How To Request Graphic Novels On NetGalley

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Requesting graphic novels from NetGalley is now my favourite thing.

Wait, what is NetGalley?

If you’re unsure what NetGalley is, it’s a website that book bloggers, reviewers, and YouTubers can sign up to to request e-ARCs (electronic advance reader copy) of a vast range of books. If you post reviews online and share them on social media, then you can sign up straight away and start requesting books. Once you’ve read and reviewed it, you head back to NetGalley and give feedback on the book, and link up any reviews you may have posted.

However! Be careful what you request. Back when I discovered NetGalley I was so excited that I went to town requesting books. Not every request you put in for an ARC is going to be accepted; just because you really want to read a book doesn’t mean you’ll definitely get accepted for the book, for a variety of reasons. Those that you are accepted for, you’ll be alerted about by email, and then you can head to your NetGalley shelf on the website and download the book. Back in the day I was accepted for about half the books I requested, but that was a lot. I read some of them, and then I forgot about some of them. My issue was that while I had a Kindle back in the day, I didn’t actually love reading eBooks. I definitely prefer the physical book. 80% of my NetGalley books stayed on my Kindle, and I never read them. That’s terrible.

Having said that, my NetGalley copy of The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard was the book that started off my love for that series. If I wasn’t accepted for that review copy, then it would have taken me a long time to pick up that story, I think. By the time the others in the series had been released, the brilliant people at Hachette NZ were sending me the next instalments, books I could request knowing I already loved the story, thanks to NetGalley.

A few years passed when I didn’t request any books through NetGalley, mostly due to the fact that I felt bad that, while I did genuinely want to read the books I requested, I never got round to it because, well, eBooks, and also because I began working with publishing companies who provided me with physical copies of books for review. There was no reason for me to request eBooks when I was requesting physical books. That was until this year.

Graphic novels on NetGalley

Over the past year or so I’ve really gotten into reading graphic novels. Sophie and I, on our podcast Rants and Reviews, dedicated an entire episode to this very topic. I’ve been borrowing some from the local library and reading some web-comics too, but it wasn’t until I realised that NetGalley also offered ARC graphic novels that I really started to remember why I loved the site to begin with.

I’ve requested a couple of graphic novels recently, and while I struggled to find a way to read them (there are a couple of different formats that the books come in, and the Adobe Digital Editions version is one them; the app for mobile is ridiculous and doesn’t actually work so I had to read the books in this format on my desktop computer – not ideal, to be honest), it’s been really fun to read and view some of these great stories and excellent illustrations.

My rule for NetGalley now, despite seeing so many books that I would actually love to read, is ‘only graphic novels and comics’. This limits me, yes, but it does mean I will actually read them, review them, and give feedback for them so the publishers of these books can log my opinions with the rest of those who requested them. I’m looking forward to discovering more graphic novels, authors and illustrators in the years to come!

What about you? Do you use NetGalley? Or read graphic novels?

P.S The book in the image is Bloodlust and Bonnets by Emily McGovern. It’s one that I requested just recently. You can find that here on NetGalley or here on Goodreads.