Tagged: ethics
I Need Your Help with an Ethical Dilemma!
When I started this blog I never even imagined I’d have the opportunity to make money from it. Get some free books, yes. But actual money? Not in a million years. Even now, three years later, I never really thought I’d have that opportunity. Except now I do.
Yesterday I received an email from Penny Sansevieri of Author Marketing Experts, Inc. She gave me a pretty good offer that was essentially this:
- If you become a reviewer for us, you can receive free swag OR
- You can directly get $20 per review, positive or negative.
I thought this sounded a little fishy so I did about two hours of research on Sansevieri and the history of the company. As far as I can tell, it all seems legitimate and I think the offer is a valid one. It seems more than fair to me to either get swag or money for doing a review, positive or negative. But will the company stick to the ‘money for a review positive or negative’ or will there be pressure to only write positive reviews? If I were to accept the offer and take the money for reviews I would be my usual brutally honest self. If I received undue pressure to only write positive reviews, I would walk away rather than compromising my principles as a book reviewer.
My main concern lies with you guys, my readers. Without going too much into my financial situation, essentially in the next half of this year my expenses are going up and my income is going down for a bit after my move to the city. I need a little more incentive to keep going with my blog and having a little bit of positive cash flow would be nice so I don’t keep spending my own money on giveaways. If I were to take the offer I would likely just sink the money back into The Mad Reviewer so that maybe I could finally afford to get my own domain name and move off the free WordPress site where the threat of arbitrary suspension constantly hangs over my head. And if I had any extra cash it would also go to more giveaways. So essentially it would make my blog a net neutral in terms of cash flow.
However, the trust of my readers will always be my number one priority. Even if I disclose when I am being paid for a review, you guys may not be comfortable knowing the fact I was paid. After writing 650+ reviews over three years I believe that the money will not influence me but if you guys are uncomfortable with that I will not take the offer. Honesty is always my priority and I do want to hear from you guys.
So:
1. Would I be compromising my integrity by accepting money in exchange for my usual honest reviews? (As a side note, my own personal submissions will always remain free of charge.)
2. Are you comfortable with the fact that I might be paid for reviews? (Note: I will always disclose whether or not I was paid, as has been my policy from the beginning regarding where I get my books from.)
Please let me know in the comments section. Or, if you’re not comfortable with that, feel free to drop me an email directly or go to my Contact page. I really do want your input and feedback, positive or negative. It will certainly help me decide whether or not to accept the offer.
Discussion: Befriending Authors
We in the blogging community often work quite a bit more closely with authors than, say, a reviewer for a national newspaper or bigger book reviewing website. One of the consequences of that is we develop pretty good working relationships with authors and sometimes those develop into friendships (insomuch as one can be friends with someone purely online). But that also brings up a big ethical question: How do these relationships affect our reviews? Should book reviewers befriend authors and review their books?
No review is completely objective, obviously. Your own experiences and likes and dislikes go into your perception of a book and the writing of the review. But being friends with an author can make writing a review a little harder so should bloggers either a) not befriend authors at all or b) not review books by their friends.
Personally I consider myself friends with some of the authors I’ve reviewed here on my blog and I still reviewed their books anyway. (This is a limited number because while I’m friends with about 5 authors most of my relationships with authors would be considered ‘professionally friendly’.) But when I write a review I totally block out any perceptions of the author as best I can. If my friend writes crappy dialogue, I’m going to tell her in the review. If the characters seem one dimensional and have very few realistic motivations then I’m going to call him out on it. Sometimes it’s hard; I’m certainly not going to claim that it’s not. However, I feel that I am generally objective enough not to let my friendships as they stand interfere in my criticism. If at some point in the future I did feel like I couldn’t objectively review a book by a friend, then I simply would not review the book.
What I want to know now is this: As a blogger do you feel it’s right to make friends with authors at all? If you are friends with an author, do you feel it affects your ability to give them an objective review? How do you balance your friendships with your reviewing principles of honesty and openness?
Professionalism and Book Blogging
I’ve had a lot of things on my mind lately, but the main one has been professionalism. Both in real life and here on my blog if I’m perfectly honest. In real life I wear my professionalism like armour because I am in a male-dominated industry with mainly male clientele. I’ve found that I’ve been doing the same thing here on my blog although writing certainly isn’t male-dominated any longer.
Everyone has differing opinions about whether book bloggers should conduct themselves in professional or semi-professional manners, whether they should be charging for book reviews (good or bad) and whether unpaid bloggers like myself should have a certain degree of professionalism in their conduct. (Especially when it pertains to our dealings with authors.)
As much as I wish I could sometimes, I have no control over the conduct of others. But I have total control over my own. So here are some thoughts on my complex relationship with professionalism:
1. All dealings with authors are as professional as possible until I’ve developed some sort of rapport with them.
Basically, when an author contacts me for a review and my submissions are open I try to behave like I do at work with a client. Once an author and I develop a certain rapport, it’s okay to be a little informal. Would I behave as I do with my closest friends? Of course not. But there’s nothing wrong with a little teasing and banter as long as it’s mutual. I’ve made some pretty awesome author friends that way: Diantha Jones, Andy Szpuk and Luciana Cavallaro just to name a few.
2. My personal friendships with authors don’t affect my reviews.
As you guys have noticed the author friends I’ve mentioned here are ones I’ve given good reviews to previously. Do I give them good reviews because I consider them internet friends? No. I’d give my own late grandmother a bad review if I felt that her writing wasn’t up to snuff. (As it just so happens, she wrote a beautiful memoir before she died and her writing is, in fact, excellent.) Although it seems like a lot of authors have trouble with this concept I believe that generally the book and the author are separate. Criticizing a book means you are criticizing someone’s work, not them personally. It’s a thin line for some, but it’s a very important distinction from my point of view.
3. Blogging is important to me, but it’s not my main priority.
While I like to think I do devote quite a bit of time to my blogging I’ve always acknowledged that while my blog is high on my priorities, it’s not my top priority in life. I work six days a week and this winter I’m taking on even more work to help subsidize my trip to BEA 2015. So are my posts always going to be super top quality? No, but they’re going to be the best I can do at the time. Will I be all caught up with my author review requests by Christmas? Sadly, probably not.
And that’s why I’ll never call myself a professional blogger. To be a truly professional blogger I’d have to dedicate far more time to my blog than I can at the moment. 20 hours a week is more than enough at this point so I’ll stick with my semi-professionalism.
4. Full disclosure to my readers is not something I will compromise on. Ever.
Call it the wannabe journalist in me, but there is one thing I will never compromise on and that’s telling the truth. If I received a book for free from an author in exchange for a review I’ll tell you at the beginning of said review. If an author friend asks me if I can post about this upcoming special sale they’re having I will as long as I’ve read and enjoyed their previous work and add a caveat in the post. If I’m posting for a blog tour, I’ll also let you know. If I’ve personally approached an author asking if I can review their book, I’ll definitely let you know.
You guys, my readers, have the right to know where my books come from and what possible influences or biases I have. That way you can decide for yourself whether to trust me or not. I’ve been as transparent as possible on this blog and I really hope that shows.
So now I want to hear from you guys: What do you think of my tidbits about my own professionalism? Do you share the same philosophies? Do you disagree with some of the things I’ve said? I’m genuinely curious here because professionalism is a pretty hot button topic within the reading and writing communities. Please let me know in the comments below.