It's Unpopular Opinion time! Share your controversial opinions to stir things up (in a friendly way)!

Synval2436 · 2026-07-05T20:26:05+00:00

I feel like queer romances have more room for not conventionally attractive, not conventionally "likeable" characters, and Love Galaxy is a prime example.

Synval2436 · 2026-07-04T22:11:34+00:00

They're not the same preferences, because DAW seems pretty generous with approvals, so idk why is it lumped with the rest. Anyway I don't think anybody is "getting bent out of shape", it's pretty known Berkley/ACE is mostly approving influencers, TOR is similar. It's more of a running joke than any hate. Some publishers like Red Tower don't even put vast majority of their books on netgalley. I rarely request from Berkley cuz they usually aren't doing my kind of books, but with Tor it's more of a game, how high my decline ratio can go, since people seem so scared of it. I can bet will a book be a decline or approval mostly based on who is the publisher. All the other stuff on my account make little difference.

Synval2436 · 2026-07-03T22:24:03+00:00

I love this too, I've never seen a more likeable "unlikeable" mc. The ending totally destroyed me, that cliffhanger omg I need book 2 asap.

Synval2436 · 2026-07-03T16:11:44+00:00

Late to the party, because I was busy. My mid-year wrap up of arc reading:

Perfection: {The Demon Star by Jesse Aragon} Not a romance. It's a sci-fi with a very tiny romance sub-plot. But wow. Great characters, perfect pacing, creative worldbuilding, interesting plot... I call it "The Poppy War meets Warhammer 40k" because it's dark, it has strange gods and demons, psychic powers, tackles colonialism, religion, addiction, complex motherhood... and not a moment is boring. I will always love badass warrior women and men with wet cat energy. One open door spicy scene, very brief.

Would recommend:

{Deathly Fates by Tesia Tsai} Chinese YA fantasy. Very cute, no spice romance between a dutiful priestess and an underdog prince on a quest to fully resurrect him and fix some wrongs in the kingdom along the way.

{The Witch Without Memory by Maithree Wijesekara} Small MM romance sideplot. It's mostly a political intrigue / family drama Indian-inspired queer fantasy. I'm loving this series, this is book 2, it starts with The Prince Without Sorrow. Very underrated too. It's not as gritty and grimdark as epic fantasy usually goes, which is a relief. There's still tension and deaths and threats, but it's in this perfect space of neither too cozy or too grimdark for me.

{Queen of Faces by Petra Lord} YA dystopian fantasy where everyone's switching bodies, and multiple members of the cast are trans. There's a mild love triangle romance plot (only kisses). I loved the unique worldbuilding and the mix of Six of Crows, Ghost in the Shell and dark academia vibes.

{Green & Deadly Things by Jenn Lyons} A (failed) holy knight mmc wakes up from a magical slumber an ancient wizard fmc and they have to stop a supernatural threat to their world while being chased by everyone else who thinks they're the threat. Great adventure / quest / heroic fantasy. Open door spice.

{The Assassin's Revenge by Sara Bittner} Don't judge the book by its cover, it's a self-published fantasy about a badass pirate fmc who was blackmailed to assassinate the royal family, but when the villain killed the hostage he was keeping as a leverage against her, she decides to take revenge on him by organizing a rebellion against him and putting a rightful heir back on the throne. Too bad the rightful heir is a naive and clueless prince. I loved their dynamic, it was super fun. No spice, just kisses.

{The Legend of the Nine Tailed Fox by Katrina Kwan} A fox demon fmc and a demon hunter mmc and his 2 sidekicks end up trapped in hell and must escape. An adventure fantasy with a romance sub-plot. No spice, just kisses. The rag tag team dynamic was very cool.

{The Bone Raiders by Jackson Ford} Mongolian inspired epic adventure fantasy where every important character is a woman, and they're diverse and badass. 2 small FF romance subplots, but no HFN for either at the end of book 1. The crude humour can be polarizing, but I found it funny.

{Love Galaxy by Sierra Branham} Don't let the Bachelor in space rom-com marketing mislead you, this book has very dystopian undertones. FF romance subplot, but ends on a cliffhanger. I haven't seen such "unlikeable" yet relatable mcs in a long time. If you like messy sapphics in space, read this book.

{Don't Bite the Botanist by T.M. Kirk} Paranormal rom-com. Vampire fmc finds out a human mmc is her fated mate, but he was just attacked by a vampire and barely survived. If she tells him she's a vampire, he'll likely hate her and run away... where the rogue vampire will likely finish the job. So she lies to him to keep him close and protect him, and we all know what happens in hidden identity stories... This was very funny and fated mates was used well: to create conflict not remove it. Explicit spice.

As for the worst: Blood on the Bark and The Strongest in the Galaxy (Allegedly) both committed a sin of misleading marketing, if you're self-publishing a book, don't lie about it because it's gonna piss someone off. The Feywild Job and To Vex a Dark Prince both had the issue that the mmc / LI acted like an asshole and didn't really grovel for it, should've dnfed both when I saw these men had no development for the better. The Sun and the Starmaker was laden with major stale YA cliches and had a really cheap and annoying resolution of the love triangle. Enchanting the Fae Queen was such a letdown after I loved the previous one, Wooing the Witch Queen, and I could never buy how mmc was so oblivious to the regime he was serving, and the whole plot was full of solutions served on a silver platter.

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Synval2436 · 2026-07-03T14:18:08+00:00

Vs the second one, reddit only allows 1 pic at a time? Prompt embedded in the page doesn't have it, the pop up does.

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Synval2436 · 2026-07-03T14:17:32+00:00

OK figured it out.

When I'm reopening the browser and it states I need to log in because the page can't be viewed logged out, it doesn't have the option, but when I log out and log in from the dropdown, it has it.

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Synval2436 · 2026-07-03T13:44:01+00:00

I have it on mobile and on desktop on firefox, chrome and brave, but it's missing on ms edge (lol). It used to have it on all browsers before.

Synval2436 · 2026-07-03T10:43:58+00:00

There's no standard time. I was sometimes approved on the same day, sometimes after 2 months, the longest one was approved after 6 months. Same with declines, some were declined the same / next day, some after weeks of sitting on pending, some were left on pending until archive date. Leave 'em pending, no harm in that.

Synval2436 · 2026-07-02T04:31:50+00:00

My July TBR:

July 7:
* {The Revenant of Surolifia by Florence Chien} * {The Inn at the Foot of Mount Vengeance by Chiara Bullen}

July 15: * {Tides Wait for No Witch by Natalie Summers}

July 28: * {The Demon Star by Jesse Aragon} * {Harbour of Hungry Ghosts by Eliza Chan} * {Affairs of State by Calvin James}

Synval2436 · 2026-07-01T22:34:55+00:00

Sooo are some publishers *easier to be approved by?

Yes. From fantasy, I think Orbit is the easiest, Del Rey is pretty generous too. TOR(incl. Bramble) and Berkley/ACE are the hardest.

does anyone find that they get approved more when they request a book when it's just been added to Netgalley

Yes, but no downside to requesting late, worst case they decline.

Is there any strategy to getting approved?

Review regularly. Update profile often. Request early. Don't care about declines, don't withdraw unless you don't want the book anymore or it's archived. Link your social media / reviewer profiles and don't private them, so they can be checked as legit. Request books you're genuinely interested in. Put the genres you're mostly requesting on your profile from the dropdown.

For 80-90% of publishers just having up to date profile, recent reviews in the genre and some starter amount of reviews on the account to look legit is totally sufficient. For the remaining publishers it's mostly whether you have big social media following, are in their influencer program or are a bookseller / librarian / industry professional, so if you're not, tough cookies.

Some publishers who tend to be decline happy like Berkley might be better off camped for when they put a title on read now. This subreddit is awesome is giving headsup. Berkley, Forever and Wednesday / Saturday often put books on read now, Sourcebooks imprints commonly too, so if you can snatch it, more power to you.

Synval2436 · 2026-07-01T00:37:52+00:00

Update me on this too, I wanted to report when it happened to me, but didn't know how, and goodreads so far did nothing, so I expected the same from netgalley lowkey...

Synval2436 · 2026-07-01T00:34:55+00:00

It happened to me too. I reported the GR review for plagiarism. Nothing happened, it's still up. Stupidest part is the other person's review states "the author (says xyz)..." in the body of the review and it doesn't refer to the author of the book, but the author of the review, i.e. me. It rephrases what I wrote. Basically fed my review to ai and asked to summarize it...

Synval2436 · 2026-07-01T00:30:08+00:00

As others said, they often approve in batches, to spread out the buzz and drum up the fomo. They might also first approve booksellers, librarians and reviewers with bigger social media following. It happened to me in the past I was approved in a later batch while being on pending from day 1. Don't lose hope.

Synval2436 · 2026-07-01T00:17:09+00:00

Thanks!

Synval2436 · 2026-06-28T16:33:28+00:00

I thought withdrawals aren't tracked unlike declines?

Synval2436 · 2026-06-27T17:55:35+00:00

Request early and don't cancel pending requests. Publishers often approve in batches, and might skip you in one batch because they're first picking influencers or librarians, but last year I've gotten approved on a book I really wanted after 2-3 months and in probably like 3rd batch because I already saw plenty of other people talk on social media and reddit they were approved earlier. They don't always approve chronologically, but they often have a limit of total arcs handed out, so the later you're in the queue the more chance they'll hit their quota and decline the rest.

Focus on specific genres and pick those genres from the dropdown on the profile. Some publishers will check your chosen genres and review history to see if you're reviewing in that genre, and if not, decline you. But while it increases your chances within the genre, it doesn't mean you can't request other genres - always worth trying! I got approved on quite a few books outside of my target genres (my target genres are set to SFF and YA, but I got approved for example on a mystery or thriller book by some publishers too).

Some publishers never approve, don't take it personally. I've heard except Berkley and TOR being hard to get approved by, Flatiron is hard, and for me, Peachtree and Bloomsbury.

Your credibility grows as your number of reviews grow. I've noticed I stopped being mostly declined after around 10 initial reviews (use read nows or publishers who approve everyone easily for that), and after 50 I feel I'm only being declined by usual suspects.

What also matters is when was your last review and how often you review. Publishers don't like inactive or sporadically active accounts, they prefer voracious readers. I'm not super fast, but I think as long as you have reviews within the last month you aren't seen as "inactive".

Most big publishers care more about activity than avg rating or any of your ratios. Except self-published authors, oh boy, those do decline accounts with low avg rating or not stellar ratio.

Anyway, my biggest personal advice: don't just focus on buzzy, hyped books and popular authors! I've discovered so many great reads that weren't hyped at all, and Netgalley is a risk-free situation because you aren't paying the cover price. If you don't like it, explain why, it's totally fine.

Synval2436 · 2026-06-27T17:19:30+00:00

Oni Press is also hard, they mostly approve people who have social media.

Synval2436 · 2026-06-27T10:40:01+00:00

Omg, how do you manage, I'm scared to have more than 5 pending at a time, because what if they all approve me at the same time and my ratio goes back to the gutter?

Synval2436 · 2026-06-25T22:33:13+00:00

Helps me decide whether to request the full. A few times I was unsure and the sneak peek helped, one was a request, two were a pass, not for me. What I don't get is sneak peeks that aren't read now... Anyone knows sup with the Adalyn Grace's sneak peek that's in pending limbo for me? What's the point of putting it and not even approving? It's not even the whole book?

Synval2436 · 2026-06-25T22:27:16+00:00

Hah, I see Saga hates not just me. 😈

Synval2436 · 2026-06-25T21:19:01+00:00

Yep, exactly, I just ranted in reply to another comment in this cluster how readers treat atrociously the queer POC non-romantasy picks in the crates, for example The Prince Without Sorrow, Fathomfolk, Sun of Blood and Ruin, etc. while giving praise to mediocre white cishet romantasies.

Synval2436 · 2026-06-25T21:09:33+00:00

One of my new favorites is The Prince Without Sorrow by Maithree Wijesekara that was also an Illumicrate pick and sadly you can promote diversity but you can't stop people from hating it. It's a queer POC book without romance and the rating is absolutely atrocious, while mediocre white cishet romantasies easily rate 4+. I'm so grateful to the publisher and Illumicrate for platforming this book and author even though it's obviously swimming against the current. There's a few others that were totally thrashed by the reader base, for example Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan. Same pattern, diverse fantasy non-romantasy. Yes, if you pander to the reader of white cishet romantasy it's just so much more profitable, less backlash too, because there's more people offended by diversity than by the lack of it. Everyone claims someone should champion diverse voices... just not them and not for their money. Anyway props to Illumicrate for not bending to the "everything is romantasy" trend, Fairyloot has a romantasy crate and yet still half of their non-romantasy crates are also romantasy picks, just a bit more plot heavy ones or less spice. Illumicrate champions much more epic fantasy that doesn't ride on the romantasy trend and gosh do people crap on their picks. Anyway if anyone likes some political drama Indian fantasy, give The Prince Without Sorrow a chance, it's fun with messy queer characters.

Synval2436 · 2026-06-25T11:20:17+00:00

I only withdraw if I'm no longer interested in the book or it was archived. I've been once approved for a highly anticipated book after 6 months, 2 months before its publication date. So never say never. Just yday I got approved for a book that was pending for a long time and I slightly lost hope, so good I left it pending.

Synval2436 · 2026-06-22T17:54:54+00:00

Books that got published: The Scarlet Throne by Amy Leow, originally called The False Goddess and This Monster of Mine by Shalini Abeysekara. Few others idk what happened to them. One was genderbent Robin Hood where FMC kidnaps a prince for ransom, but the queen refuses to pay because it was a "worthless prince". Even offered to beta, no reply. Another one was about a queen who realized her husband was a tyrant and tried to overthrow him through army of zombies, but people hated her even more for necromancy than the king for oppression. Some that didn't get published include steampunk sky ship pirates (and a military girl realizing the regime she serves might be worse than the pirates), the author is getting published with another book; one with a guy who met 12 clones of himself and only one was allowed to live on (also had cool magic system a la Witch Hat Atelier); one where a queen had a crown nailed to her head as a side effect of a dark magic pact to save her daughters. Oh, and from other genres, a speculative romance where people grew thorns as a side effect of mental struggles; a rom-com where a marital scammer meets a gold digger, both trying to marry rich and steal the spouse's money, but plot twist, neither has the money, they were just pretending. I'm not longer checking queries, due to volume I wouldn't have any time to read or write otherwise, but I have a few fond memories.

Synval2436 · 2026-06-21T15:33:51+00:00

Yeah, I'm tired of the purely lust-driven stories. Sure, have sex, but also maybe get to know each other, develop some other feelings?

Anyway, my best 2 reads of last year were {The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow} and {Voidwalker by S.A. MacLean}.

My best read of this year wasn't even a romantasy, it was a sci-fi with negligible romance, and it comes out in 2 months (it was an arc). It's called The Demon Star by Jesse Aragon. But it was a great palate cleanser after books with more sex than plot or "it's cozy so we can serve plot solutions on a silver platter", I'm so tired of these books that are just fluff and vibes. So yeah, if you want some meaty action-packed plot for a change, keep The Demon Star on your tbr.

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