Day 18: FTC Rules for Book Bloggers. Payments & Endorsements

This is Day 18 of 30 Days to Build a Better Book Blog.

I will step out of order(we were talking about book blog content,) in order to address a new and important issue for bloggers, especially book bloggers like us. Yesterday I posted on Twitter the new FTC Rules for Bloggers.

Today I want to simplify the rules in terms that we understand, as well as address a common dilemma between veteran book reviewers.

What the new FTC Rules mean?
Book Bloggers who receive payment or in-kind payment for a book review must disclose their relationship with the payor.

What is in-kind payment?

A book of retail value is considered in-kind. An ARC is not, because it cannot be sold and holds no value. The ARC or loose bound manuscript cannot be sold.

What if I do receive the actual book to review?
It's cool. However, in your review you need to add your relationship to the payor. You can write something simple as, "Disclosure: I was provided with this free product by ."

What if I was paid for the review?

You must disclose that you were paid a fee to write the endorsement.

Will this affect my credibility?

Read my next post to find out my answer. It's twofold.

If I don't disclose what will happen to me?
Fines for violating the new rule will run up to $11,000 per post.

paid blogger pic courtesy of media bistro.com

Trailer Park Tuesday: Ted Dekker's Green

This week's Trailer Park Tuesday feature's Ted Dekker's Green.

Dekker related posts:

• Summer Reading Challenge, Dekker's The Lost Books
• Dekker's Commitment to Thomas Nelson
• Ted Dekker's Chosen
  

Booker Prize Finalists Announced

Tonight at 10 Pm the Man Booker Prize announcement will take place at London's Guildhall and will be broadcast by the BBC just after 10pm across television, radio and online.

The Six Finalists are below. J.M. Coetzee may win for the third time, but the favorite for this year's prize is Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. Wolf Hall is Thomas Cromwell's fictional account of the mess that went down when King Henry VIII had to have Anne Boleyn as his wife. A hot mess. IF you're a fan of the Tudors, the Showtime series or The Other Boleyn Girl the movie or a British History buff then you will like it. Thomas Cromwell, the first Earl of Essex was an interesting political figure. I am always amazed at how these people continue to shape society.

An excerpt...

Summer arrives with no intermission for spring, promptly on a Monday morning, like a new servant with a shining face: 13th April. He, Cromwell, is at Lambeth, with Audley and Archbishop Cranmer; as the sun shines strongly through the windows, he stands looking down at the palace gardens. This is how the book Utopia begins: friends, talking in a garden. On the paths below, Hugh Latimer and some of the King's chaplains are play-fighting, pulling each other around like schoolboys, Hugh hanging around the necks of two of his clerical fellows so his feet swing off the ground. All they need is a football to make a proper holiday of it. "Master More," Cromwell says, "why don't you go out and enjoy the sunshine? And we'll call for you again in half an hour, and put the oath to you again: and you'll give us a different answer, yes?"

Read full excerpt here

The Six Man Booker Finalists are:

1. A S Byatt The Children's Book Random House, Chatto and Windus
2. J M Coetzee Summertime Random House, Harvill Secker
3. Adam Foulds The Quickening Maze Random House, Jonathan Cape
4. Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall HarperCollins, Fourth Estate
5. Simon Mawer The Glass Room Little, Brown
6. Sarah Waters The Little Stranger Little, Brown, Virago