Yesterday the Federal Trade Commission issued its guidelines for celebrity endorsements, bloggers, and advertisements. The guidelines are designed to protect consumers by making it clear when an endorser has received a free product in exchange for an endorsement. But we, and many book review bloggers, believe these guidelines will have a chilling effect on the online book reviewing community. The threat of fines may just cause some bloggers to stop accepting books from publishers. For some astute commentary on the rules, check out Ron Hogan (who writes the literary blog Beatrice) over at GalleyCat. And read our letter after the jump, and consider writing your own if you feel strongly about this.
Richard Cleland
Federal Trade Commission
Bureau of Consumer Protection
600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20580
October 7, 2009
Dear Richard Cleland,
I am writing in regard to the
new rules governing online endorsements, advertisements and testimonials. I
believe these new rules, though well-meaning, are misguided, confusing, and
unfairly distinguish between online and print media.
I am a publicist for Duke
University Press. We publish about 120 books per year and rely on various forms
of media to help us get the word out about our books. For each book we publish,
we devise a review list, which is a list of media to whom we send free copies
of the book with the hope that book reviews might result. We have done this for
decades. We send books to academic journals, newspapers, magazines, prominent
individuals, and, in the past five years or so, bloggers and online columnists.
We send these books with the hope of
a positive review, but with no agreement or contract with the recipient. They
are free to give the book a negative review, or to toss it in the trash. It’s
just a way to get the books into the hands of people who might write about
them.
When the New York Times reviews a book, they are not expected to issue a
disclaimer that the publisher gave them the book for free. When an author
appears on The Today Show, the hosts
do not first have to announce that the producers were given the books for free.
When a review runs in a scholarly journal, there is no disclaimer sentence at
the beginning of the review saying that the book came free from the publishers.
Why, then, should a blogger have to put this disclaimer into his or her review?
What is different about their review? Most print media now put their content
online, so the difference is even more blurred. And asking people to put a
disclaimer in their Twitter posts is completely ridiculous. They are only 140
characters long!
I believe most people
understand that magazines and newspapers would not be able to review products
if they didn’t get them from the manufacturers. It would simply be too
time-consuming and expensive to try to go out and find all the new products. Bloggers
are journalists, and they work long hours for low or no pay.
As more and more newspapers
and magazines close, companies are looking for new places to get the word out
about their products, be it books or cosmetics, toys or appliances. Many of us
have turned to new media to get review attention. We consider the writers for
this new media to be journalists or columnists, just like those at
old-fashioned print publications. The threat of huge fines might make many of
them stop accepting books from publishers. I hope the FTC will reconsider these
new rules that will make it harder for consumers to learn about new products
from online reviewers that they trust.
Sincerely,
Laura Sell
Senior Publicist
Duke University Press
Professional journalists have their code of ethics: http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp. Do most/any of the book bloggers you send books to belong to that group/abide by that Code? Do you even check if they do? Maybe you ought to start? Or only send review copies to those that do? Or to those that hold to at least this one: http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php.
Just some thoughts.
Disclaimer: I'm a Duke Press vendor. I have done work on the BMain FileMaker database. :)
Posted by: twitter.com/ChrisKubica | October 07, 2009 at 11:56 AM