ABA and NetGalley Introduce Digital White Box

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New program to facilitate broader distribution of galleys to indie booksellers

The American Booksellers Association and NetGalley have announced the launch of a Digital White Box program that will allow publishers to introduce new titles exclusively to ABA members via NetGalley. The program, which will enable more individual booksellers to read new titles earlier from a diverse group of publishers and genres, will be available to ABA members only via a sign-up page on BookWeb.org. There are more than 10,000 bookseller members worldwide registered on NetGalley; the service is free for booksellers and other professional readers.

“Every individual working at an ABA member store is a natural recommender,” said ABA Senior Program Officer Joy Dallanegra-Sanger. “This program will give more of those individuals the ability to read titles early, and give more publishers the opportunity to introduce a broader selection of titles to indie booksellers.”

The Digital White Box program complements and expands on the association’s long-standing Red and White Box programs, which provide physical galleys and promotional materials to qualifying ABA member stores.

NetGalley will be providing support for booksellers accessing galleys digitally. “If more individual booksellers can use our service to preview a more diverse selection of new titles, everyone wins,” said NetGalley President Susan Ruszala. “We’re looking forward to working with more indie booksellers and expanding the features we offer to this community.”

In October 2013, NetGalley began facilitating ABA member nominations to the Indie Next List, and NetGalley is supporting the ABA Indies Introduce Debut Authors program, an initiative through which indie bookstores recommend debut authors of note.

NetGalley will be meeting with indie booksellers during the Consultation Station at ABA’s Winter Institute in Seattle to answer questions and to help booksellers sign up for the Digital White Box program. Booksellers can contact Ruszala to set up an appointment or just stop by the NetGalley table. The first selection of Digital White Box titles will be offered to booksellers in early February.

More than 250 publishers worldwide use NetGalley to interact with more than 160,000 professional readers. Booksellers, reviewers, bloggers, media, librarians, and educators can register for free, request digital galleys from the catalog, be invited to view a title by a publisher, and provide feedback. NetGalley members can view secure digital galleys on all major reading devices and tablets.

ABA members can sign up for the Digital White Box program here.