NetGalley’s Book Advocate Toolkit is a necessary publication that assists newcomers and veteran book lovers’ information needed to promote the advanced reader’s copies they receive from NetGalley.
In 2016, I joined NetGalley. I was so excited because I always had a love of the written word, and would spend hours reading my favorite romance and mystery stories. But I didn’t know how to get the word out about the books I loved. Someone told me that I should start a blog. I didn’t know how to do it, and reading a book or two about it didn’t help. Now, I’m growing my social media presence through assistance from articles I found on We Are Bookish.
I believe this publication can and will assist newcomers to the world of book social media promotion, and how to write book reviews. I also believe that it can help veteran NetGalley users as a refresher course on what they need to remember when using NetGalley and social media with advanced reader’s copies. Further, I believe that this work should be expanded and used for all new NetGalley users to understand how to succeed in building a social media presence as a book influencer.

NetGalley’s Book Advocate Toolkit is an engagingly presented 30-page guide on how to use NetGalley and the various social media platforms to help promote ARCs (Advance Review/Reader Copy).
It’s available as Read Now for NetGalley members - for those who don’t know, NG is a site which allows keen book reviewers to receive free books, often ahead of publication, with the expectation that they will provide a written review and post it to Amazon, GoodReads and other social media sites. This easy to read guide would certainly have been most useful at the start of my NetGalley journey, but I think there are useful tips for everyone, given the ever-expanding number of places that bookworms can visit to rave, rant, read about or recommend books.

I first joined NetGalley in 2016, prompted by a mention in a favourite author’s newsletter that it was a way to get hold of her latest book months ahead of publication. I had been cataloguing my books and writing brief reviews on GoodReads since 2011, and before that on Visual Bookshelf, but this was very much for me, rather than any expectation that anyone else would be interested in my opinions. I was declined by the author’s publisher and so didn’t bother trying again for a year or so, until I received an email with a widget (= digital link to to relevant page to be able to download the book directly) for the latest from another favourite author, which piqued my interest enough to figure out how it all worked.
At the time I was studying for a postgraduate diploma which taught me how to write structured essays and criticise papers, so I started using the same techniques to write detailed reviews on GoodReads. 361 approvals later, I’ve got a feedback ratio of 97%, and last year 72 out of my 162 books read last year were NG ARCs - which is less than the previous year as I am becoming more selective over time.

I liked the way this was laid out, with short snappy tips and links to more in-depth articles on NG’s bookish.netgalley.com page. I had already read most of the articles, as I’m always on the lookout for advice on improving the quality of my reviews and get their newsletter, but it doesn’t hurt to go back to them as the reviewing landscape is constantly evolving. The sections on how to set up your profile and how to write a review will be of most use to newbies - in fact it should be considered essential reading for newcomers to the site - but I even seasoned reviewers could find useful nuggets in there. I laughed when I saw “avoid the request spree” - doesn’t everyone get carried away when they start out and end up with too many deadlines? It took me a couple of years to rein in those tendencies and realise that I didn’t have to request everything - I would of course be able to buy the book later and read it at leisure. Having a list of overdue books - often because I’d receive a book from a series I’d heard of but haven’t started so feel compelled to catch up with the earlier instalments first - got really stressful. I have enough of that in my day job without feeling that my hobby had become unpaid work.

The blurb for this indicates that it is a living document that will be updated over time, and that they are actively seeking feedback. With this in mind, my additions would be:
don’t take declines personally! I’m in a couple of NetGalley Reviewer Facebook groups and members are constantly bemoaning the fact that certain publishers keep turning them down. I used to be the same, not helped by the emails which give you a broad list of possible reasons but don’t specify which apply in your case. Over time I’ve accepted that it’s probably because I’m not a blogger and live in the wrong country for the publishers I’m most interested in.
write your review as soon as possible after finishing the book, and certainly before starting your next read: it can be helpful to let your thoughts marinate overnight, but if you leave it too long you risk forgetting important details and the emotions associated with the story or characters and having a pile of reviews to write will start to feel like homework.
use Notes or Word to compose your review then copy & paste into all the relevant sites: the number of times I’ve lost half an hour’s worth of review because the GoodReads app shut down taught me that it’s much less frustrating to write them somewhere that saves as you go along.

always download books immediately - if you haven’t sent them to your kindle account by the time they archive, you’ll lose them. Also be aware that books in the Adobe Digital Editions disappear after 90 days whether you’ve read them or not.

if you decide that a book you have been approved for is not for you, there is an option to notify the publisher that you won’t be reading it, and give a reason (in my case discovering that it contains scenes of animal abuse) but use this feature sparingly as they do affect your feedback ratio forever.

don’t get obsessed with orange pencils and auto-approvals - they’re a nice compliment but don’t appear to have any impact on future approvals by other publishers.

read as many reviews as you can by the most popular people on GoodReads to see what works and what you like, then adapt your own style. Personally I’m not a fan of gifs and ranty diatribes, but they sure get a lot of likes!
make sure your GoodReads profile is Public. An online friend who works for a publisher recently posted that requests from people with profiles set to private will automatically be declined, which makes a lot of sense. Use a pseudonym and a separate email if you don’t want people you know finding out just how much time you spend reading 😹

The second half of the toolkit, and the part which was most useful to me, was all about the various Social Media platforms and how to use them. I find this area frankly overwhelming: I did start a Bookstagram https://www.instagram.com/thecatsmothersbooks/ separate from my personal account (which I don’t look at much TBH and mostly use for posting cat photos - for all its faults I still prefer Facebook, but rarely use it to post reviews) and initially created a few posts (mostly pictures of cats with books haha) but lack the time, energy and artistic skills to create the beautiful posts that most people go for - I prefer words to pictures. I’d possibly be interested in contributing to a blog run by someone else, but don’t have the knowledge or technical ability to create one, and since I rarely look at them myself, don’t really see the point. I get that this is what publishers want to see, but it feels like a very overcrowded market already. I have a Twitter account but don’t use it because I don’t understand it at all, and have no interest in viewing or creating videos so will be staying well away from Booktube and Booktok. I’ve never really got the hang of hashtags so the page explaining these was helpful.
I think it would be easy to get the impression that you’re expected to have a profile on all of these platforms - this is not the case! While I want to do my bit for authors and publishers, I’d rather be reading - I don’t mind spending an hour crafting a review and posting it to NG, GoodReads and Amazon as a minimum, but anything more is reserved for books I loved or authors I have a direct relationship with.

Overall I found this a helpful guide which I will continue to refer to and would recommend to anyone who uses NetGalley, but especially for beginners.

Helpful collection of tips on how to use NetGalley and your platforms! Thanks to NetGalley for providing it!

I really liked this book. It was super helpful and small. I knew most of the things even though I don't personally follow them. But it seemed like really good advice. Also with less text and more pictorial data was very helpful and made it an easy read.

This is an excellent resource for all types of reviews. I’ve been reviewing for a couple of years now and thought I’d come up with a good formula but reading through the do’s and don’ts section I saw where I can improve. Thanks NetGalley!

I read this and have gotten some fresh ideas, mainly for my bookstagram. I plan on rereading again as I go along to make sure I get everything I can from this resource!

This is a great little book or pamphlet to help readers get started reviewing books on Netgalley. Good work!



Thanks Netgalley!

This was a great resource for anyone who is looking to get started with reviewing especially here on Netgalley but also starting or even restarting on social media platforms. I am personally someone who participated on booktube but did not keep up the habit because of life getting extremely busy but really wanting to get back into it. Reading through this information gave me some great ideas as well as some framework on how to restart and maybe do some more planning before I get started to give myself a leg up and have content people will be truly interested in.

The formatting of the information was also extremely eye catching and was served in more bite sized pieces that made it easy to understand and not feel overwhelmed by all of the information being presented. I also like how it talked about each section of social media that allows you to see which form might be the best fit for you.

Overall, I was really impressed with the tool kit and it gave me some new information and helped me to focus on the pieces I may need to fine tune for my own socials. I feel like this information will help me grow overall as both a content creator and a reviewer.

Very helpful especially for book bloggers who don't know anything what should in the start. I wish I could have found it sooner.
All the tips from related to hashtags, editing pictures, taking pics are impressive.
Highly recommended for book bloggers.

NetGalley’s Book Advocate Toolkit by We Are Bookish is a fantastic tool to help new NetGalley members and an excellent refresher for longer-term members. I wish this had been available when I first joined NetGalley.

The guide is easy to understand and follow and has some great tips and reminders. It’s also helpful if you’re thinking about starting a blog or if you’re thinking about adding reviews to a new (to you) social media platform. There are tips to enhance your reviews. A reminder to update your profile as statistics and other information changes is important to new and existing members.

One thing that I would have liked was the ability to download the guide to my kindle. Additionally, I thought the information in the NetGalley Device Guide would have been useful to beginners.

Overall, this is something I recommend to every new NetGalley member. The helpful hints and easy to understand layout would make this a quick read and enable them to glean useful tips. Every new NetGalley member should get a link to this guide.

We Are Bookish provided a complimentary digital copy of this book via NetGalley. This is my honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way. Publication date was March 08, 2022.

I wished I read this before I did a request spree 😅. Now I find myself having to work harder to finish reading digital review copies here so I can provide feedback quick enough to get my feedback ratio up. I like the format of this on the app, it is big font, nice cheerful background colour and to the point.

Great and helpful info for NetGalley tips and reviews! I will definitely be saving this and using it in future.

This review will be most enjoyed by NetGalley members and those who want to think about how to blog and review books.

There is loads of helpful information in this guide. Read it to learn more about how to write and post reviews and where the best places are to voice your opinions. There is material on everything from Instagram to Booktok and many places in between like WordPress.

I have been blogging for a while but still found this resource to be very helpful.

Thank you NetGalley.

“NetGalley’s Book Advocate Toolkit”
By We Are Bookish

NetGalley – The Reviewer’s “Must Have” Primer in Nutshell

Colorful and concise, with bitesize tidbits packed full of cogent insights for writing and creating attention-getting NetGalley reviews that will tantalize target audiences for every media format—from classic text reviews to blogs and audio and video vlogging—“NetGalley’s Book Advocate ToolKit” by We Are Bookish is an essential primer for NetGalley reviewers.

For newbies to NetGalley, this is THE perfect learning and reference guide. More seasoned reviewers will find that the ToolKit offers useful tips on refining and enhancing one's online reviewing presence, as well as attracting Publishers to your Profile for more book approvals..

When I read about the availability of this NetGalley ToolKit on Twitter, I downloaded it immediately and consumed the thought-stimulating ideas like osmosis. Consequently, I’m immediately looking forward to reviewing and revamping my entire book reviewing presence on NetGalley—from my Personal Profile, my Reviewing Style and my External Presence-- based on the tips included in the ToolKit.

Some of the ideas that I plan to incorporate include using an App like Canva to design posts and a personal logo, as well as grouping my Twitter posts in categories, while trying to establish my true voice and audience.. If you're a NetGalley Reviewer, I encourage you to download this great resource guide as well.. You're going to refer to it today, as well as look back at it for reference on many days in the future. It's the perfect Reviewer's Reference Primer! Thank you NetGalley, you're THE BEST!

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The Book Maven’s Journal—Reviews for Word Connoisseurs

STAR RATING ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“NetGalley’s Book Advocate Toolkit”
Author: We Are Bookish
Genre: | Reference Non-Fiction (Adult) | Self-Helps |
Publication Date: 07 March 2022
Publisher: We Are Bookish

With Sincerest Appreciation to NetGalley and We Are Bookish Publishing for Providing this Advance Reader’s Copy for Review.

NetGalley's Book Advocate Toolkit is a compact guide overflowing with information to help you get the most of out of NetGalley. From how to set up your profile to what publishers are looking for from a review. Whether you're new to the service or have been using it for years there is helpful information in this guide for everyone

I wish this was available when I joined NetGalley two years ago rather than having to find most of this information out myself through trial and error and research!

Lots of great advice in here for all different platforms, thank you! I'll be keeping this to refer back to.

Fantastic little insight to netgalley.

Helps with approvals, profile and really useful information for blogging and reviews.

Just brilliant

Extremely helpful for all NetGalley users! Gave some awesome tips to keep your profile up to par. Thanks, NetGalley & We Are Bookish!

This was extremely helpful. I've been using NetGalley for years... since 2015?! At first I was told it was a place to find free books. Then I found it a way to share new books and reviews. Until the past year, I never paid attention to the feedback ratio. The toolkit also mentioned thanking NetGalley and publishers in posted reviews. I had seen other reviewers do so, but never knew that it was required.

This toolkit had so many helpful tips! I'm sure I'll be referencing it in the future. I wish I had it years ago when I started requesting from NetGalley so I wouldn't have ruined my feedback ratio so early! Thank you NetGalley for the helpful tips!