A look back…

At a busy year of book reviewing.

It’s been about a year since I joined NetGalley, BookishFirst, and began to receive indie author ARCs from social media connections. Looking back, here are some thoughts on my experience:

Reviewing books is so FUN! Being a bookstagrammer is an amazing new part of my life. I love the community and I’ve learned a lot from the connections I’ve made with other writers and reviewers.

Getting book mail is awesome. I like eBooks, but receiving a physical ARC in the mail makes me clap my hands.

It’s important for my integrity and sanity to read samples (if possible) before entering raffles, requesting ARCs from NetGalley, or saying “yes please” to authors that contact me. I don’t want too much at once, I know what I like to read, and I want to follow through if I’m given a free book. I’d rather take a half hour to read a sample and say no thank you than feel obligated to read to the end when I’m not enjoying it. I’d rather not download anything from NetGalley for a while if indie authors contacted me directly and I want to say yes to them.

I support authors by sharing my book reviews more widely now. I used to only post to Goodreads and Instagram—and if it was an ARC, I also reviewed on Amazon. Starting in January, I started tweeting out all of my Goodreads reviews. I even highlighted some older reads and favorite authors if it was a series, posting each one in order. Last month, I went back through my 2021 books on Goodreads and posted the same reviews to Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I’m re-reading some favorite books this year because I noticed that I only rated them on Goodreads and never wrote a detailed review. I want to give my favs some more recognition!

I recently learned that I need to roll with changing rules! When I was new to this ARC process, I read other people’s reviews to see how they tagged authors/publishers, said thank you, etc. I noticed many people wrote something like “Thank you to [publisher, author, NetGalley] for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.” So I used that language for several months. Recently a few of my reviews were kicked out by Amazon and even though I scanned through their community guidelines, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong—especially since B&N had already accepted the same text. After a handful of reviews were kicked out by Amazon, I noticed it was only books I had gotten from indie authors or NetGalley. I read more carefully through all of Amazon’s community guidelines and found this under Solicitations: Authors and publishers can continue to give readers free or discounted copies of their books if they don’t require a review in exchange or try to influence the review.

I have never felt pressured or obligated to give a positive review. Sure, the general understanding is that if I get something for free, I should read it and review it honestly as a courtesy. Authors/publishers have been up front that they want feedback, even if it’s negative, but it’s never been presented as required. Anyway, I guessed that my recent reviews had been flagged by Amazon due to the words in exchange—words that Amazon used to accept. So recently I submitted a few reviews saying “ARC provided by [author/publisher/NetGalley]. Opinions are my own.” Voilà. They posted. That is what I always meant anyway! Last summer as a newbie I had just stolen language from other reviewers thinking that was industry norm. Live and learn. And now I know that things change and I have to investigate and adjust.

I’m looking forward to another year of reading, reviewing, and learning!