenticity and connection.
Session: Book Marketing at Any Budget
Speakers:
Kim Lauber (Vice President of Marketing at Abrams)
Ashley Marie Mireles-Guerrero (Director of Sales and Marketing at Familius Publishing)
Allison Marie Pond (Director of Marketing at Mad Cave Studios)
Jin Yu (Director of Marketing at Berkley/PRH)
It was exciting to see these top leaders from across the publishing spectrum in one space, delving into practical approaches for maximizing impact in the marketing, publicity, and advertising spaces. The collective in-house wisdom from publishers large and small, who publish across many diverse categories, was too vast to fully cover in this short article, but here are a few key points:
Know your audience: Identify where the niche is, where and in what format they will buy, speak to them directly, customize your metadata to reach them.
Maximize metadata to boost discoverability, and feed the search engine with more content – announcements, bumpers, reviews – which will expand your reach.
Not all marketing involves advertising, and not all marketing has to be expensive.
When you do advertising, consider self-serve ads where you can control where the spend is placed. If you do have an ad budget, consider Amazon ads which one speaker said “are expensive, but are worth it.”
Events are a good way to connect with your community. Library and bookseller communities are especially relationship-based. Be sure to identify what you want to get out of it before deciding to attend since they can be expensive.
Virtual events have lower cost and can work if you’re creative on how you approach them.
Give out QR codes or offer to include items in grab-bags, like bookmarks or other items, which are a great way to stimulate interest.
PR is a lot of effort, make the most of it. Continue to utilize the results and keep it updated, making sure to leverage any media hits by letting additional outlets know it’s being talked about.
Session: Building Brand Trust: The Role of Empathetic Marketing in Publishing
In this popular and engaging session, Lyman emphasized that understanding audience values and emotions is key to creating impactful marketing campaigns. By analyzing consumer patterns in reviews and social interactions, publishers can tailor their messaging to resonate with their audience, and shift from transactional hooks to more meaningful communications.
Our values drive our emotions, which drive our decisions.
Make small shifts toward empathy, like altering email subject lines to be more engaging vs. a flat statement or sales hook.
Example from Alleyoop: Their customer feedback popup doesn’t ask what kind of makeup they like, or why, but rather asks the consumer about themselves and what issues they want to solve. For instance, one response is “I can only spend 5 minutes on my makeup.”
To maintain authenticity as you move into more empathetic language, start shifting your hooks to focus on the consumer. Stop making statements like, “Available now!” and shift to how readers will benefit from it. Questions are a great way to do this. A more empathetic subject line would be, “Need more time with your family?”
Bottom line: Empathy strengthens the connection between brands and consumers.
Session: Challenges in Audiobook Marketing and How to Overcome Them
Barto began this session by pointing out three main audiobook audiences: those who want, need, or happen to discover audiobooks. She emphasized that each of these audiences listens to audiobooks for their own reasons and that marketers should keep each of them in mind when considering their marketing language and campaigns–your approach can and should be slightly different when promoting to people who love the audio format, versus those who need to listen to audiobooks due to lifestyle or accessibility constraints. And never forget about those listeners who don’t yet know that they will love audiobooks! A few tips from Barto:
Think about audiobook marketing holistically. Integrate audiobooks into the broader marketing efforts through all aspects of the launch and ongoing campaign efforts. Start by educating authors that the audiobook will be available and is just as exciting and desirable as the hardcover. Make sure you update audio metadata at the same times as you update the other formats’ metadata.
Incorporate audio-specific keywords in metadata. Keywords like “dual-narrator” or “full cast recording” are important.
Market the production process. Listeners romanticize the publishing and in-studio processes. Lean into this!
Encourage narrators to be part of the promotion. Offer them announcement assets to share, ask them to record in-studio content, and leverage their audiences.
Create custom content (bonus chapters, interviews, music, bloopers, etc). If you’re going to pitch bloopers as a fun, custom bit of content to media outlets, be sure you’ve asked the studio not to discard or cut these bloopers during the recording process.
Barto pointed out that some publishers still seem to hold on to the notion that audiobook sales will somehow cannibalize print sales, but there has been no evidence of this! If anything, consumers will seek out the format they want. Make it easy for them to find. Audiobooks are more likely to be an “in addition” purchase than they are to replace a print sale.
Overall Themes
As you can see, themes of audience-centric and empathetic messaging ran throughout all of these marketing-focused sessions. Our expert speakers encouraged a shift from pushing books at people and, instead, connecting with readers.
Remember that not every influential reader is a celebrity, and they won’t all ask you for thousands of dollars to promote your books. Identify your core micro influencers, niche communities, and those who are passionate about the types of books you publish. These are the influencers that will drive word of mouth for your books most effectively and authentically.
Don’t be afraid to experiment! Get creative. Find fun ways to engage with your audience. Try new advertising techniques and assess whether they work for you. Adjust as needed.
We are thrilled that the inaugural Publishing Innovation Forum was received so positively by attendees, who told us they were inspired and leaving Nashville equipped to try out some of the strategies outlined above. We hope to see you at another Publishing Innovation Forum in the future!
– The NetGalley Team
NetGalley team members at Publishing Innovation Forum, 2024: Lindsey Lochner, Kristina Radke, Hallie Fields, Tarah Theoret, Darcy Piedmonte
It’s been a couple of years since we last answered some of publishers’ burning questions about promoting audiobooks on NetGalley. Now, with even more data to draw upon, we’re excited to share updated recommendations for audiobook publishers!
How early should I add my audiobook to NetGalley?
As early as possible! In most cases, we’ve seen that publishers are uploading their audiobooks to NetGalley within one month of pub date. This makes sense for most audiobooks, where the final file is not available until very close to the release date. However, if you have a highly-anticipated title, consider building extra buffer time into the production schedule to take advantage of a longer pre-pub marketing timeline. This can help you piggy-back the audio format alongside the earliest marketing and publicity efforts for a simultaneous hardcover release.
67.5% of audiobooks are added to NetGalley 30 days or less prior to the pub date.* However, if you have a highly-anticipated title, consider building extra buffer time into the production schedule.
In the chart below, you will see that a small selection of titles were added to NetGalley much earlier than one month pre-pub.
67.5% of audiobooks are added to NetGalley 30 days or less prior to the pub date.
How long should my audiobook be available to NetGalley members?
3-4 months is our recommendation for audiobooks to remain active on NetGalley. Generally, the longer you keep an audiobook active on NetGalley, the more impressions it will receive, and we’ve seen that 90 – 120 days of activity is the sweet spot! Right now we’re seeing that most audiobooks are active on NetGalley for only 2 – 8 weeks but, based on our data, activity continues to grow all the way up to 4 months. Keep your audiobooks active for longer so you don’t miss out on members who discover and request a copy in those additional few weeks!
Audiobooks that are active on NetGalley for 90-120 days receive the most impressions, on average.
Audiobooks that are active on NetGalley for 90-120 days receive the most impressions, on average.
How can I drive more activity for my audiobook on NetGalley?
In addition to the organic interest that’s found on NetGalley, there are a number of ways to drive additional activity:
Widget: The NetGalley Widget is the quickest and easiest way to invite your key contacts to access your titles. Simply include the widget link in your pitch email and use our template language to ensure they have all the information they need to get started right away. This tool is included as part of your NetGalley subscription.
Detailed Activity & Feedback Reports – Use your Detailed Activity and Feedback reports for comp titles to identify key contacts who may be interested in your new title, and invite them to listen using the NetGalley widget. These reports, and more, are available on demand within your account.
NetGalley Promotions – Audiobooks can be included in any NetGalley promotion, from email promotions like newsletters and eBlasts, to on-site promotions like Category or Dashboard Spotlights, Featured Title placement, etc. There are also a number of audio-dedicated promotions available throughout the year. The link above suggests options based on specific goals like gaining overall exposure, introducing a new imprint, or driving activity during a particular time period. You can also view our Media Kit to see more information about open and click rates, editorial calendars, and pricing.
Audiobooks can be included in any NetGalley Promotion!
What should I expect from NetGalley members’ audiobook reviews?
In our article, How to Write an Audiobook Review, we recommend that NetGalley members discuss a number of audio-specific features in addition to commenting on the content of the book. For instance, we ask them to focus on the narration, discuss how the audiobook flows, mention unique elements like music or if it is a full-cast recording, and share a specific recommendation.
Members are highly likely to submit audiobook Feedback on NetGalley and share it widely with their audiences.
The Feedback Rate** for audiobooks is 58%, which continues to be higher, on average, than it is for digital review copies (36%). This means that approved members are highly likely to submit Feedback on NetGalley and share it widely with their audiences. We are thrilled that NetGalley members continue to embrace the audio format.
Kristina Radke is the Vice President of Business Growth and Engagement at NetGalley, a service that helps publishers and authors promote digital review copies and audiobooks to book advocates and industry professionals, including reviewers, booksellers, librarians, educators, media/journalists, and other book trade professionals. With over 15 years of experience in book marketing, publicity, and client relationships, Kristina joins us on the BookSmarts Podcast to discuss NetGalley’s expansion into the audiobook market, along with trends and strategies for publishers to be aware of when uploading audiobooks to NetGalley.
Data in this podcast is based on audiobooks created on NetGalley.com between July 1 2023 – June 30 2024 unless otherwise noted.
“For audiobooks, the feedback rate is absolutely astounding, we’re seeing about 60% of approved members sending their feedback in after listening to an audiobook.”
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.
