reviewing

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I am by no means an expert on NetGalley. I’ve only been using it consistently for about a year now. But recently I’ve discovered something really helpful, that you may or may not already know, and thought I should share!

The one thing that’s more stressful about reading electronic ARCs than a physical ARC is the time restraint. eARCs expire, and you only have a set amount of time to get them read, or else you either don’t get to finish the book, or start it at all. This all ends up affecting your Feedback to Approval Ratio (which is recommended to be kept at 80%).

Recently, I was on hiatus, and was nervous about getting a book read in time before the archive date (for those of you wondering which book, it was These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly). But what I discovered is, you don’t need to get the book read before the archive date. As long as you download a copy of the eARC to your eReader or Adobe Digital Editions program before the archive date, you still get 54 days to read the book. This was a huge stress reliever for me. No longer do I have to get a book read by its release date (often the archive date). If I download the book a day before the archive date, I still have 53 days left to get the eARC read after that date.

Maybe this is old news to seasoned NetGalley users, but I found this to be an awesome revelation. Of course I’m still planning to try and stick to getting the book read and reviewed before the release date. But, if I ever get into a reading bind, I know that I can (kind of) extend the life of my eARC for a bit longer!

So, did you guys know about this? Or is this news to you? Any other little-known NetGalley tips you’d like to share? Let me know!

A couple of days ago I read Lauren’s post in which she discusses reading, rating, and reviewing, and how following either her head or her heart can alter the “bookish process” as she calls it. After reading that post I began to think about how I’m a lot like Lauren, in that when I read, rate, and review, and form opinions, I tend to follow my brain for some jobs, and my heart for others. So I decided to write a post similar to her’s, discussing my thought process when it comes to reading and reviewing.

Reading

I read fully with my heart. I read for enjoyment. Becoming a book blogger and reviewing books hasn’t changed that for me at all. It’s actually pretty rare where I’ll read a book and not enjoy it at least a little bit. That’s because when I read I’m totally into it, and I’m having fun, because much like blogging, reading is a hobby. I don’t over-analyze or criticize the writing while I read, because for me, that would ruin the story. Even if it’s the worst story in the world, I could probably pinpoint a part that I enjoyed. Of course there are things that will stand out as negative sometimes, but I try not to focus on that and let it take away from the parts I’m enjoying. That’s just how I am. I love a story. And most of all, I love reading them.

If you’ve noticed, I don’t DNF many books, and the majority of the books I read are rated 3 or above. Now I like to think that’s because I’m getting good at choosing what I’ll like, and what will be a good read, but it’s also because as I said before, I can pretty much find something to like. Now you’re probably thinking, well, does this mean her reviews aren’t reliable?

Reviewing is where I get to be the composed and intelligent blogger and the crazy fangirl at the same time. I review with my head and my heart, but depending on the book one will most likely dominate the other. For some books, I don’t really decide on a rating until after I’ve written my review. While I write about a book, I can kind of gauge the quality of the book and the enjoyment I felt from reading it based upon how many fangirly paragraphs I write, and how many nit-picky ones I write. So if you’ve been reading this blog a while, you’ve probably noticed how my reviews don’t have a particular style to them. Sometimes I’ll be serious, sometimes I’ll go on crazy rants of rage or excitement. It just depends on me, and the book.

Rating

Ratings are where I solely use my brain. This is for a couple of reasons. The first being that someone may visit the blog, skim the review, and miss out on a point that I made. I want the rating to accurately convey how I feel that the majority of readers would think of the book (which I would assume to be more along the lines of a serious and more analytical view). Also, ratings are more universal. There’s Goodreads ratings, other bloggers ratings, etc. Each mean different things specifically, but the accepted star rating system is 1 to 5, 1 being bad, 5 being amazing based on the quality of the book. For example, I’ve written fangirly reviews for books that I’ve only given a 3 star rating because while the story was there, the writing wasn’t.