Sarah’s Comments (group member since May 15, 2017)

Sarah’s comments from the NetGalley Addicts Support Group group.

Sarah I stumbled across that feature the other day and you’re absolutely right it was disabled.

I did turn it back on so thank you for that. At least it’s good to know it won’t happen again.

It’s frustrating because they should have a record of the files sent. When I resent the unarcjived ones they clearly showed up in my “recent documents sent to kindle”.

I have no idea why they don’t show up in the older records.

I did reach out to customer service via chat. I didn’t have time to fully pursue with them.

They asked me first to deregister and then reregister. Because apparently when you do that it’s supposed to prompt you to “restore content”.

I did that. It never prompted me the first time and it didn’t prompt me the second time. Just an annoyance.

I think the files are gone unfortunately :/. From now on will be making back up saves manually on the computer. Which is possible if you treat your kindle like an external storage device. (Which is how I’ve transferred them when moving to a new kindle historically.)

Fingers crossed I can pick them up from the library.

Hello. Today when I turned on my kindle it asked me to register my device. It was already registered but I figure it was no big deal. Maybe it just needed my password again. So I registered and lo and behold, all my NetGalley files disappeared.

Some I was able to re-download from the NetGalley site, but there were a couple older ones I still needed to review that have since been archived.

It’s not in my documents since the files get emailed from a third party site. Is there any way to recover those? I keep seeing something about restoring kindle from a back up version but don’t see anywhere on my oasis where there’s an option to restore from backup.

Any help/insight is appreciated.

Really, they still don’t have to change much, just the file format of the file linked to the send to kindle button. There’s no reason they can’t still send the Kindle files direct to Kindle. (It would just be an ePub file instead of a .mobi).

And if we do have to download the ePub before sending to kindle, it’s not that many extra steps, click the download button, open your email, type your kindle email in the “to” line, and attach the downloaded file direct from your download folder.

You can even do this from a phone (I do it with the Tor.com freebies they offer monthly). I promise it’s not that hard and they aren’t going to force you into an app.

Yes that’s what it looks like. But that’s still better than reading from an app.

They don’t have to change anything. There’s already an epub option. That’s the whole reason Amazon is switching so their hardware will no longer being the only one using .mobi.

No worries. Glad I could help!

Here is the joke I got:

Why haven't aliens visited our solar system?

(view spoiler)[They looked at the reviews and saw only 1 star. (hide spoiler)]

Okay, I'll stop now, lol.

I just tried submitting a review (the caveat here being that I did actually use an Audible credit for the book I reviewed). The countdown number is definitely in reference to the joke. It now has the picture of a partially filled circle with a 1 next to it, a 6 on the other side and a caption saying: "Great start! Now do 6 more."

I'm cracking up. Not sure why Amazon thinks this is incentive to submit reviews.

I am trying to find what you are talking about- I stumbled across a page that says: "If you rate 7 products in a row, we'll tell you a joke." Could you be counting down to a joke? I know this sounds bizarre but I swear thats what it says.

My only other thought is that I know you have to spend a certain amount of money with Amazon in a Calendar year for review privileges, it's possible they are limiting the number of non-Amazon book purchases you are able to review that weren't purchased direct from Amazon.

What Carrie said - volume of reviews is what promotes a book on Amazon's site. So yes- even critical reviews are helpful.

As long as the review is honest about what you liked and didn't like, and how much of it you did actually finish - I would say it's fair to post.

Esther wrote: "Anna 'Bookbuyer' wrote: "The only reason you being from Europe would change things is which site you use. There are 5 netgalley sites. The US, the UK, the Japanese, the German, and the French site...."

Edelweiss might include both but Anna is right- on NetGalley there are separate sites.

Yes it helps to show a regular history of reviewing. It helps more to showcase your reach. Whether it’s bookstagram, booktube, a blog or GoodReads- say how many friends/followers you have, page views, likes whatever. The more the better. Do you make purchasing decisions for your library or a book store?

Think of it as a business transaction. The publisher will grant you an ARC in exchange for the publicity (good or bad) they receive on the book, which may translate into higher sales eventually. Some of the smaller presses and indie authors may be willing to grant you an ARC to hopefully get a review up on Amazon, but reach is the most important.

There are “Read Now” titles you can accept to get started reviewing and build up some of those things. Other publishers are sometimes kind enough to note who they will grant ARCs to on their approval page so I advise always checking those before you request.

Since you are new I would advise you not to go on a requesting spree. You might be surprised at how much you get approved and then you are overwhelmed with books, at which point the reading no longer feels fun, it feels like a chore. And with many of the titles you may have no idea what you are walking into if the book is poorly written, or the blurb is misleading. And you do not want to be holding the bag for a review on a bunch of books you discover you don’t actually like. (That’s just my two cents, I tend to picky).

I use ‘review copy’.

Oh gosh Katherine I feel like such a jerk. I apologize as I hadn’t considered that.

I hope you are enjoying your MacBook at least? I know mine has been my life line. I have been on MacBooks for probably the past 15 years or so.

I don’t know if Scrivener (by Literature and Latte) has voice to text functionality, but if you write avidly it might be worth considering. I think they offer a free trial period. I also enjoy writing (not for publishing but just as a hobby) and it has some amazing features for writers.

I have to wonder - I feel like I saw this years ago, that publishers on NetGalley can prevent bloggers from being able to request their titles if those bloggers don’t meet their criteria.

So I wonder if you requested from them in the past and they switched that block on for your regular account? But your other account is request because it’s a new account?

You aren’t the first person this has happened to- I belong to another NetGalley group where a member said she had the same thing happen.

I would write NG support and ask them if they have any insight. It is very strange.

Are both accounts set to the same region? Because it might be wish for it in one region and request in another.

That’s cool- thanks for sharing everyone! So it reach and newbie status have zero bearing on wishes.