How to get an 80% feedback ratio on NetGalley

Obtaining NetGalley’s ideal Feedback Ratio of 80%, and their badge, feels like an impossible feat when you’re just starting out or already so far behind. I improved my Feedback Ratio in less than a day — going from 42% to 81%.

It’s not impossible if the odds can be played in your favor and you understand how the maths works.

The importance of NetGalley’s Feedback Ratio

As a NetGalley reader, your Feedback Ratio increases your chances of publisher approval when you request books you reaaaally want advance reader copies (ARCs) for. The lower your percentage, the less likely you are to be approved.

Feedback Ratios aren’t the only deciding factors publishers use, but many of the bigger publishers will require high Feedback Ratios — so it’s best to keep it as high as possible, when you can.

Understanding the maths

If you’re approved for 10 books and only read three of them, that’s a 30 percent Feedback Ratio (FR).

But if you have 20 books approved and read eight, that’s 40%.

To calculate percentages in general, the equation looks like this:

percentage = total × (part/whole)

For NetGalley’s FR, it’s like this:

needed = (80/100) × requested

Let’s say you have 21 books approved and have provided feedback on 17. That’s an 81 percent FR, as NetGalley calculates for you, or a four-book difference.

What if we had 40 books approved? How many would you need to 80 percent?

x = (80/100) × 40
x = (.8)(40)
x = 32

You would need to send feedback on 32 of your approved books to hit an 80% FR.

The higher the total number approved you have, the more leeway.

Bear with me here, because I know literally everyone who writes about increasing your NetGalley Feedback Ratio encourages you not to request more books, but this is what helped me.

Reading three out of 10 books is a 30% FR, meaning you’d need to read minimum 8 books to hit 80%.

But you only need 16/20 books to hit 80%.

Or 24/30, 32/40, 40/50, etc…

And yes, the amount of feedback you’d need to read increases, but so does the amount of leeway you have.

Because that’s 6/30, 8/40, 10/50 unread opportunities.

If you’ve sent feedback for 40/50 books, that’s 10 books you don’t have to worry about right now.

For me, I have a tendency to get caught up in all the sparkly, shiny new book opportunities and download everything, which worsens my FR because I’m not sending feedback — just experiencing the fear of missing out (FOMO).

How to increase your NetGalley Feedback Ratio with more books

?? More books??

Yes.

Sometimes, my approved FOMO books expire/get archived before I can finish them, so then I’m stuck with them in my approved stats, but no way to review them. So I definitely need additional books in order to raise my Feedback Ratio — but there’s a strategy to this, as you don’t want to go for books that will take you too long to read.

1. Check your local library or Prime Reading for expired/archived NetGalley books.

While you can buy the expired/archived NetGalley books if you absolutely want to, why do it if it’s just to review and definitely not required?

Your library might have at least one of your expired books that you can check out and read so you can send feedback.

Also: Look for books in your Archived, Not Downloaded list at your library, in Prime Reading, and/or Libby as well, for second chances.~

2. Utilize NetGalley’s “Read Now” and “Listen Now” categories.

I read and listen to a lot of children’s books, graphic novels and novellas on NetGalley because they’re short and do not require a lot of my time.

The more quick books you read and send feedback for, the faster you can improve your Feedback Ratio — and the expired/archived books sitting in wait for their feedback won’t matter as much, because you will be less affected.

• Read Now
• Listen Now

3. Choose 3 “Now” books for every request

Requesting books through NetGalley risks your Feedback Ratio, so watch it. One way to tame your requests is to force yourself to read and give feedback on three Read/Listen Now books every time you even request one book.

This helps keep your Feedback Ratio from dropping too low, as signing on to find five new books in your NetGalley approvals means your FR has dropped.

4. Read graphic novels & children’s books

Most of these are quick to read, because most of these are picture books.

Does this affect your profile genres? YES, but I find it worth it so long as I DO request and read wordy books at least once every 10 graphic novels.

That said, I do enjoy graphic novels — so your mileage may vary.

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In an ideal world, your Feedback Ratio would be perfect, because you would’ve only requested books you were genuinely interested in reading — and actually read them.

But it’s not an ideal world — so do your best with what you’ve got and familiarize yourself with your limits.