Let Me Tell You.....

I have read a ton of good books over the last week and couldn't decide which one to do a blog post about today. So, instead, I am doing a "Let Me Tell You" post.

Netgalley is amazing and evil at the same time

Through Netgalley, I get to read a ton of books for free before they are even released. The only thing I used is my kindle. I think that they do nook books as well. The downside to Netgalley is that once they are on your Kindle, you can't transfer the files. You can only read them on that one device.

The other downside is that you get to read these books 6 months before they are released. Which means that if you are a person that loves series, sagas, duologies, and trilogies, like me, this sucks. You get the first part of the story and have to wait around 18 months before you get to read the second part. With that being said, I am one of those people that wait until the last book is published before I buy a series, then I buy it all at once. I am not a patient person.

NetGalley also awards you badges for different milestones you get to. Below are the ones that I have earned.

I earned this one for submitting 100 reviews.

I earned this one because I got auto-approved by more than four publishers

This one is because I have submitted feedback for 80% of the titles on my list

You get this one when three or more of your reviews have been added to the details page by the book publisher.

I think that everyone gets this one. It just means that you are a reviewer.

Now let me tell about how I earned these amazing badges. 

I have an office job that allows me to listen to music or whatever while I work. With my Kindle text-to-speech feature, virtually every one of the 4,000 books into an audiobook without having to purchase an Audible subscription or by the audio CD's. Depending on the length of the book, I have read up to 3 a day this way.

Another thing I want to tell you about is Goodreads.

If you work a full-time job, have three kids, married, and have no bookish friends, you should totally sign up for a Goodreads account. Even if you don't have all those things, it is still a pretty cool site. You can join book clubs, play book-themed games, post book reviews, set reading goals, and my favorite enter giveaways. The more active you are on the site the higher the chances of winning a giveaway are. The other thing they like is when you are done reading a book you won, post a review. Even if it is something simple like "This book was awesome!"

While they don't have cool badges like NetGalley, they have a yearly reading challenge. You set the number of books you want to read in a year, read your books and it will automatically keep track of it for you. You just search for your title and change the status to "Currently Reading" and Voila!

The last thing I want to tell you is how much fun my blog is.

Through my blog, I have gotten to do things I never thought I would. I have gotten to do question and answer sessions with some amazing authors, I have gotten to be part of a virtual book tour, and most important, I have gotten to share my reading journey with you guys. I am always open to suggestions for questions that you want me to ask the author. I just ask that you think of questions that keep the author a person and not a product.

Well I hope you all will check out those two websites and let me know which badges you earn!