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Open letter to Portfolio/Penguin publishers @portfoliobooks

Hello,
today you declined two of my requested NetGalley titles. That’s unfortunately. I was getting happy with that service (see also this  blog). But now I see a drawback. In a not so long ago past I as reviewer had direct contact with publishers and editors. A decline of a title would be followed by the question: Why? And a discussion started.

My time is scarce so the selection I make has some value. (Sometimes I get surprised by an unexpected title by a publisher:) ). Now I get an anonymous reply like:  “You recently requested to view a title from NetGalley’s Public Catalog. Unfortunately, the publisher has declined to allow access to the title at this time. You may want to update your profile to provide more information to the publisher, and try requesting the title again.”

Of course I updated my profile a bit, but most things you need to know are in there. The bookblog  I write for seems tiny but interesting. It has a big, business audience (90.000 members of it’s paper publication Management & Literature), a very big catalogue (see Portfolio titles) and they organize a Best Managementbook of the Year  contest for the 10th time in a row this month. (I was Jury member in 2007 and 2008) Publishers in the Netherlands and of course the authors of the books selected look forward to win this award. So I like to work with these innovative online bookresellers in giving information on new books. And I’m proud in doing so for some years now.

Today I came up with a trilogy of entertainment / business crossovers. I have to send in two blogs every week, so I must scan for interesting subjects all the time. What can businessmanagers learn from famous media stars? You have the perfect selection:
Monster Loyalty HOW LADY GAGA TURNS FOLLOWERS INTO FANATICS

For what it’s worth Business wisdom of a pawnbroker

Empire State of Mind How Jay-z went from Street corner to corner office

And that could give (Dutch) business readers a whole set of new insights. And people would ask for it (by reading my posts and they do) and Managementboek.nl would start selling them. Which I think would be something you would like!
But no, they were decline (Lady Gaga is still in a waiting process)

So maybe I could boycot you for a while and leave books like The Impact Equation by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith unspoken. But that would hurt the authors for whom I mainly do this (hobby)work. To promote their books. NetGalley is an almost free service which makes it even harder to understand your decline.

I will send this blog around and maybe you read this and rethink. And get in contact: bweegenaar@gmail.com  Thanks in advance.

Update: within half an hour I was in contact with the Portfolio marketeers. Title links have been distributed so I have access to all three titles. Thanks

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