NetGalley at BEA: giveaway update & more!

Oh my goodness folks, BookExpo America is just around the  corner!

If you’re already a NetGalley member, you probably got our email last week about our BEA plans. We have an exciting update, so I wanted to share the details of our promotion with all you “follow the readers.”


“LIKE” NETGALLEY AT BEA & ENTER TO WIN A READING DEVICE!

By BEA, NetGalley will have over 26,000 registered members and 100 publishers–which we think is something to celebrate! Our theme for NetGalley at BEA will be “COUNT ME IN” and we hope you’ll join the fun.

We’re bringing our Facebook Wall to life by asking all of you to come by booth #3718 to “like” our booth wall using the cute “I heart NG” sticker you see here and below.

Plus it’s your chance to enter our drawing to win one of three eReaders! That’s right, now we’re giving away 3 devices:

Just announced: a NOOK Color—The Reader’s Tablet (thanks  to our friends at Barnes & Noble)

a Kobo eReader (thanks to our friends at Kobo)

and a Kindle!

Of course we want the fun to extend online, so you can also pose for a picture with your sticker on the booth wall, and we’ll post the pics on our NetGalley Facebook page.


CAN’T ATTEND BEA? WE STILL LOVE YOU!  

Show that you love us too by putting this sticker on your blog.

 

Plus, if you comment on our Facebook page during BEA Week (May 23-27), you’ll also be entered into the drawing for one of the eReaders!

And one last friendly reminder:

DON’T MISS US AT THE BOOK BLOGGER CONVENTION!

I’ll  also be on the Technology for Blogging panel at the Book Blogger Convention (at the end of BEA).

See my guest blog post for the BBC here. Follow the updates on Twitter @bookbloggercon.

If you’ll be there too, make sure to say hello!


Can’t handle waiting another whole week for all this fun to start?

In the meantime, check the NetGalley Features page for links to our BEA FICTION Preview and BEA NONFICTION Preview to see which galleys will be promoted at BEA. Request them now for a sneak peek.

That’s it for now–thanks, as always, for all your support. See you soon!

–Lindsey, Digital Concierge, NetGalley

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Publishers: boost your viral marketing with digital galleys

One of the biggest challenges for publishers is tapping into the web’s inexpensive viral marketing while preventing the loss of sales and content due to theft. Oh, is that word too harsh? Theft? I bring that up because on one side of the coin, publishers don’t want to make their valued readers feel like potential criminals. But, on the other side of the coin, publishers are entrusted with authors’ content and don’t want it to lose potential profits either while sending out ARCs for review.

Let’s look at airport security for a second. It’s analogous. Airlines’ passengers, the very people who they rely on for business are treated much like criminals when poked and prodded through airport security.

Readers, who publishers rely on for reviews and buzz, may feel just as hassled and put out as airline passengers when they receive digitally rights managed (DRM) galleys. First, they have to figure out the type of DRM galley they’ve been sent. Maybe they have a Sony Reader but the DRM galley they received only works on Kindles. Or, they’re sick of reading things on their computer but the DRM galley can only be read on their computer and is not downloadable to their Kindle.

One way to avoid this is to survey your readers. Know your audience, right? Their reading habits have changed with the times. Find out if the majority of your readers use a Sony Reader, Kindle, Nook, iPhone, or other reader then offer those reading options. If you don’t already have a survey service, http://surveymonkey.com/  is great for a quick, free survey.  And, if you use NetGalley, then work with our Digital Concierge, Lindsey Rudnickas, to make sure your titles have the appropriate reading options available for your readers.

Another route to go, if you’d like to offer DRM-free, or open ARCs, so that they can be more easily passed from one person to the next, is to provide just the index and a few chapters of a galley, to get the benefit of generating buzz without all the risk. Digital galleys, unlike traditional printed ARCs, which are passed around as well, give publishers more control over how much of the content readers can view.

Let’s not forget our friends the excerpt. HTML excerpts are another way to give readers a taste of what a book has to offer without throwing the content to the wind. Just remember to use it as you would all marketing material with a call to action at the end. What would you like interested readers to do? If you’re a member of NetGalley you could provide a link to your title and suggest that interested readers request the galley now, or email the excerpt to a friend.

If you’re thinking, that’s fine, but a tad dull, add some video and or author audio clips to the DRM-free PDF you send to readers.  No matter how you dress up an ARC, it’s hard to include video and audio as easily and inexpensively as you can with a PDF (http://www.totalwebvideo.com/pdfmedia/pdfmedia.html). The benefit of digital galleys is that they can plug into so much more than their analog counterparts. 

With a little creative thinking publishers can use digital galleys to generate more buzz more easily and inexpensively than with printed galleys, without feeling like they’re giving away content for free.

 Additional Resources

E-Reader Matrix and supported formats: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix

Adobe Content Server (ACS4) can provide DRM galleys for a number of devices including the nook and Sony readers. To see a complete list: http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/devices/

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#FollowReader: Of Nooks + Blogs + Piracy

Last Friday on #followreader, we were very fortunate to have the lovely AND smart, Laura Dawson join us for a discussion on the new Barnes and Noble dedicated ereading device, the nook, as well as some conversation about Laura’s new venture Bloggapedia, and the controversy surrounding the practice of sharing ebooks with friends — is it piracy?

 

Highlights from the conversation:
The Nook:

• $259 (preorder online – not currently available for instore purchase)
• Exclusive In-Store Content — nook offers users the ability to read any ebook b+n carries via wifi while inside a Barnes and Noble brick and mortar store
• eBook Sharing — great idea: nook users can virtually loan their purchased ebooks – one at a time, for up to 14 days. Catches are, owner doesn’t have access to the title during the loan period, AND worse – publishers can opt out of the program (many have already indicated they will do so).
• SD Slot — users can sideload content (get files from their own computer, etc) and device’s hardware memory need not be a problem
• Free eBook with Pre-order –  Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point is yours for free when you pre-order a Nook.
• Full Color touch screen AND eink screen — browse for books via color screen, read on eink screen.

Bloggapedia:

 

• First curated blog directory
• Users can rate and tag blogs (the more who participate, the more refined the blog curation becomes)
• Bloggapedia blogs will be available via subscription formatted for reading on the nook AND free online for reading via webbrowsers

eBook Sharing VS. Piracy:

• readers want to be able to loan their ebooks to friends
• publishers and authors worry that ebook loans could cut into potential sales

The full transcript from the discussion can be found here.

 

Related links
the nook

Laura Dawson’s 1st impressions of the nook http://bit.ly/36TmDk

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-barnes-noble-wont-sell-nook-to-go-in-all-stores/

twitter nook contact (answers for your nook questions) @eBooksBN

Bloggapedia:

read more about bloggapedia http://bit.ly/PT1Bo

ebook sharing versus piracy:

from @dearauthor “readers have copyright rights 2″ http://bit.ly/Qd5fJ

“Trust Your Readers” from @brianoleary http://bit.ly/Mmdld

http://dealnews.com/features/e-Book-Readers-Cheat-Sheet-Amazon-Kindles-Barnes-Noble-Nook-jet-Book-more/321945.html

On e-Reading Devices in General:

E-Book Fans Keep Format in Spotlight http://bit.ly/2RyORD

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/10/25/should-i-buy-an-ebook-reader-this-year/

http://www.magellanmediapartners.com/index.php/mmcp/article/a_mobile_bibliography/

http://technologizer.com/2009/10/26/the-e-reader-explosion-a-cheat-sheet/

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