First of all, a little background. NetGalley is a website/company/service that allows publishers to share e-galleys with reviewers. This can include reporters, bloggers, teachers, librarians, and other professional readers. Each publisher does their own approving of e-galley requests, and each publisher sets their own criteria for who they approve. Some companies are more strict than others. I’m a NetGalley reader, and I’ll tell you right now that I frequently get turned down for not meeting the requirements (as an author/blogger, some companies require a certain number of page views in order to approve you).

And now on to Meant to Be… it’s on NetGalley! YAY! If you’re a professional reader, I encourage you to skip on over and request it. I’ve been getting some awesome tweets from bloggers letting me know they’ve already read (and loved!) my sweet little book. Seeing those tweets is one of the best things in the whole wide world!

But it’s not all daisies and roses! Meant to Be making its way in the world is also pretty scary, because it means there’s not much I can do anymore. Sure, I can encourage you to read it, but when it comes to whether or not you like it? Well, my job there is done. It ended months and months ago with drafts and revisions … and more revisions (because hey, ARCs and e-galleys are uncorrected proofs! There was another round of line edits that came after). I just have to hope I did my job well back then, because no amount of blogging, tweeting, signing, or high fives will make you love Meant to Be.

Now if I can be a little immodest, let me take a moment to say … I think I did a good job. I think Meant to Be is sweet and funny and swoony, and I hope you love Julia and Jason and the rest of the gang as much as I do. And I hope if you get an e-galley or a hard copy ARC and you love it, that  you’ll tell the world about it! Meant to Be hits bookstores in just over six months, and you early readers are uber-important in making sure that it gets into the hands of readers down the road. So THANK YOU to those of you who have already posted reviews or ratings on GoodReads or who have shared tweets or Facebook statuses about my very first novel. You guys are THE. BEST.

Oh, and one last note … e-galleys are awesome. They mean more advanced readers at a lower cost to my publisher. Unfortunately, they also raise the risk of pirated copies of books getting out there. How can you help? Well, first of all, don’t hack the e-galley and share it. That’s wildly illegal, and in the end will cost you waaaaay more than the price of buying the book (pre-orders are less than $11 on Amazon!). And if you see it available somewhere, don’t steal it! As I said on twitter yesterday, stealing books is the same as kicking kittens. If you wouldn’t kick kittens, then don’t steal books!

And don’t forget, even if you’re not a NetGalley reader, you can still enter to win a (signed!) ARC over here!