Finally!

We interrupt this public service blog to bring you an update about its sponsor – NetGalley.

This morning we are making a couple of announcements.  The first being one that I promised a while ago: NetGalley CAN NOW SUPPORT THE SONY READER!  (oh it feels good to write that…)

Although a couple of months later than I hoped, NetGalley.com can deliver PDFs to Adobe Digital Editions (which is the software used by the SONY Reader and several other reading devices).  This means that Reviewers at NetGalley.com can now request versions of titles to be downloaded to their SONY Reader, as long as that option has been allowed by the publisher.  Today, Reviewers can log into NetGalley.com and request the majority of the Fall ’09 titles in our public catalog.

This is a major accomplishment for us, as it sets the stage for a whole string of enhancements and offerings that we are planning for the future.  Some of these things, I’m not ready to divulge, but one I am ready to commit to is the support of ePub files (should publishers enable them), which will happen in the very near future.

Our Reader community has been very vocal in asking for these reading options, and we are very pleased to be able to accommodate them.

In the theme of “Following the Reader,” our second announcement is the addition of Lindsey Rudnickas to our team as our “Digital Concierge” (tip of the hat to Michael Cairns for that phrase, which we’ve turned into a title).  Lindsey, a former publicist at DaCapo Press in Boston, will be the main liaison between our publisher community and our Reader community.

At Firebrand (and NetGalley), we believe that systems are tools, but people provide solutions.  Bringing Lindsey on board reinforces our vision of a company that helps connect publishers and professional readers.  Lindsey will be charged with understanding who is in our reader community, what their tastes are, and helping them find the books that best fit those tastes.  Additionally, Lindsey will be helping publishers reach beyond their traditional contact lists to find others who have a professional reason to review their titles prior to their publication.

I feel strongly that this human element will be the difference between NetGalley being a “good” service, and an “outstanding” service, and we’re really looking forward to Lindsey’s contributions.  Lindsey can be reached at lindsey [dot] rudnickas [at] netgalley [dot] com.

If you haven’t checked out NetGalley in a while, please do.  As of this writing, we have approximately 330 Fall ’09 titles from around 40 different publishers.

Stay tuned for more announcements in the coming months!