I saw this post on The Misstery‘s blog and it showed me that I was not alone in being rejected. I was quite surprised really because I thought other bloggers would have a much higher approval rate than me and I thought they were practically accepted every time. So I don’t want to hide mine anymore but instead show you a few of my many, many rejections.
I have 50 reviews up till now and I’ve been rejected 29 times so I’m used to not having my hopes up too much. It could very well be 30 today or tomorrow because I have 2 more requests pending for the same book – The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – and I’m not very hopeful anymore if they have to think about it this long (more than a month for the first request). I’m at 96% so that’s not the problem, but I don’t know what is. But, on the bright side, I did get to read 50 books for free and some of them were brilliant!
Anyway here are my saddest rejections :
Far from True by Linwood Barclay (my oldest book rejection)
I Let You Go by Clare Macintosh
Find Her by Lisa Gardner
Little Boy Blue by MJ Arlidge
All is Not Forgotten by Wendy Walker (tried twice, rejected twice)
Before I Let You in By Jenny Blackhurst
Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land
All I Ever Wanted by Lucy Dillon
The Caller by Chris Carter (OK so I don’t live in Australia..)
Rattle by Fiona Cummins
Never Let You Go by Chevy Stevens
I did get myself an e-copy of I Let You Go and The Caller and I even bought the paperback copy of Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land (okay that was partly because of the gold cover too). It is rather exceptional though because I’ll still want to read it of course but it won’t be very high on my buy-list.
I also managed to get a paper copy of Rattle by Fiona Cummins from the publisher once her second book was about to be launched and it turned out quite a good read so I’m happy I got the chance!
So were any of these books on your list? Did I miss out on anything ;-)?
The Belgian Reviewer 
This is really interesting as there are a couple of books on your list that I got accepted for, Never let you go was one. When I requested that, I had only just started blogging and reviewing. So it makes me wonder how requests are dealt with. Why give a newbie approval and not an established blogger? I didn’t have many followers at the time, very strange. Great post xx
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I don’t know how they decide.. maybe they get too many requests (it was a popular book) and they just pick readers at random or they reached a quota already? Same with Seven Deaths or paperback copies, I see bloggers with not even 50 followers getting copies. I agree that everyone deserves a chance, especially in the beginning, but it doesn’t always make sense 🙂
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It feels like a raffle sometimes x
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i get you! i am not requesting that much, just not to get up my hopes! but i mostly get rejected. but i am also careful. since i am a mood reader it wouldn’t be good to request too much and then not want to read it 😀
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Thanks Alex! I’m quite selective too but then I also need more time to read than others. I thought it was because I sometimes don’t insert the link (usually because I haven’t published it yet at that date). Well every book I get accepted for is a win and I don’t try to think of the ones that are somewhere on my wishlist 🙂
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yeah, just be happy about what you get. i mean, these are free books, so we should be happy for each and every one 🙂
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Great post! I do totally appreciate that I get free books, so I try not to get too annoyed when I get declined. However, it does still sting a bit when it’s a book you REALLY want to read (Sheer Mischief by Jill Mansell….I am still getting over that one.) 🙂
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I think that’s the right mindset and I try to keep this in mind as well. There are always book though that you’ve really set your mind on and when you get that rejection mail, it’s always a bit disappointing. Thank you Barb!
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I was approved for Good Me Bad Me and All I Ever Wanted and I was quite new to NetGalley at the time. I get approved quite often, even though I’m nowhere near your ratio of 96%. I wonder if it’s more to do with country rights than anything else?
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Cool! It might be something to do with the territorial rights, I’ve thought about it as well. I should have put UK in the beginning. In my head I live there already anyway 🙂
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Maybe you could change it?
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Good idea!
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I’m so glad so many people decided to do this post – I only thought it up because of two N’s in the title make it sound good, haha! I’v been rejected a grand total on 5 times so I really can’t complain. Two of them were American publishers so I don’t count them, haha, so really only 3 times. I have all the Netgally luck, when I thought of this, I’d only been rejected 3 times and now I see I have nothing to complain about, haha!
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Thank you for the brilliant idea. Instead of covering up my rejections it’s actually liberating to share :-).. until I hear about your great score haha. Only 3 rejections that’s amazing.. it means you get every book you want, so lucky!
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It’s good stats but I don’t request books that often so that may be why, for example this month I requested 4 books and 1 wish only and I got them all, my percentage always stays above 80 but I do pay attention to the publishers, for example if I’ve got 4 or 5 unread books from the same publisher on my shelf, I won’t request from them again until I’ve read some of them as because I don’t want them to refuse me because they think I’m requesting more when I haven’t even read the ones I’ve got 🙂
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Good tactics! I don’t have any more than 3-4 requests pending at any given time though so I always have a good percentage too, that can’t be the reason my requests are declined. It does take me some time to read but I’m normally always done before close date. I do know that I don’t always fill in a link to my review (because I post on NG first and sometimes schedule later on my blog or on pub date)..
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I don’t feed back on Netgalley until the day my review goes live because of the whole adding links thing. When you look closely at Netgalley, it’s really rather confusing, they should post a detailed guide for users 😂
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Hahahahaha I love the “Okay so I don’t live in Australia’. I say Im from UK and that’s it, if I said I live in Spain, the list would be even longer 😛
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I’m just so honest I disgust myself :-). I changed country but it says the publishers don’t see your country next to it. How do they now then? Well in my case I didn’t choose my blog name well so they know right away if they see it and think about it 🙂
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Hahahaha Touché
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I got 3 or 5 rejections then I started reading books from “Read Now” section.😂 Nice post!☺️
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That’s a good way to avoid disappointment. I’ve read a few Read Now novels but the one’s I’m really interested are mostly only available for request…
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What I want to read are never available. They show it in ‘available for request’ but when I click on it, I only see either ‘wish for it’ or ‘not available for my country’. Isn’t that wired? So have to go for read now or get ready to be denied. 😥
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I want to read Chalk Man and I can only wish for it as well, happens all the time here too so you’re not alone!
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I have The Seven Deaths sitting on my request pending shelf too so it may just be that they haven’t decided yet (at least that’s what I’m hoping).
It’s so difficult to predict which requests will be approved or declined. I’ve had publishers who usually approve every request suddenly knock me back for a book and then a few weeks later start advertising on Twitter that it’s available to request (suggesting they need more reviewers).
If it helps I’ve been knocked back for 51 and have 1 book that’s been pending for 6 months
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Thank you for sharing your experience, it does make me feel better I’m not alone :-). I have no idea how they choose who gets it sometimes!
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I get rejected too! One thing tat has helped is that I stick with requesting from only a few publishers. I think they may recognize my name now because I rarely get rejected from those…
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Thank you for the tip. I don’t usually look at publishers but I choose a book that interests me.. I’ll keep on trying and maybe I’ll have luck sometimes and sometimes I won’t :-). Good to know I’m not the only one though.. it sometimes makes me less confident and I wonder why they don’t like me 🙂
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You’re not alone Inge, I’ve been rejected over 30 times!! Most of them I don’t even know why I requested but a few have hurt. I’ve been rejected for every title by Little Brown, I’m not sure what they have against me😂 Fingers Crossed you get Evelyn Hardcastle!
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I heard Michael Joseph is also a ‘difficult publisher’ for getting approved.. weird though that Little Brown is so ‘consistent’. I wish they would give a more explanatory reason because it often feels like a raffle :-). I hope so too.. if the author follows me, then you’d think I stand a chance to at least read his book no :-)?
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You would think!! Maybe a tweet to the author is in order😉 Good Luck!
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Thanks for sharing this with us, Inge. 😉 It’s always a nice idea to look at things positively and being able to read even one book for free, and a GOOD book too, is pretty awesome. I don’t use NetGalley since I don’t read ebooks (at least not for now) and I am curious about how hard it is to even get approved. Is it based on something in particular? Like… the number of reviews you’ve posted on NetGalley or something? Or do they really check out your blog and everything before approving a request? Or does no one actually know the real process behind it all? Hahah Hope you do get your requests approved more often than not in the future though. 😉
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I don’t want to be depressed about it so best way is to try and look at it from the other side :-). To get approved on NG it’s helpful that you have a ratio of at least 80% (the more you request the % drops and with every review it goes up again). There’s also preferred countries listed but you can request anyway. The rest is a big mystery. You get a standard mail saying you are approved or rejected and in the rejection mail there are a few general suggestions (about ratio-you have to blog/review in English (duh) etc.) that don’t apply usually. It’s like a big raffle to me :-). I’m keeping my fingers crossed every single time 🙂
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I have 77 rejections and 175 approvals, that is still quite a high number of rejections. Interestingly, I never seem to get accepted for the most popular titles. I think it has something to do with my location. I got Good Me, Bad Me and I liked it. Have you read it already? I see you got the paperback. I also got a rejection for I See You. Its one book that seems to be appearing a lot on most of the rejection lists that I have seen lol.
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Wow that’s still a whole lot more approvals and a better ratio than mine. I haven’t read Good Me, Bad Me yet because I have high expectations of that one and I already knew months ago that I didn’t need any more 5 star novels for my top 10 this year, so I moved it to read next year. I know it’s crazy logic :-).
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I have Good me, Bad me in pending limbo at the moment which I fully expect to be rejected any day now 😀
It’s a cool idea for a post.. I should do this as well, although I don’t have that many numbers racked up on Netgalley… 🙂 50 reviews seems faaaar away for me… I think I just clocked 25 or 26 🙂
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It means you’ve been less rejected as well :-). It’s not a competition and I only request now when it’s a book I’m really dying to read so I’ve slowed down considerably since the beginning (you watch and learn haha).
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I just saw this on twitter 😉
I sooooo wanted the new Darynda Jones and have been approved for all the rest but then I was denied. And then there was this other book this summer, I tried the UK, the US and the AU and was denied. Then I emailed the pb and got a ARC and that just made no sense to be honest, lol
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Ah what a happy ending :-). It doesn’t make sense but I’m happy it worked out fine for you! I hope it’s a good book now with all the effort you’ve put into getting it 🙂
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It was the best one this year! I meant to do this review thing with a US friend but she got rejected by everyone too
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