What are NetGalley Featured Reviews?

19th June 2021

Netgalley - Featured Review

Table of Contents

Not sure what NetGalley or Feature Reviews are, then read on.

What is an Advance Review Copy (ARC)

If you’ve read one of my blog post before you may have seen a sentence towards the end acknowledging if I’d received a free copy of the book There is a thrill in being granted an advance copy of a book to review prior to publication.

It is glorious when you find out that you are reading a gem that will be discovered soon by others

On the other hand, there’s a bit of pressure to read and review if you go request happy and the publication date is imminent. I will add that not all requests are granted by publishers which is their prerogative. Fortunately more than not have been approved so I tend not to complain too much. I belong to a few review sites. If you scroll to the bottom of any page on the Engrossed Reader website you will find the most up to date list.

Want to read new books for free?

My recommendation to you, dear reader is if you would like to read new books before general release or because it’s free AND can commit to writing a review about the book, consider joining a review website.

Why choose NetGalley to review books?

NetGalley is one of my favourites because of the ease of use, wide variety of genres and usually fast decision turn around time (approval/rejection). Once you submit a review of the book, a publisher can choose to feature it on the book’s title page. Doing that means it will appear as one of the first reviews on the title details page for that book.

Featured NetGalley Reviews

What is odd is that reviewers are not notified that their reviews are featured, or is it a setting I haven’t enabled? Either way, it’s a pleasant surprise when you are doing NetGalley housekeeping (checking up on your sent review bookshelf) to see the cute pencil icon next to a book cover (see images below).

bookmark

How to get your reviews featured on NetGalley?

As far as I’ve observed there’s no review style, length or template that makes a particular review likely to be a featured one. I’m going with the luck of the draw. The only trend I can see from own featured reviews is that half have been for children/ YA books. Naturally the more books you review the more likely one is to be featured.

So you want to be a NetGalley Top Reviewer?

And my final point is NetGalley is another platform that is gamified and one of my badges is “Top Reviewer” meaning I have 3 reviews which have been featured. That was another surprise – again no notification, you just come across it on your dashboard under the badges section.

That badge turned up in 2020, 6 months after I’d joined NetGalley. And that’s not to brag but to put context to why 4 reviews became featured during the pandemic.

Was I reading more? Were publishers more generous with this designation? Who knows!

Do NetGalley Featured Reviews Matter? Are there any benefits?

It is debateable whether there are any benefits to having featured reviews or being a Top Reviewer beyond the achievement in and of itself. Oh, I forgot that you get the badge to display too. I still have publisher rejections for books that I’d like to read and that’s my only reason for using the website. So if that changed as a direct consequence of being a Top Reviewer, I would be made up.

As of November 2023 8% of my NetGalley reviews were featured. I’m not concerned whether that high or low because that figure is always changing due to the number of reviews being posted. I may never have another featured review and that’s okay because I’ve already got the badge.

And if they take away the badge?

Well I can say I used to have the badge and that’s an achievement in itself.

And to round off, this blog post will get updated each time I notice a featured review on my profile.

Happy reading