Future of Publishing Panel Takeaways

Data-driven discovery and trend predictions, plus what success looks like for books in 2019

On Thursday, March 7, NetGalley attended Centennial College’s Future of Media panel in Toronto. This mini conference features a larger discussion about the media landscape, with a specific panel to focus on publishing. With moderator Manu Vishwanath of Harlequin, the Future of Publishing panelists talked about how to incorporate data into decision-making and how to think about gaining the attention of an audience with limited time and budgets in an oversaturated media landscape. Here are some of the takeaways that we’re bringing with us into the future.

Panelists

Cory Beatty, Senior Director of Marketing and Publicity at HarperCollins Canada
Noah Genner, Director of BookNet Canada
Nathan Maharaj, Senior Director of Merchandising at Kobo
Kristina Radke, VP of Business Growth and Development at NetGalley
Léonicka Valcius, Assistant Agent at the Transatlantic Agency

The Future of Discovery

At NetGalley, discovery is one of our favorite words. Connecting readers with new books and new authors is the name of our game, and the panelists were just as passionate about this topic as we are.

While discovering the “next big thing” has always been a publisher’s dream, the reality of this actually happening seems to be getting slimmer every year. Not only are there more publishers who are publishing more books, there are hundreds of thousands of books being self published, and the global marketplace seems to promise that anyone with a talent for writing can make big on their own under the right circumstances. But publishers and authors need to work extra hard to retain a reader’s attention. The panelists discussed the pressing question: How?

Director of BookNet Canada Noah Genner opened up this conversation with data. He noted that leisure spending has not gone up and neither has the rate of leisure reading. This means that readers are struggling to prioritize enormous amounts of content without the time or money to spend on it.

To combat this, Genner told the audience that it’s more important than ever for publishers to have a voice and a brand that stands above the rest. Whether this means developing a niche, like Second Story Press, whose books with strong female leads and themes of social justice sets them apart, or running a smart and snappy Twitter account like Coach House Books, it’s your brand–not necessarily the next blockbuster book–that keeps readers returning for more.

Kristina Radke, VP of Business Growth and Development here at NetGalley, added that in order to make your book succeed, it’s crucial to not just look at a variety of KPI’s and early data, but to actually make time to understand it. There will always be multiple points of data that can be collected pre-publication–like the information on NetGalley’s Title Feedback Activity Page–but without taking the time to understand that data and change your plans based on what you learned, it’s never going to make an impact on the success of your book.

Focusing on the end users, Senior Director of Merchandising at Kobo Nathan Maharaj said that publishers should focus more clearly on appealing to readers who don’t have time to sit down for focused reading, through audio. Audiobooks can help rope in customers that don’t necessarily have the leisure time, but are still interested in the story format and do have the leisure money to spend on books.

The Future of Book Trends

On a panel predicting the future of publishing, it’s only natural that the conversation steered toward predicting future trends. Léonicka Valcius, Assistant Agent at the Transatlantic Agency, said that books are a cultural artifact that reflects society as a whole, and by reflecting on the events of today we can predict what trends will pop up in the next few years.

Take, for example, the dystopias of yesterday which became popular as the world experienced great political and economic upheaval. Now, we’re seeing a surge of “up-lit”, which emphasizes kindness, empathy, and happy endings. As consumers, we’re now looking for books that show us the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

Valcius also praised the data when trying to hone in on the trends of tomorrow. With all of the data that’s available to us digitally, finding what works is the challenge–but also the opportunity. While we may have a book that will only sell 200 copies throughout its lifecycle, with that data we can now predict what type of reader will buy those 200 copies and market accordingly.

The Future of Success

It is, of course, every publisher’s and author’s goal to see their books succeed. However, as Noah Genner was quick to point out, there are different kinds of success, and it’s important for anyone in the publishing industry to evaluate their standard for what success means.

Senior Director of Marketing and Publicity at HarperCollins Canada Cory Beatty said that he regularly needs to set expectations with the authors he works with. Sometimes authors may be frustrated that their books aren’t immediately being buzzed about in major newspapers, and yet the marketing team for said book has been celebrating for weeks at the successes it has seen, whether hitting modest sales goals or generating consumer interest on Goodreads.

Kristina Radke returned to the data conversation, piggy-backing on the ideas about anticipating trends. Modern capabilities are making it easier for new players to join the game. For instance, Wattpad Books is launching a new imprint that will use machine learning to help predict the next hit story and further develop content from their site.

Keep up with the rest NetGalley Insights coverage of industry events, plus publishing trends and interviews, by subscribing to our weekly newsletter!

Publishing’s early blockchain adopters

Blockchain is on the rise in publishing and in the wider world, but it’s not yet clear exactly how it will be used to streamline the book publishing process or whose workflow it will most affect.

If you need a refresher on blockchain, read our recent introduction to blockchain to get a better sense of what blockchain is, plus some overall trends and predictions for how it might be used in the publishing industry. Some of the terms we use to describe these projects (like Ethereum, smart contracts, and blockchain itself) are explained in that introduction.

Below, check out some of the companies and collaborations who are already experimenting with using blockchain to make the publishing process smoother and more accessible.

Blockchain for Peer Review

Academic Peer Review

While academic publishing might not have a reputation as the most technologically-inclined part of an already-traditional industry, they have already gotten into the blockchain game. In 2018, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis Group, and Cambridge University Press teamed up with this pilot project. With Blockchain for Peer Review, they hope to find ways of making the peer review process more transparent and streamlined, ultimately leading to more high-quality and trustworthy published research. The project uses an Ethereum-compatible blockchain to execute smart contracts. In September 2018, they released their proof of concept.

Publica

Author Advances and Digital Distribution

Winner of Digital Book World’s award for “Best Use of Blockchain in Publishing Technology” in 2018, Publica uses blockchain to fund and distribute books. Specifically, authors can raise funds to publish their book using an Initial Coin Offering, or an ICO. Learn more about ICO’s here. These are like pre-orders which end up also being the advance for the author. Once the author has finished the book, the investors will immediately be able to access to the title through a smart contract. In August 2018, Publica announced a partnership with publisher Morgan James.

Scenarex

Security, Traceability, Attribution, and Distribution

Scenerex’s Bookchain project allows authors and publishers to publish and distribute ebooks using blockchain and smart contracts. They call it a Digital Book Enabler. Like Publica, publishers and authors upload their titles to Bookchain. Then, publishers and authors can use smart contracts to configure the exact security settings for their file, as well as coordinate buying, reselling, and lending the title, all while keeping every file traceable. As of October 2018, Bookchain was launched in beta to publishers and authors.

Po.et

Creative License

Po.et uses the the ledgers that are fundamental to blockchain to give creators and media organizations an overview of where content is and where it has been. The goal is to use the ledger to keep track of creative works to create a decentralized and trustworthy source for media. All pieces of content uploaded to Po.et would be time-stamped so that it’s clear how content is moving. For example, stock photos uploaded to Po.et would be traceable – everyone that uses them would be entered on the ledger, so the original creator could see where their photo ended up. Po.et is currently in the process of finding bugs, onboarding new users, and doing security checks. Keep up with their progress here.

Authorship

Professional collaborations

Authorship seeks to provide authors, publishers, translators, and readers a single platform to offer and avail each other’s services, while ensuring better compensation margins than the traditional publishing industry. Authorship uses site-specific tokens to conduct these transactions, which can then be converted to Ethereum and used off-site. Authors can upload their books to Authorship, at which point publishers can bid to publish the book either in print or in digital form. Translators can choose works on the site to translate, and then build their professional portfolio and earn money when their translations are bought and read. The project launched officially in June 2018, and as of Dec. 2018, 25,000 authors have signed up to use the service.

wespr

Incentivizing collaboration and engagement

wespr is an Ethereum-based platform that seeks to help content creators collaborate and then equitably distribute the profits from their work. Then, it will incentivize engagement with that content with an in-site cryptocurrency token. Each work on wespr (for example, a book) is considered a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), which makes it easier for creators to collaborate. Different creators (for example, multiple authors, a translator, and an illustrator) working together on a single project. Every time a reader shares, comments on, or likes the content, both the reader and the creators are paid in on-site cryptocurrency called an Echo Token. These tokens are parceled out to creators according to the percentage of the content that they own, per the rules of their DAO. Their Twitter notes that their website is under construction, but if they do re-emerge, we’ll be watching!

Gilgamesh Platform

Shared site governance

Gilgamesh hoped to be a social information-sharing platform, where creators and users were incentivized with an in-site cryptocurrency token, powered by Ethereum smart contracts. Information on Gilgamesh would be protected by the blockchain, which its founders hoped would make for a more open spread of information on the site. We’re perhaps most interested, though, in the ways that users would have been able to use the cryptocurrency tokens they accrued within the site. One of the ways that tokens were set up to be spent is by casting votes on questions of site governance. The most active members would have a more active say in the ways that Gilgamesh functions. In March 2018, Gilgamesh didn’t meet its ICO target and the original funders were refunded. But, the site notes that Gilgamesh is currently under development. We’re certainly keeping an eye out for their next move.

smoogs

New payment model

smoogs uses Bitcoin to facilitate consumers paying for the content the are consuming as they are consuming it. So, instead of a model whereby a monthly subscription offers unlimited access, or a book costs a particular price, a reader on smoogs would only pay for the pages they read or the minutes they watch. The goal is to compensate creators for their work while not relying on ad revenue or gatekeepers like publishers. smoogs currently has two texts in beta testing, including Revenge by Xavier Robinson.

INK

Global Content Ecosystem

INK hopes to create a decentralized community of global creators, including authors. Authors can upload content, claim ownership of it through the blockchain, and distribute it to readers without going through a publisher, while retaining the profits. Investors can fund authors through in-site tokens, giving authors access to funding at an earlier stage than in traditional publishing. Based in Singapore, INK’s focus is truly global. With money from venture capital firms like Fenbushi Capital, Node Capital, and SAIF Partners, INK looks to be a major Asian-based blockchain power.

Pando Network

Crowdsourcing content and infrastructure

Pando Network is trying to rethink, in the broadest terms, how to restructure our relationships to texts. Pando wants to decentralize literature – they want to take the major decisions that determine what gets published and what gets press out of the hands of the few tastemakers at the top (editors, awards committees, etc.) and bring it to the masses. Much of their work is still speculative, but according to their Medium post, “Decentralized Autonomous Literary Organization: a decentralization of literature,” they are interested in building new relationships between readers, writers, and the infrastructure (the publishing industry) that connects them. While most blockchain companies tackling publishing are looking to solve particular issues within publishing, Pando is looking at how to build a new, and more equitable infrastructure that’s different from the vertical structure of traditional publishing (author → agent → editor → marketing team → booksellers/librarians/media → reader) and the mind-bogglingly open field of Amazon. Right now, their only website presence outside of Medium & Twitter is Github, the software development platform.

View from the UK

Two months into 2019 and the year’s trends and patterns are slowly emerging – with some early indicators of the books that will be big over the next 12 months.

Last year was largely dominated by two fiction titles, Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and Sally Rooney’s Normal People – and the success of both authors has certainly informed the shape of fiction in 2019.

We saw the first stirrings of what has become known as ‘up lit’ in 2017, but it feels that 2019 will determine whether this is a genre that is here to stay. Certainly the positive reaction to books such as Needlemouse, The Truth and Triumphs of Grace Atherton, and The Other Half of Augusta Hope suggests that readers are still charmed by stories that provide a seam of comfort in an ever more confusing world.

Sally Rooney’s phenomenal success has given a major flip to literary fiction, reminding the public of the joys of the smart contemporary novel that examines the way we live now. In the likes of Candice Carty William’s Queenie, What Red Was by Rosie Price and Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor, we’re already seeing a new generation of writers take on important subjects in innovative and different ways.

While selecting our Books of the Month and looking at nominations for Roundups and Featured Titles promotions, we’ve been struck by the breadth of the titles being published. Publishing is often accused of being risk-averse, but there seems to be a much more varied choice in stories than even eighteen months before. Certainly, it has become even more difficult to select the books we feature!

This broadening of horizons is replicated by readers’ tastes, which we’ve seen become more varied. More nonfiction titles have been added to NetGalley than ever before, with publishers recognising that members are attracted to interesting stories whether they are invented or not. It’s great to be able to showcase such titles to our members, and to help them find titles they might not ordinarily have requested.

We’re fond of saying that NetGalley is like a sandbox for books – a place where you can see how a title performs before it goes out into the wild – and we’re delighted to see so many titles, in so many different genres, picking up great reviews from our members.

NetGalley UK will be back in April to look back on the year so far and share our insights with you!

Blockchain for Book Publishing

From cryptocurrency’s spectacular boom and crash of 2017-2018 to ads in the New York subway system for a regulated cryptocurrency exchange, cryptocurrency and blockchain are still overwhelming to most people. They seem to be somewhere between futurist Internet fantasies and the newest technological solutions for streamlining business and communication across many different sectors of our lives.

Blockchain is the underlying structure upon which cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin) is built. Publishing has had its eye on blockchain for several years already. But, nevertheless, it is still more than a little mysterious or confusing for the industry.

So, we’ve put together a handy primer about what blockchain is and how it might affect the publishing industry, plus some resources for more further reading.

What is blockchain?

At its most basic, blockchain refers to a way of storing information or value without relying on a centralized authority. So for cryptocurrency, information about who has what amount of a given currency (like Bitcoin) is not stored at a central authority like a bank, but is available on a ledger that is accessible to anyone on the network. Transactions are bundled together into a block and then blocks are chained together in a way that cannot be broken or altered. In systems that rely on a central authority, that central authority could cook the books. But, because the information is decentralized and accessible to anyone on the network, it’s impossible for an individual or group to conceal or alter transactions. Blockchains can then tell anyone where an item or piece of information is and where it has been before. It’s a way of decentralizing data and authority, while making transactions more transparent.

Instead of checking in with a central authority, like a publishing house or a bank to arrange a transaction, the end parties can complete the transaction themselves. So, for example, I can pay my share of rent to my roommate directly using cryptocurrency instead of talking to the bank to take money out of my account and then having my bank talk to my roommate’s bank to deposit that money into their account. Once I tell the blockchain that I have given money to my roommate, that transaction enters the blockchain ledger so that it can never be changed.

Station F has a great introduction to blockchain on Medium.

What does blockchain have to do with publishing?

Blockchain can open new possibilities for the exchange of resources, goods, and data between individuals and companies. The whole publishing industry depends on many teams working in different departments and companies working together and speaking to one another, all of which could be made much easier by using blockchain. It represents a new model for storing data across multiple parties — From authors and agents, to publishers, to warehouses and distributors, all the way to retailers and end-audiences/readers.

Which parts of the publishing industry could be affected by blockchain?

Smart contracts & the supply chain

It comes as no surprise to anybody in the publishing industry that many moving parts working at many different companies have to work together to bring a book into the world. Authors, agents, publishers, production teams, distributors, warehouses, and more. Smart contracts, which use blockchain, could make this process more seamless. Smart contracts are pieces of code that are stored on a blockchain network. The code of the contract defines the terms of the contract that all parties have agreed to. If required conditions are met, actions are automatically executed in an “if, then” structure. For example, a smart contract might program a car to drive along a certain path, automatically stop at every stop light, pause at every stop sign, and go past green lights. Traditional contracts are more similar to having a physical person driving the car, making the decisions. Or, having a person driving the car on the phone with someone confirming that they should, in fact, stop at a red light. So, if a publisher and a printer have a smart contract, printing could be automatically triggered once the printer receives final proofs, instead of someone from the publisher emailing someone from the printer who will then get the ball rolling. This video and this article provide great intros to smart contracts.

Reselling digital titles

Blockchains allow an item (whether a bitcoin or an ebook) to be tracked wherever it goes because of the decentralized ledger that holds the record of where an item went and when. Blockchain could make it easier to resell ebooks while keeping a record of whose hands the title passed through and for how long. Scenarex is already experimenting with this through Bookchain.

Peer review

For academic publishers, clear peer review process is crucial to the publishing process. In 2018, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis Group, and Cambridge University Press teamed up with the pilot project, Blockchain for Peer Review. With this project, they are experimenting with using blockchains to make the peer review process more transparent, which they hope will ultimately lead to increased trust in the produced research.

Anti-piracy

Blockchains could allow publishers to keep tabs on all individual copies of a title, physical and digital. Blockchains keep track of all transactions, including buying, selling, and reselling. So, that means that it could be much easier to see when a copy has slipped into the wrong hands or is being distributed illegally if a publisher is keeping track of its titles using blockchain.

How much is hype?

As with any new and trendy technology, some of the interest is bound to be hype. And after the cryptocurrency crash in 2018, it might have seemed like the end of a trend.

But, rather than thinking that the blockchain fad is over, we think that we’re just past the Peak of Inflated Expectations on the hype cycle.

Heavy hitters are putting resources into developing long-term strategies for cryptocurrency and blockchain (see the Blockchain Center from the NYC Economic Development Corp.). Publishing industry groups are incorporating blockchain into scope of interest. For example, BISG has hosted multiple events about blockchain and Digital Book World has an award for Best Use of Blockchain in Publishing Technology.

So while it remains to be seen exactly how blockchain will change the publishing industry, it seems clear that enough corners of the market – publishing and beyond – are investing time and energy into thinking about how blockchain could solve some of their recurring problems.

Who is already using blockchain?

Read all about publishing’s early blockchain adopters here.

Publica: Publishing platform using blockchain and cryptocurrency technology to innovate in how books are funded, distributed, bought, and read. Announced partnership with Morgan James in Aug. 2018.
po.et: Open, universal ledger that records immutable and timestamped information about your creative content and uses open protocols designed for interoperability with current industry standards in media and publishing.
Authorship: Platform to provide readers, writers, translators and publishers with a single platform to offer and avail each other’s services. Uses site-specific tokens to conduct transactions, which can then be converted to Ethereum (a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin).
Scenarex: Bookchain project allows authors and publishers to publish and distribute ebooks using blockchain.
wespr: Ethereum-based platform that helps distribution of content between artists and their audience.
Blockchain for Peer Review: Collaboration between Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis Group, and Cambridge University Press to investigate using blockchain to make peer review more transparent and secure.

Technology Confidential with BISG

On Tuesday, Feb. 5, we attended BISG’s Technology Confidential program. The panel included Rod Elder of Virtusales, David Hetherington of knkPublishing, George Logan of Klopotek, and Rob Stevens of Firebrand Technologies. Of course, we’re happy for any opportunity to cheer on our colleagues from Firebrand, but we were also there to hear from other panelists and attendees across the industry who are focused on using technology to help publishers get their books into as many hands as possible.

Virtusales, knk, Klopotek, and Firebrand all provide software to help publishers manage multiple aspects of the publishing process from title management to ONIX delivery to rights across multiple divisions and throughout a title’s lifecycle.

The panelists talked about the perils of customization, challenges of changing publishers’ workflows and implementing new technologies, and the importance of clearly-defined strategies at all levels of a company.

Configuration, not customization

The panelists lamented the challenges of leaning too heavily on customizations. While at first it might seem like customization can streamline workflow and tailor software to the unique needs of a specific publisher, all of the tech experts on the panel cautioned against it. The panelists uniformly recommended configuring software instead of customizing. Configuration keeps the basic structure of a software while shaping it to the style specifications and some of the unique needs of an individual company. Customizing requires new code whereas configuring does not.

Customization can make it more difficult for the software to communicate with other softwares, and can make system updates more difficult, resulting in patched solutions upon patched solutions. David Hetherington noted that heading down a road of customization is a road that will ultimately be longer, harder, and more expensive.

This is why publishing-specific software are so important. Rod Elder of Virtusales acknowledged that publishers have unique needs compared to businesses in other industries. The solution is to use publisher-specific software rather than customizing software that is meant for a different industry to make it work for publishing. Publishing-specific software can be specific enough for the unique needs of book publishers so as not to require huge amounts of configuration, but still flexible enough from a UI perspective to fit the quirks of an individual house.

Consider the costs

David Hetherington gave the audience an acronym for thinking about workflow and technology updates: TCO – Total Cost of Ownership. It forces you to ask: What is the cost of doing things the way they’ve always been done, versus adopting a new technology to solve the problem?

Say a publisher workflow includes manually and frequently enter data in multiple databases for a single title. The publisher should consider both the literal cost of employee hours spent doing repetitive administrative work and keeping a big IT team to deal with bugs, plus the more abstract cost of an employee’s intellectual or creative energy that is left on the table when so many hours of their day are taken up with data entry. The TCO for this workflow might be high enough to necessitate a change in the status quo, either by internally streamlining or by introducing new software to make the process less manual and less repetitive.

Publishers tend to think about implementing new technologies only in terms of the cost of the new software and the time it takes to integrate it into daily operations. But the panelists reminded the audience that there are real costs to consider in these calculations related to maintaining the status quo.

Articulate the “Why”

Rob Stevens of Firebrand reminded the audience how important it is to ask why you and your team do what you do. Why do you fill in that box? Why do you enter data in a specific place or at a specific time? Why does your team need that report? If the reason is “that’s the way we’ve always done it,” you might want to consider dropping that task from your to-do list, which we’re sure is already long enough!

Asking why a company needs certain pieces of data can also help technology solution providers determine the best way to help meet a company’s needs or solve a particular problem for them, and can even drive development on the technology solution provider’s end.

Clearly articulating the “why” can also help ease some of the growing pains of implementing new software and workflows. If all members of a team know why they are being asked to change their day-to-day operations, they are more likely to adopt the new tools and use them successfully. The success of new technologies in a publishing house largely depend on the enthusiastic adoption and experimentation by the people who are using them on a daily basis.

BISG works to create a more informed, empowered and efficient book industry. Its membership includes trade, education, professional and scholarly publishers, as well as distributors, wholesalers, retailers, manufacturers, service providers and libraries.

For more cross-industry knowledge and events, follow BISG on their website, where you can see all upcoming events. You can subscribe to their newsletter here.

And, keep up to date with industry news, trends, and best practices by subscribing to NetGalley Insights.

Introducing a New, Premier Level of Service: NetGalley Advanced

Today we are excited to announce the launch of NetGalley Advanced! This new, premier level of service is now available as an upgrade*, offering new reports to help publishers track activity within NetGalley, and new tools designed to reduce manual effort and time for staff. With more insight and flexibility, NetGalley Advanced will help you analyze your data so you can make strategic decisions earlier and anticipate trends before your books go on sale.

All of the existing features in NetGalley will still be available, while NetGalley Advanced will continue our ongoing strategy of implementing new features to address publishers’ needs and goals. Take a look at the information below to see how NetGalley Advanced compares to what we’re now calling NetGalley Classic.

Join our webinar on January 30, at 1:00pm ET for a demo of the new features and to ask questions.

We look forward to continuing to help publishers of all sizes promote a wide variety of titles to early influencers, and continuing to grow and evolve to meet your needs.

Read the NetGalley Advanced press release here!

*NetGalley Advanced is currently available for publishers in North America, and will be made available to publishers in other territories at a later date.

Wisdom in 2019

As we begin a new year, it’s always fun to look back on all the great things that happened in the last year. The needs of our clients have always led the evolution of the NetGalley service, and I’m proud that our conversations with various types of publishers continue to drive our development.

Through these conversations, it has become apparent that publishers of all sizes are relying on data to assess how their strategies are working, and if they’re reaching their goals for engagement. More and more of you are employing data scientists, or are analyzing data yourself. Numbers from all across the industry come together to reveal the story about a book’s success. You’re tracking and analyzing results that range from engagement with your social media platforms and click-throughs for your digital advertising, to sales numbers and rankings.

One of the purposes of NetGalley has always been to give you more insight into the success of your pre-publications efforts. Many reports in NetGalley (including Feedback, Opinions, Snapshot, and Detailed Activity) already offer a deep dive into the specific activity your titles are seeing on the site.

During the Firebrand Community Conference this year our CEO and Chief Igniter, Fran Toolan, mentioned the DIKW hierarchy–a model that emphasizes the relationships between data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. The idea is that each level of the pyramid is reached through analysis that adds context to the level below. So data will lead to information, which will lead to knowledge, which will lead to wisdom. Once you reach wisdom, all of that learned experience can guide your actions.

In 2019 we’re excited to bring you even more tools to drive targeted activity on NetGalley, and to display valuable data and information to help you reach those levels of wisdom that can inform your strategies. When you analyze the activity happening in your NetGalley account, it can help you identify early trends so you can anticipate them as your books go on sale, or give you evidence that support a change in strategy.

We are committed to continuing to build tools that will reduce manual effort and time for your staff, and give you more space to gain knowledge about your strategies and the activity they’re generating. It’s our New Year’s Resolution to continue to help you attain wisdom about your strategies, and strive for it ourselves, too.

To learn more, join our webinar on Wednesday, Jan. 30 all about NetGalley Advanced–our new, premier level of service.

Happy New Year!

Kristina Radke

VP, Business Growth and Engagement

NetGalley Insights Looks Back at 2018

Since NetGalley Insights launched in July 2018, we have published nearly 40 articles about the publishing industry – interviews, industry trends, best practices for using social media, case studies from successful book marketing campaigns, and more.

We are looking forward to continuing to leverage NetGalley’s unique place within the industry to provide creative marketing ideas, to highlight the great work that’s being done across the publishing world, and to help our readers keep up with new tech and trends.

We are grateful to our community of publishing industry professionals for sharing their expertise and experience with our audience. And, of course, to you, our readers.

Here’s what we’ve been up to in 2018!

NetGalley has unique access to different members of the publishing industry – we work with authors, publishers, and publicity and marketing services. By sharing their successes and strategies with you, we hope you’ll find new, creative ideas that you can implement, too. In 2018, we interviewed members of the publishing industry at all levels; from interns to senior account executives. We even tapped our own team for their experiences finding and keeping mentors.

We know how valuable it is for authors, marketers, and publishers to learn from each other’s successes. That’s why we feature case studies from our NetGalley clients. We’ve shared the strategies that made Glimmerglass Girl, a debut poetry book, one of the Most Requested poetry titles on NetGalley, how NYU Press successfully engaged with NetGalley members, and North South books used availability settings and timely subject matter to create pre-publication interest for a children’s book.

Readers looking for their next pick tend to trust recommendations from content curators in their communities and online . With that in mind, we talked to librarians, podcasters, and a BookTuber to help publishers better understand these influencers’ communities, what kinds of books they are looking for, and how they find them.

Social media platforms and tools are always changing. That’s why we do our best to help you keep tabs on new trends and to offer strategies for making the most out of different social media platforms. We recommended Instagram accounts to follow, gave examples of how publishers are using Instagram stories, gave you a peek into the Librarian Twitterverse, provided a primer on BookTube, and suggested ways for both authors and acquisitions agents to get the most out of Wattpad.

We know that you can’t be everywhere at once, so we’re doing our best to be there for you. NetGalley Insights attended conferences for the ECPA, Firebrand, and for BISG. We listened to book club gatekeepers, including the books editor at O: The Oprah Magazine and the founder of Well-Read Black Girl, talk about what’s important to them as they make their influential book club picks.

With a dedicated NetGalley UK site and partner sites in Germany, France, and Japan, NetGalley is a part of the global book industry. With our global perspective, we featured stories about the German book market and recapped the first year of NetGalley.co.uk.

Because so many NetGalley clients and NetGalley Insights readers are authors – either working with publishing houses, marketing services, or self-publishing – we are providing resources on NetGalley Insights for authors. We interviewed authors about how they balance their writing schedules with the rest of their lives, as well as offering advice to authors on ensuring their books are ready for publication, building their social media presence, and selling their titles into bookstores.

Subscribe to our weekly digest so that you can stay tuned for everything that NetGalley Insights has in store for 2019. You can expect articles on blockchain and metadata, interviews with content creators and curators, case studies from successful marketing campaigns, tips for authors, and more coming to you in the new year.

1 year of NetGalley UK

It’s been a year since we launched NetGalley.co.uk – our dedicated UK platform, showcasing all the best in British books – and so it feels like the right time to give an overview of all that’s been happening on the site. We’ve been delighted by the response from readers and publishers alike, and are proud of the new ways we’ve been able to highlight titles to prospective new reviewers.

A bigger audience, visiting more than ever!

New promotions, new views

With Netgalley.co.uk, one of the main aims was to find new ways for members to find titles – and to show a distinctly British slant on the site. Now members can see only the books for which they are likely to be approved, and British titles are always front and centre on the site. The introduction of featured titles and category spotlights has been hugely successful, boosting impressions, discoverability and requests for all titles included.

Results have been amazing, with an increase in requests for featured titles on the previous two week period varying anywhere from 150% up to 8800%!

Eblasts – more popular than ever

Our dedicated eblasts are sent to all UK members opted into marketing communications, and have become the most popular way of marketing to members. It’s the digital equivalent of a Super-Proof, showing members just how excited you are about a particular title.

We still only ever send one eblast a day to our members, which means that we’ve been fully booked for almost every day – week and weekend – for the whole of 2018. As many of you know, spots are now at a huge premium, so in order to get the date you want, don’t forget to book well in advance. Booking forms for 2019 are here.

2018 has been a brilliant year for NetGalley UK, and we’re very much looking forward to the New Year, and helping publishers really boost the performance of their titles!

I Love My Librarian 2018 Awards

For ten years, the ALA initiative I Love My Librarian has been recognizing the best librarians in the country. Communities nominate the librarians who are best supporting their patrons, providing creative programming, increasing intellectual curiosity, and bringing resources to those who need them. Because we also love librarians, NetGalley attended the award ceremony for the ten winners of the 2018 I Love My Librarian Award at the Carnegie Corporation of New York on Dec. 4.

Winners thanked their colleagues for their support and their patron communities for letting them do what they love for a living. They affirmed libraries as places for patrons to explore their own identities and for marginalized groups to find acceptance and support.

One of the patrons who nominated Lindsey Tomsu, a teen and YA librarian from the Algonquin Area Public Library District, described the work she does to create an inclusive atmosphere. “She creates a haven for…teens questioning their identities and orientations, diverse teens, rich and poor alike…” Stephanie H. Hartwell-Mandella, head of Youth Services at the Katonah Village Library thanked the librarians who didn’t bat an eye when she was a curious adolescent who started checking out romance novels. Paula Kelly, library director at Whitehall Public Library, is committed to keeping her diverse community’s needs at the forefront of her programming. She sends a bus every month to pick up patrons (mostly elderly members of immigrant families) to transport them to and from the library. Her library also partners with its Bhutanese community to preserve their shared history and stories, and to share those stories with other Pittsburgh residents. Learn more about all of the 2018 winners here.

Librarians are an important part of the NetGalley community, so we are always curious to learn more about what makes their communities and their libraries unique. And we know that this information is valuable to publishers, as well! Check out our Ask a Librarian series to read more.

Congratulations to the 2018 I Love My Librarian Award winners from all of us at NetGalley!