Thursday, October 27, 2011

Confused by FTC (Federal Trade Commission)



Blogging friends,

Do you have any articles or advice you can share in relation to the FTC rules, guidelines for Book Bloggers?

I receive free books at times, paperbacks, hardbacks and ebooks.  I receive these in exchange for a review or guest post.  I do not receive cash and I do not have any amazon affiliation etc on my blog.

Is it important to state the source I received the book from and say it is in exchange for a review?

FTC sounds far to complicated.  I became a book blogger because I love to read and love to share my opinion of books and authors.  I have no interest in becoming a 'professional reviewer', do I want my reviews to be good, yes, and strive to improve them all the time.

I do not have a review policy, why, because I want to be able to say yes, no, maybe or not even respond at times if I don't want to.

Am I putting myself or the authors/publishers at risk in anyway by not stating anything on my blog or in each post?

Any feedback would be helpful, thanks in advance.

9 comments:

  1. Don't you live in Bermuda? If so, the FTC shouldn't affect you at all.

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  2. Thanks Kathy, that is what I assumed but wasn't sure if it would affect the authors or publishers that send me the books.

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  3. I have no idea if the rule affects those outside the US, I'd guess not. I just include a sentence where I got the book from. Since I sometimes DNF ARC, and don't always give them 4.5 or 5 (some are in the 1s and 2s), I doubt they're going to say I am biased by getting a free copy of the books :p

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  4. I am not sure about this too but I just put it in as advised by the publisher

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  5. If an author sends me a book to review, I say so at the end of the review. Otherwise, if I own the book, I say, I own it and it is part of my personal library. If I borrow a book from the library, I say, I borrowed the book from my local library. If I win a book from another bookie, I say, I won the book from .... at their blog.

    I, like you, started my blog to keep track of the books I read. I didn't start it to become a book reviewer, but since I found out about the FTC, I post the books I read on another blog, and just post their title and author, and my rating system. Occasionally, I post a review, especially if the book is from an author for that purpose, otherwise, all my reviews end up at Goodreads.

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  6. I've just started getting books for review, but I definitely think it's a good idea to note at the end of a review that it was from so-and-so, free of charge, for the purpose of a review. I'm the same as you - I started my blog because I love reading and it's nice to review the books I read. Though, I think having the FTC note on a review shows your professionalism, as well, and there's nothing wrong about that. :)

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  7. The FTC isn't relevant to me either in Australia but I just make a note as "Courtesy of publisher/author" on my review.

    Shelleyrae @ Book'd Out

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  8. I have had a habit of mentioning the author, publisher or blogger who gave or recommended the book so looks like I was fine either way.

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  9. I don't have any information about it. I'll make a little research to see what is this thing about.

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