I've been a member of NetGalley for a few years now, and it still surprises me that more people don't know about it. NetGalley is a website where librarians, teachers, bloggers, book reviewers -- basically anyone who reads and shares those books with other readers -- can get free downloadable advanced reader copies. This is a valuable tool, especially for librarians, for several reasons. First, it's a great help as a selection tool, so you know what's coming out and how good of a read it is. Second, print ARC's can be a pain in the ass. Yes, it's awesome to get them in the mail directly from the publisher. But you can't put them in the collection afterwards and you can't have the Friends of the Library sell them. I give them away to the kids in the Teen Zone, which is cool, but sometimes the ARC can differ significantly from the final work, and that kid may never pick up the final copy. So NetGalley fits a much needed niche. By having the ebook
The writing life for librarians and other book lovers.