Being a book reviewer is difficult enough these days… what with more and more of the print media reducing or even entirely eliminating the amount of space they dedicate to news and reviews of recently published books, more and more of the information available to the public regarding the subject is now to be found online. However while bloggers and other new media publishers are working to try and fill the void left by the move away from print publication of book reviews, compensation for such work is far less that existed in years past. Many reviewers, including myself, are not paid at all for the hundreds of hours of work we annually put into our respective book reviewing websites. As a result, most of us produce other types of writing or, in many cases, have entire other income-generating occupations. We do it simply because we love reading books and writing reviews for the benefit of the larger reading public; however whether we are paid for our work or not, most of us, especially in the blogging community, do what we do out of a profound love for our subject.
Book publishers know all this and over the years have come not only to accept the best of the blogging book reviewers as full members of the media, they have come to rely upon them as the number of print media outlets for reviews continues to shrink. Thus just as has been done for decades, publishing firms send out review copies of forthcoming books, most stamped boldly with the statement “REVIEW COPY NOT FOR RESALE” and others not even in the final published form but merely as a pre-press galley, to reviewers whose reviewing credentials they know and respect, who have particular expertise in the subject of the book to be reviewed, and who have an established reading audience for their reviews. Some of those who receive review copies write for print publications while others for online media. The reviewer, upon receiving the review copy, is entirely free to ignore the book, read it and determine it not worthy of review, read it and determine it to deserve a negative review, or (the outcome most hoped for by the publisher) read it and find it worthy of a positive review. The important point to remember here is that once the review copy is sent to the reviewer, the discretion as to whether the book will be reviewed, or even read, is entirely that of the reviewer. For this reason a recent statement by the Federal Trade Commission is particularly onerous and lacking in justification based upon the facts of book reviewing.
In a clumsy attempt to prevent the abuse of paid endorsements by companies in marketing their products or services (in entirely separate industries from book publishing), the Federal Trade Commission has published a new set of rules that are written so broadly and in so vague a manner that many blogging reviewers may cease to practice their craft entirely for fear of incurring the penalties outlined by the commission. Such a widespread silencing of this vital and growing segment of modern journalism would ultimately yield the greatest detriment to the reading public as sources for discovering new and interesting books, and being advised by a trusted and experienced reviewer as to the respective merit of newly published titles, would dramatically disappear. In a nation where government and education leaders endlessly wring their hands over the reported decline of reading comprehension levels among our young people and the reduction in overall numbers of people who read for pleasure, this action by the Federal Trade Commission strikes at the very heart of the nation’s reading culture and as such, should be roundly decried by all who see the vitality of the publishing, reviewing, and bookselling industry, not to mention the strength of overall literacy, as a national benefit.
To think that blogging book reviewers are somehow getting rich off the entire enterprise is ludicrous at best. Reviewers often don’t even generate an amount of revenue sufficient to pay the domain registration and hosting fees for their sites each year. Adding insult to injury, as I read and interpret the new FTC rules print media reviewers seem to be exempt from this new disclosure requirement. To call this anything other than discriminatory would be in error. Furthermore, that such penalties should even be considered as being justified when leveled against poor obscure scribblers when such other examples of blatant product marketing prevalent and even celebrated in our society (the mind leaps to the “gift baskets” presented at celebrity award events, the value of which generally exceeds the price of a luxury automobile) go without legal or moral condemnation boggles the rational mind.
Nevertheless, as the FTC is non-committal about whom they are most interested in targeting with these new rules, with fines for their violation being in the multiple thousands of dollars, I simply cannot take the chance of running afoul of them. Therefore I have gone back through my reviews published on The Well-read Naturalist and added a statement of disclosure to each review indicating the origin of each book I have here reviewed. Such a statement will be added to each future review as well. I am not particularly happy about this as I think it makes the site look crass and primarily commercial when I intend it to be a journalistic endeavor, but as the British commonly say when no further or better resolution can be brought to a subject, “There it is.”
