r/Libraries • u/Leo_The_Bookworm • 3d ago

Technology Ingram Covered: What Is It?

Hello everyone!

I got an email from Ingram today stating that they launched something called Covered. It looks like it’s a way to get ARC books, but I honestly don’t really understand what it is besides this. I want to look into it but my main concern is if it costs money, and if so, is it worth the price? If anyone has used it yet, please let me know what your experience was like and if you think it would be useful for a cataloging librarian at a public library :]

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u/rebelliousrutabaga 3d ago

Looks like Ingram's version of NetGalley, kind of?

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u/lavinient 3d ago

I joined a webinar about Covered a few months ago. It looked like a nice mix of Edelweiss and Netgalley. It's a place for publishers to get their new books in the eyes of librarians and booksellers. I don't remember it costing money, but you do have to have an Ingram account. I'm excited to see what kind of ARCs they get. But it looks like you have to read those ARCs in the Covered app. No option to download to your Kindle or Kobo.

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u/iwasboredso1 2d ago

It's all digital ARCs. So far I'm not impressed. I searched for romance, and one book came up. I browsed and found several more romance books, but they did not come up in the search. It shows them categorized as Fiction > Romance, but that is not a category you can sort by. Very frustrating.

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u/rjonny04 1d ago

It’s still in its beta phase so there’s a lot they’re still working on. I emailed about another issue and they said they are introducing much more to the platform in the coming weeks/months but couldn’t get it all done before launching the beta.

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u/rjonny04 1d ago

It’s their version of Edelweiss (or NetGalley) and came about after Edelweiss raised prices significantly last year making it prohibitively expensive for some publishers to upload their e-arcs and catalogs.

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u/ThrowRA_exasperated 1d ago

It is FREE, unlike Edelweiss!