NetGalley Addiction

Hello, my name is Tiffany, and I have a raging addiction to NetGalley.

NetGalley is a social media site for librarians, teachers, reviewers, and bloggers to receive free advanced reader's copies as e-books.  They are available in PDF and most can be downloaded to a Kindle or Nook.  So, I get to read free books before anyone else.  That's what I call amazing!

Except that it is exactly like a galley grab at a national conference.  You load up on books that you know you won't read, that aren't worth your time, that take up way too much precious space in your luggage just because you can.  Then you end up with reader's guilt.

Reader's guilt is something that all book lovers have faced at some point in their lives.  You have a stack of unread books that call to you, but quite frankly, you don't want to read.  But isn't it the purpose of every book-to be read!  By ignoring these books, they aren't able to fulfill their destiny!  And if you don't read that little ARC, it might never realize it's dream of being a real, live book!

So, that was a little dramatic.  But it's true.  After a while, a true reader feels guilty about all the books that go unread.  But I believe that life is too short for lousy books, or books that don't speak to you, or books that (yes it's true) should have never been published in the first place.

Because that's the thing about galleys.  A publisher releases a galley for one reason-to create buzz.  Sometimes it's to create advance buzz for a book that is going to be amazing (Every Day-it comes out August 28 and trust me, you will want to be on this one from the beginning-it's incredible!).  Other times it's so a publisher can introduce a book early so it won't go completely unnoticed when published.  I honestly only have time for the amazing galleys, but I have become an e-book hoarder, clicking "Request Now" for nearly anything that doesn't look completely cliche and horrid.  But it must stop!

So, here is my pledge.  I, Miss Tiff, will remove half of the galleys from my Kindle.  I will not feel guilty about this decision.  It is for my reading sanity.  I will choose my requests more carefully and only request books that I feel deserve my time and attention.  I will make more time (and space on my Kindle) for books that I want to read, not books I feel an obligation to read.

I feel better already!  More free and weightless!  How liberating!

Happy Reading!

PS:
If you are a librarian, teacher, blogger, etc., I do still recommend NetGalley.  Like I said, I have found some amazing books on there. (See this post, this post, and this post), but I would honestly say for every great book, I read two that just weren't quite worth my time.  So, choose carefully.