Tiara Talk: Netgalley

[Image taken from www.netgalley.com]

On May 6th Typing Tiara will be a year old. I joined Netgalley quite a few months ago but never really paid it much mind. Until The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa was offered in one of the newsletters. That got my attention in a major way.

So I checked it out. I had never really given much thought as to why it was there and how it could help me as a blogger. I flitted through the pages, updated my profile, requested what was probably way too many titles and got denied for two [one because they felt my stats weren't up to par yet and the other because they had run out of E-ARCs] and gained access to four.

That's three unreleased books that I'll be privileged enough to read. That's a pretty big deal. 

Even bigger when I think of the fact that a lot of bloggers get denied when they request actual, physical ARCs because they are expensive to print and limited in quantity. On the other hand they don't have to pay to ship out E-ARCs, you just click to receive the PDF file. Until I really delved into the site I hadn't realized how amazing a resource this could be to me as a new blogger, one that didn't have the high stats that are often required to gain access to these titles. Netgalley could keep me in the know!

I know that blogging isn't all about the ARCs or getting to read all of the books before they are released, its about sharing our love of reading with everyone we can. But still, its awesome when you get to discover these new reads and get them out there to people that might not have otherwise known about their existence. It's an amazing privilege. For this, I love Netgalley. It's giving me a chance to build up my blogging credentials plus read a bunch of awesome titles which is an amazing perk.

Do you use Netgalley or another E-ARC site? Why or why not? Do you feel it helps or hinders you? Share your thoughts!