Penguin’s First to Read Program
Besides Netgalley and Edelweiss, some publishers have their own review programs. Crown has Blogging for Books and Penguin has First to Read.
From the website:
“First to Read is a destination for readers and those who love to talk about and discover new books. First to Read provides members with the chance to be the first to read the best new books from Penguin, before they hit the shelves.”
Unlike Blogging for Books, First to Read’s titles are always pre-release copies. Also unlike Crown’s program the books are always ebooks.
The mechanics for Penguin’s program is point based. Sure, you can request things without using your points but I have not yet gotten a title that way. To make sure you have access to a title you can use points that you earn for various things including: sharing excerpts of different books, logging in every day, and reviewing a book. Each title is given a specific point value.
Do…
- Log in every day. You earn 5 points daily.
- Share excepts on Facebook and Twitter. It’s the easiest way to earn points before you get your first review book.
Don’t…
- Forget to review the books you get, especially if you used points to get it. Don’t waste them.
What book related things would you like a “The Thing About” feature for? Let me know in the comments.
Keep Reading!
I thought I was never going to get approved for a book because frankly with my work and my blog, EW, and NetG, I really didn't have time to be doing a bunch of tomfoolery for them. Anyway, when I finally did get approved for a book, I was insructed that I had to dowload this entirely new platform in order to access the titles on my Kindle, so I said buh-bye, Penguin. I unsubscribed from the First to Read emails, but they are still sending them. I wrote them an email, and tweeted about how to stop the emails and there has been no response. Pffft…
I'm really not a fan of the program either. The whole points thing irritates me and they don't have a lot of books on offer that I care about. But some people wanted to know about it so I did it.
Same here. I have yet to see a book I wanted to read much less review. :>(
There have been a couple but they're so popular (and FTR has such limited numbers of good titles) that they're always gone before I get on.
Ohh thanks for this. I might just check out this website since I've been looking for one that gives pre-releases.
Alex @ The Book's Buzz
As long as you're good with ebooks. 🙂
This is really informative, thanks!
It's nice that someone knows what they're doing 🙂
Olgia @ Orange Owls & Books
Thanks! I'm glad you think so.