Extended Partnership with CIBA: Nominations for The Booksellers’ List via NetGalley

NetGalley is thrilled to announce an exciting new way for your books to gain national attention in Canada! Our expanded partnership with the Canadian Independent Booksellers’ Association (CIBA) supports a new initiative designed to amplify standout titles: The Booksellers’ List.

What Is The Booksellers’ List?

The Booksellers’ List is a seasonal collective marketing program created by CIBA to spotlight 20 new books that independent booksellers across Canada believe deserve broader visibility. Titles are nominated for the list by CIBA members and selected based on enthusiasm and relevance to Canadian readers.

As CIBA notes, “In a time of shrinking book media, indie bookstores can use their collective strength to ensure readers have a new way to discover a diverse range of books, recommended by Canadians for Canadians.”

For NetGalley publishers, this is a powerful opportunity to have your titles endorsed and elevated by Canadian booksellers who know what resonates in their communities!

How NetGalley Helps Publishers Connect with The Booksellers’ List

CIBA verified Canadian Booksellers can now nominate books for The Booksellers’ List directly within their NetGalley accounts. This means your titles can be put forward for consideration by booksellers while they’re actively engaging with your content via reviews and other feedback on NetGalley. No changes to your account are necessary to start receiving these nominations!

Here’s how it works:

ABA Winter Institute Wrap-Up 2025

The 2025 Winter Institute, presented by the American Booksellers Association, was one of the most high-energy, collaborative, and emotionally charged events we’ve attended. While we acknowledge the reports of a contentious community forum, the personal experience of the NetGalley team members who attended was one of optimism and hope. From booksellers eager to get started or learn how to utilize NetGalley even more to publishers discussing evolving industry trends, we found the gathering to be dynamic and insightful overall.

Booksellers: Learning, Listening, and Looking for Audiobooks

*Tarah Theoret (VP, Community Engagement) and Darcy Piedmonte (Director of Customer Acquisition & Success)*

Winter Institute remains an incredible opportunity to connect with booksellers at all stages of their careers. This year, we met many new booksellers who were excited to learn how to utilize new tools available on NetGalley (like the NetGalley Reader) and confirm that their staff could sign up for their own NetGalley accounts and use the ABA store number. Education was a key theme for us, ensuring that booksellers understand widget invites, auto-approvals, feedback expectations, and how NetGalley can help streamline their workflows.

One persistent misconception we addressed was the belief that booksellers are required to maintain an 80% Feedback Ratio on NetGalley. While it is recommended that all member types submit Feedback, we recognize that writing a review may not be a priority for booksellers in the same way it is for a journalist or consumer reviewer. As NetGalley continues to evolve, we are exploring ways to further customize the Feedback process for booksellers and other member types.

A recurring theme in our conversations? Booksellers want more audiobooks! Several expressed that audiobooks help them keep up with their TBR lists and allow them to be more effective handsellers. Our response? “Tell your sales reps how important audiobooks are to you and your staff,” because booksellers really care about reading books before including them in their inventory and selling them. In other words, hand-selling is alive and well and distinguishes the indies from other retail spaces.

Publishers: Digital Expansion and Strategic Conversations

A notable question from many publishers was, “Can you tell us more about NetGalley’s reach?” While the focus at Winter Institute remains the bookseller community, publishers are keen to hear how NetGalley connects them to independent booksellers, and also other member groups like librarians and journalists. They were interested in stats, reporting, and facilitation of communication with those who’ve interacted with their books, particularly when comp books, or additional titles by a given author are published. To learn more about NetGalley’s reach, check out our 2025 Community Update and Community Spotlight on Children’s and Middle Grade activity!

An additional trend in the Galley Room was the increasing use of QR codes for digital access. We were happy to show how easy and sustainable QR codes can be right at our table. A partnership with Patagonia Books allowed us to exclusively offer their book, Tools to Save Our Home Planet, via QR code. A number of other publishers incorporated QR codes alongside physical galleys in the Galley Room and we were thrilled by this interest in a growing digital shift. We encourage publishers to further streamline their processes by linking straight to NetGalley and ensure a seamless experience for booksellers. To that end, we also shared a QR code of our own Sustainability in Publishing post.

We also planted seeds for NetGalley’s upcoming consumer marketing opportunity, Booktrovert, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Publishers have long wanted to target both book trade professionals and consumers, but not necessarily in the same space. When they heard that “it’s coming,” excitement was palpable.

Looking Ahead: Opportunities & Next Steps

Overall, Winter Institute 2025 was an energizing reminder of the passion, dedication, and resilience of the book industry. As booksellers, publishers, and industry professionals continue to adapt and innovate, NetGalley remains committed to supporting the connections that bring books into the hands of readers everywhere.

2025 NetGalley.com Community Update

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.

VIEW THE FULL REPORT | UK Report here

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.

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.

THERE’S MORE —
VIEW THE FULL REPORT | UK Report here

Unless otherwise noted, all information is based on the Annual NetGalley.com Member Survey, conducted January 2025.

NetGalley Community Update – May 2024

NetGalley.com Growth! 600,000 Active Members + Exciting New Stats!

NetGalley is proud to host our highly-engaged community of reviewers, booksellers, librarians, educators, media/journalists, and book trade professionals and to facilitate the relationship between this community and the publishers who want to reach them. It’s been two years since we introduced a re-engagement campaign with our members to give publishers better visibility into each member’s primary audience, and to provide more meaningful ways for you to find the right audience for your books. As part of that re-engagement campaign, we also began removing inactive accounts. This is both a security upgrade, as well as an assurance that the information we provide you about the size of our community is transparent. We are thrilled that, even with the cleanup of inactive accounts, the NetGalley Community has grown by close to 10% since last summer!

VIEW THE FULL REPORT

We are pleased to share this update about the NetGalley Community, and invite you to view the full report, which includes tips for engaging with specific segments of the community.

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. For Digital Review Copies (DRCs) we see a 36% Feedback Rate, while Audiobooks see an exceptional Feedback Rate of 58%!

NetGalley.com as a whole continues to see record-breaking activity. In Q1 2024, members submitted almost 400,000 reviews & feedback for books and audiobooks, representing 11% growth from 2023. Audiobook feedback saw a 43% increase!

*There’s more! Click to view the FULL REPORT*

NetGalley.com continues to see record-breaking activity. In Q1 2024, members submitted almost 400,000 reviews & feedback for books and audiobooks, representing 11% growth from 2023. Audiobook feedback saw a 43% increase!

NetGalley members read a wide variety of books, and can browse and sort the NetGalley catalog based on category, pub date, most-requested status, and more to find exactly what they’re looking for. Category or genre popularity on NetGalley closely mirrors the market as a whole. The charts below show the most popular fiction and nonfiction categories among members using NetGalley. Data includes NetGalley.com members who have indicated their interest in Categories as of April 2024.

Our members love to be notified about books that match their interests! 86% respondents to our Annual Member Survey indicated that NetGalley Promotions influence whether they Request or download a book or audiobook. Our popular promotions continue to deliver outstanding results while remaining at a competitive price. Learn more in our 2024 Media Kit. It includes more examples, stats, and pricing!

Just as we feel privileged to work with publishers, authors, and your books, it’s also our sincere pleasure to work with our reader members! They are passionate book advocates who are excited to participate in each book’s success. As our community continues to grow and evolve, we’re committed to continuing to support them in this endeavor—while also guiding them to provide valuable reviews and feedback, all with the goal to help other readers learn about a book, and decide whether they want to read it. With this in mind, we continually provide tips and best practices like the following, which you’re welcome to share with your readers, too!

There’s more! Click to view the FULL REPORT

All stats are for NetGalley.com and are from April 2024 unless otherwise noted.

*NetGalley.com members with activity since January 1, 2021

NetGalley Community Update

July 2023

Over the past year, NetGalley has diligently focused on re-engaging our community to ensure members actively return again and again to discover and request books, and share their reviews and feedback with publishers as well as their wider audiences. We also introduced some important changes to our Member Types (and subtypes), including better visibility into each member’s primary audience, to provide more meaningful ways for you to find the right audience for your books on a micro-level. We are thrilled to share the most updated stats about the NetGalley community!

With approximately 550,000 active* members using NetGalley.com, our diverse community of reviewers, booksellers, librarians, educators, media/journalists, and book trade professionals all share a common passion for books. They eagerly provide early feedback and enthusiastically promote books they discover to their respective audiences.

About 150,000 of these members also indicated their interest in audiobooks! This is an increase of 375% since summer 2021 (which was 1 year after audiobooks were first introduced on NetGalley).

150,000 NetGalley.com members have expressed interest in audiobooks, a 375% increase since 2021.

Members who listen to audiobooks are very likely to submit reviews & feedback. The Approval-to-Feedback rate for audiobooks is 53%!

All activity on NetGalley is like a funnel: 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. For digital review copies (DRCs), NetGalley.com members submit over 90,000 reviews and other feedback each month, on average**.

NetGalley.com members submit over 90,000 reviews for DRCs each month.

Beyond the NetGalley platform, our members extend their influence across various channels, including on social media, retail sites, Goodreads, and their own blogs/vlogs or more traditional media, as well as using their powerful word-of-mouth with customers of their bookstores or patrons of their libraries. Our members find fulfillment in helping books succeed!

We are proud to partner with the American Library Association and American Booksellers Association to verify NetGalley members who are also members of these (and other) organizations.

10,700+ verified ALA members use NetGalley to browse, request, and purchase books for their libraries.

Librarians on NetGalley generate nearly 6,000 LibraryReads nominations monthly!

1,400+ verified ABA members use NetGalley to browse, request, and purchase books for their stores.

Booksellers on NetGalley generate nearly 1,200 Indie Next Nominations monthly!

NetGalley members read a wide variety of books, and can browse and sort the NetGalley catalog based on category, pub date, most-requested status, and more to find exactly what they’re looking for. Category or genre popularity on NetGalley closely mirrors the market as a whole. The charts below show the most popular fiction and nonfiction categories among members using NetGalley. Data includes NetGalley.com members who have opted-in to promotions in these categories, as of June 2023.

*Based on member category survey conducted February 2023.

Our members love to be notified about books that match their interests! 56% of NetGalley.com members are opted in to receive newsletters and campaigns about books in their preferred categories, and our promotional programs are highly valued for their strong engagement rates. During Q2 2023, our U.S. eBlasts averaged a 59% Open Rate with 5% CTR!

Our popular promotions continue to deliver outstanding results while remaining at a competitive price. Learn more in our 2023 Media Kit. It includes more examples, stats, and pricing!

56% of active NetGalley.com members are opted in to receive newsletters and campaigns about books in their preferred categories!

THERE’S EVEN MORE INFORMATION! Click here to view the full July 2023 Community Update.

All stats are from June 2023 unless otherwise noted.

*NetGalley.com Members with activity since April 2020

**Based on average monthly numbers for DRCs from June 2022 – June 2023 on NetGalley.com

Booknet Canada’s Tech Forum: Data, diversity, and collaboration

Each year, Booknet Canada hosts Tech Forum, the largest tech-focused professional development event in the Canadian publishing industry. Like the other conferences and industry events we’ve been attending, panelists were thinking about diversity, inclusion, data, and collaboration. Here are some of our takeaways from Tech Forum 2019’s speakers discussing top-of-mind challenges and trends.

Moving from Diversity to Inclusion

The Canadian publishing industry is no stranger to the conversation around diversity and inclusion in the book world. Tech Forum’s keynote speaker Ritu Bhasin of bhasin consulting inc., addressed this in her presentation, “Disrupting Bias: Overcoming our Discomfort with Differences.”

Diversity, she said, is only one step toward inclusion. Despite best intentions, diversity is a numbers game – counting how many different “kinds” of people are in an institution. Diversity doesn’t ensure that individuals who have been marginalized in the publishing industry and elsewhere are encouraged to be their authentic selves or given the same opportunities as others. For example, diversity means advertising that a certain percentage of a publisher’s list is written by women or POC authors. Inclusion means ensuring that a publisher spends equal resources (or greater resources) to market its diverse list to give those books a better shot in the market.

Bhasin also mentioned that in 15 years Canada’s population is projected to be 35-40% POC and 6% indigenous. So, not only is it an ethical and social imperative to make a more inclusive industry, it is also best business practices.

We also saw questions of inclusion and diversity addressed at London Book Fair. Read our recap here.

Tools for Data-Driven Decisions

Jordyn Martinez, sales representative at Simon & Schuster Canada, explained how to use data to encourage more book sales in her talk, “Finding the Kernel: Data Driven Sales Tactics to Really Sell Your Book.”

She suggested that publishers use Google Trends, which analyzes the top search queries across customizable topics or categories. This useful tool can be used to discover data that can have a major impact on the marketing of your book, especially when it comes to advertising.

Take, for example, regional trends. If you’re hoping to sell your summer beach read, you can use Google Trends to discover which state or province is most likely to be searching for this term. This can help you hone in on how to spend your advertising dollars and get the most bang for your buck. With Google Trends, you can learn that Floridians are much more likely to be searching for beach reads than people living in Alaska, making it a far more sensible decision to start a beach-focused ad campaign in Florida.

Google Trends can also help you pick the optimal publication date for a title, as well. If you’re wondering when you should publish a steamy romance, Google Trends can tell you that the week after Valentine’s Day is the most popular for these types of searches.

Building Bridges Between Publishers and Booksellers

While publishers and booksellers are aligned in goal, we learned during “Building Bridges, Not Walls: Successful Publishing & Retailing Collaborations,” that they do run into issues executing their shared goal of helping books find their audiences.

Laura Ash from Another Story Bookshop told us that as a bookseller, she sometimes has a hard time restocking bestsellers, causing a critical gap between when the book is at its most popular and when they actually have it in stock. If books are out of stock, today’s readers aren’t willing to wait until the bookstore has it again. Instead, they’ll turn to Amazon or a convenient big box store.

Chris Hall of McNally Robinson said that he’s finding it more and more difficult to spot best sellers. But, he noted that for him, a bookseller’s job to generate their own bestsellers. He suggested using engaging displays, interesting newsletters, and targeting the local demographic to set a book up for success. For example, at his own branch in The Forks in Winnipeg, which has a rich history as an early Aboriginal settlement, they’ve worked extra hard to devote shelf space and hand-sell titles by local indigenous authors.

For more of our conference season coverage, check out our recap of London Book Fair and Livre Paris, as well as recent events from BIGNY and the Future of Media. And, keep up with NetGalley Insights conference coverage by signing up for our weekly newsletter!