Dear Author » FTC

Thursday Midday Links: Thinking of Buying a Dorchester Book?

Jane — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:00:44 +0000

Barnes and Noble is going to be selling the nook in Wal-mart stores next to the iPad starting October 24, 2010. The wifi iPad will also be offered in Verizon stores beginning October 28. Be careful of the “packages” that Verizon is offering because there doesn’t seem to be much of a savings. BN has also sent out invitations for a special event next week. Nate from theDigital Reader suggests that there is a new large screen device to pair with the previously launched nookstudy.

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If you are a Starbucks fan, you might be interested in a new Starbucks Digital Venture that presents a digital network for customers containing movies, books, etc.

A feature called the Bookish Reading Club offers a rotating selection of digital titles from publishers Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster. People can read the books -’ sometimes the entire text, sometimes an excerpt -’ in their browser via an HTML5 reader while on the network.

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Borders presents its own self publishing service for ebooks. BN readers complain about the influx of BN’s self publishing ebooks through PubIt.

Please can we have a search function that allows us to filter out Pubit books if we wish? I have been using the new releases tab in ebooks to browse and find mystery books I want to buy – but I am finding that I now get floods of Pubit books. Many of these are not even classified sensibly – should “Age of Information” really be showing up in the mystery/thriller category or Jane Austen books in science fiction?

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Forbes has followed up on the FTC Guidelines for bloggers and has found few cases being investigated. Of course, this doesn’t mean that bloggers should forget that the guidelines exist.

"Not everyone's going to obey the law," Engle adds. "People will always use shills. Where we see actions we think are egregious, we'll bring action."

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Dorchester is apparently having problems getting books for which it does not hold the rights taken off of online retailers. Authors and at least one agent have sent letters regarding what they view to be the unlawful sale (and in some cases giving away) books that Dorchester no longer holds the rights for and received no response from Dorchester. The timelines is very sad but basically a month of sales/giveaways has occurred for at least two former Dorchester authors: Jana DeLeon and Leslie Langtry. Fortunately for those authors, the copyright law affords them the highest civil protection: Strict liability, treble damages, and attorneys’ fees. Dorchester might not have any money but if Amazon, BN, etc are ignoring DMCA takedown notices, a case could be made against those two healthy companies.

In the comments, Chris Keeslar shows up and wags the angry finger at Sarah for failing to follow up with Dorchester and him for comment. I think Keeslar’s responses should be directed toward the authors who claim over a month of silence and non response. When you buy a Dorchester book, you may want to think about what is going on there.

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Hard Case Crime used to be with Dorchester but with the changes (going digital and then trade print later), Hard Case looked for a new publisher and distributor. Titan Publishing is a UK based publishing and it has plans to acquire all existing stock of the Hard Case Crime and will be publishing future books under that imprint.

Monday Midday Links Roundup: ABA Wants DOJ to Investigate Discount Pricing

Jane — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:12:38 +0000

Mobile adoption is occurring at a faster rate than any other adoption of internet in the past. Further, at the leading edge of mobile adoption is the growth of the iPhone/iTouch market. Morgan Stanley is essentially telling investors that those that can anticipate and deliver products to the mobile space are those who will be winning the future.

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Dovetailing this report are the findings that Greystripe, a mobile ad network, is releasing about iPhone moms, mothers of young children who own iPhones. TechCrunch reports on the usage of the iPhone by moms. Moms are using iPhones to make their shopping easier (by locating stores nearest to them and keep track of shopping lists) to entertaining their kids (59% allow their children to use the iPhone) and for personal entertainment purposes.

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Brewster Kahle announced last week that over 1.6 million books have been scanned and digitized. All 1.6 million Internet Archive books to be available on the OLPC. Approximately 750,000 to 1 million people have OLPC. All books that have been scanned and digitized are in the public domain.

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The American Booksellers Association wants the government to save independent bookseller’s bacon. The organization has asked the government to investigate what it believes to be predatory pricing by Amazon, Wal-Mart, Target for its $9.00 hardcovers and the $9.99 ebook pricing.

Now I don’t know of any caselaw that would support this and essentially it seems like the ABA is asking the government to step in and save the hardcover business model. A government investigation in pricing would necessarily involve an investigation into the entire business model of publishing. Maybe we should welcome this. Publishers would be called to testify why they essentially gamble on books and hope to make up the gambling in large margins on hardcover bestsellers.

Publisher Michael Hyatt argues that this pricing isn’t good for anyone, arguing that the loss of hardcovers will result in lower advances, driving authors out of the publishing space. Commenter Mark McElroy points out that the digital market space can actually result in more authors being successful because of the elimination of the middle man.

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The FTC is changing its mind, again. It’s fairly difficult to keep up with these folks. According to reports from kidlitcon, Mary Engle, Associate Director for Advertising Practices at FTC, says that independent blogging reviewers do not need to disclose the provenance of their books but that affiliate links will need to be disclosed. The FTC will be providing updated guidelines or FAQs or clarifications soon (hopefully before December). We’ll be watching and will be sure to comply with whatever rules the FTC is going to implement.

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In summing up the take away from the Frankfurt Book Fair, Richard Nash blogs that publishers need to engage in reality based business decisions. This is a world where piracy can and does happen and will not go away. Conversely, the mobile market is expanding and this means growing business opportunities. Change is here and those that are most adaptable will succeed.

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According to the AAP, August sales were fairly flat, only increasing 0.9% over same sales last August:

Adult Hardcover = up by 12.3 percent ( $110.6 million); YTD down by 12.2 percent.
Adult Paperback = up by 3.2 percent ($152.7 million); YTD down by 9.0 percent.
Adult Mass Market= up 1.3 percent ( $70.4 million); YTD down by 4.5 percent.
Children’s/YA Hardcover = down 12.9 percent ($84.5 million); YTD up by 14.0 percent.
Children’s/YA Paperback = down by 0.2 percent ($69.4 million); YTD up by 1.7 percent.
Audio Book = down by 12.5 percent ( $12.9 million); YTD down by 25.1 percent.
E-books= up by 189.1 percent ($14.4 million); TYPD up by 177.3 percent.

Weekend Links: Goodbye Romance Novel TV

Jane — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:27:20 +0000

Sydney Morning Herald has a nice article about romance in conjunction with Beyond Heaving Bosoms, a guide to romance written by SB Sarah and SD Candy.

So thank Eros for two Americans, Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan, who dreamed up Mavis for their book Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels. It’s an unashamed celebration of their great passion, and they make no apology for it. “There’s nothing like a beautifully executed romance novel or the afterglow upon finishing an especially good one,” they write.

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Wall Street Journal op ed piece scoffs at the FTC regulations that are pointed at bloggers arguing that mainstream journalists receive so much swag that the office closets are groaning under the weight.

The specter of freebies has long haunted journalism. In the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, Hollywood columnist Louella Parsons was famous for her swag intake. Come Christmas Eve she would “unwrap an avalanche of gifts” from Tinseltown royalty, according to screenwriter Anita Loos. “Two secretaries used to stand with notebooks to keep score so that Louella could remember the next day who had sent what.” Those notes weren’t taken to help her make proper disclosures to her readers.

Eric Felton, the author of the article, isn’t convinced by the FTC reassurances that bloggers aren’t the target.

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Romance Novel TV has decided to close its doors. It’s sad to see them go. Marisa and Maria were real fans of the genre and were some of the first to bring video to the online romance world. Video interviews with authors seem to proliferate every site, but Romance Novel TV was really the first to break out. We’ll miss them and good luck to their future endeavors.

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The Bookseller wrote a critical piece of Waterstone’s distribution center. In retaliation, Waterstone has blocked employee access to The Bookseller. Stay classy, Waterstone. Your inept attempts to make bad press stop only serves to generate more bad press.

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Barnes and Noble is purportedly in talks with publishers to allow a “lending” feature with its device and the ebooks. This would push me toward buying an ebook reader from Barnes and Noble. I have doubts as to whether BN could pull this off. After all, publishers can’t even get the pricing situation worked out what with St. Martin’s Press refusing to allow all of its books released in digital format and when they are available in digital format, SMP is charging a 100% upcharge for the digital copy. I’ve heard some noise about charging more for an ebook that comes with a lending ability. I don’t like that at all. I’m not going to pay a few extra dollars to be able to share my ebook.

Friday Midday Links: It’s All About the Ebook Reader

Jane — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:06:03 +0000

First, Microsoft has little interest in the ebook world. CEO Steve Ballmer thinks that the best gear to use to read an ebook is the PC.

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The Times has an article on the numerous ebook readers that are on or soon to enter the market and notes at the end that the tablet computers might threaten the dedicated reading device market.

And there’s the looming threat posed by next-generation tablet computers. Apple, the king of cool handheld devices, is rumored to be readying a tablet computer with all the functions of a laptop as well as iPhone-like touch capabilities for release early next year. Microsoft has been secretive about its plans for a tablet, but a video making the rounds of the blogosphere show a dual-LCD-screen prototype that closes like a book. “E-readers are a transitional technology,” says Rotman Epps of Forrester Research. Which means that just when the e-reader is taking off, it may be becoming obsolete.

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The publisher of Winnie the Pooh has agreed to allow Winnie the Pooh and other children’s classics to be digitized. The deal was struck with Nintendo and the companies plan to launch a digital Winnie the Pooh for Nintendo DS.

However, the Danish publisher now faces its biggest challenge yet as it attempts to move into the digital age. While there will “always be a market for traditional books and magazines”, according to Mr McMenemy, he says the children’s publishing industry needs to better embrace digital methods. The group will today announce one of its most significant digital deals yet: an agreement – which it says also involves Penguin -with EA Games to create ebooks for children for use on the Nintendo DS games console.

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Kristen Nelson reports that she is seeing huge increases in ebook sales on the royalty statements of her authors. Where she used to see 50 copies, she is now seeing 500 to 1,000 copies of ebooks sold. She refers to it a “tectonic shift.” Hopefully RWA will be providing digital publishing and digital promotion panels for next year’s RWA.

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Jeff Bezos is claiming that sales of Kindle books is creeping even higher.

As proof of the way that the Kindle has changed reader habits, Bezos brings up an amazing statistic. Earlier this year, he startled people by revealing that of books available on both Kindle and paper versions, 35 percent of copies sold by Amazon were Kindle versions. Now, he says, the number is up to 48 percent. This means that a lot of people have bought Kindles (Amazon won’t reveal the figures) and that Kindle owners buy a lot of books.

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COOL-er eBook Reader is bringing a wireless device to the market and plans to partner with QVC to offer one over its home shopping network. COOL-er is the company that employs Booth Babes to sell its devices. I wonder if that will carry over to QVC.

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Barnes and Noble is not content to rely on iRex to provide an ebook reader for Barnes and Noble customers. Instead, it will offer its own device. They intend to roll out a different device to consumers in time for the holiday.

The eReader will reportedly have a 6-inch touchscreen with a virtual keyboard, contrasting it immediately with the Kindle’s physical buttons and QWERTY input system. The WSJ claims the screen will be E-Ink, but a Barnes & Noble representative in the video below told us explicitly that the screen will be in color, unlike the Kindle. A color screen makes it very unlikely the reader will be E-Ink based, and much more likely to be an LCD or even OLED device.

Others claim that the Barnes and Noble device won’t come out until next Spring. Who knows!\

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Richard Cleland is probably tired of fielding complaints from bloggers because in his most recent statements he explicitly excludes bloggers from enforcement of the regulations.

If people think that the FTC is going to issue them a citation for $11,000 because they failed to disclose that they got a free box of Pampers,” Cleland says, “that’s not true.”

“We have never brought a case against a consumer endorser and we’ve never brought a case against somebody simply for failure to disclose a material connection,” he explains. “Where we have brought cases, there are other issues involved, not only failing to disclose a material connection but also making other misrepresentations about a product, a serious product like a health product or something like that. We have brought those cases but not against the consumer endorser, we have brought those cases against the advertiser that was behind it.”

I wish the regulations would have excluded blogger liability if the FTC had no intention of enforcing the rules against us. I’ll still be disclaiming.

Thursday Midday Links: FTC, one more time

Jane — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:57:21 +0000

I’ve seen some people say that I should just wait and see about how the FTC decides to interpret its new regulations. I’ve seen some people reassure me that it wouldn’t apply to Dear Author or it wouldn’t apply to me commenting on other blogs or Twitter or Facebook. I’ve seen other people argue that the FTC isn’t going after bloggers so there is nothing to be concerned about. Let me try to articulate why I am going to strictly comply with the FTC guidelines.

Simply because there is a chance I won’t be targeted doesn’t mean that there is zero chance I will be targeted. I don’t think I’ll ever be audited by the IRS but that doesn’t give me free reign to ignore the IRS rules and regulations, even if I don’t agree with them.
Even though the regulations do not go in effect until December 1 does not mean that they will change. It took two years to get this revision after periods of public commenting and voting.
I am bound by my oath to uphold the laws of the land. Until the regulation by the FTC is ruled in a court of law as unconstitutionally broad, it is my duty to follow the law. In a court of law, regulations are deemed presumptively accurate interpretation of the law and if there are two competing interpretations (one that includes bloggers and one that does not) then the agency (FTC)’s rules are binding.
The FTC regulations govern deception and truth in advertising. Truthfulness is at the core of a lawyer’s legal duty. My law license could be in jeopardy from a reprimand, suspension or revocation if I was ever found to be violating a rule on deceptive practices.
Ultimately, even though the rule may not be enforced against me does not allow me to disregard the law. Further, I believe that is what kind of character you would expect from us here at Dear Author.

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Despite the success of Dan Brown’s book, book sales are depressed.

And over all, according to BookScan, book sales were down about 4 percent compared with the same week last year, suggesting that neither of those titles or any of the other big fall books from heavyweights like Mitch Albom, Pat Conroy, E. L. Doctorow and Audrey Niffenegger were helping booksellers to overcome the sludgy economy.

Audrey Niffenegger was famously awarded a $5 million contract for her book, A Fearful Symmetry, a book that managed to only sell 23,000 copies according to Bookscan in the last week.

This decline in sales has shown itself in Barnes and Noble quarterly results. More at Publishers Weekly.

Total sales in the retail group fell 3% for the second quarter, which began August 2 and will close October 31, to $665 million, and comp-store sales were down 4.1% (sales are through October 3). Barnes & Noble.com had a good period, with sales up 8%. Sales in the quarter included sales of The Lost Symbol, which B&N said broke one-day sales records for an adult fiction title. B&N expects comp sales to be down 1% to 3% in the retail group for the entire second quarter and to decline 2% to 4% for the full fiscal year, which will end May 1, 2010 (B&N changed its fiscal year following the completion of the B&N College deal).

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Are ad supported books coming closer to being a reality? Maybe if HotPrints takes off. HotPrints charges zero dollars for a photobook. Instead, they send you a bunch of tear out ads with your photobook (none are printed by your pictures). The limit is one per month, but it’s free. Even the shipping.

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Galley Cat suggests that part of the decline in publishing is the wrong headed focus on the white literary crowd as the mainstay of publishing. The U.S. Census Bureau displays the growing number of minorities in the U.S. and Galley Cat questions whether publishing is missing the mark by not including more multicultural protagonists.

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I’ve been in love with the vintage covers that Harlequin has been showing us and the titles went on sale this week. I admit to being reluctant to try one so I was glad when Keishon announced that she had bought one. Her review of I’ll Bury My Dead by James Headley Chase makes me glad that I hesitated over a purchase.

So how did I like this novel? I didn’t. This story was a chore to read. I tried in vain to engage myself but it just wasn’t hap pen ing. Why wasn’t I hooked into the story? Can’t answer that. Weren’t the char ac ters engag ing? Not really. I read hard boiled mys ter ies all the time and this one bored me to tears. I’ve even read some of Ed McBain’s stuff from the same era and his books hold up much bet ter than this.

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Hold on to your wallets, international readers. Amazon has pinkie swore to abide by terrotorial rights in the sale of its ebooks. Territorial rights confer the right of a publisher to sell a certain book in a certain geographical locale. Currently Random House is not on board with Amazon over some kind of contractual dispute and none of those books will be available. Oh well. It’s not like the UKers or Europeans or Aussies or New Zealanders need books to go with their shiny new device, right?

Tuesday Midday Review Links: Kindle is everywhere but Canada (WTF?)

Jane — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:35:30 +0000

Copyright Licensing is a non profit copyright collective that represents publishers and authors. Yesterday (or was it Monday), CL began to digitize more than 300 of its most famous books and will be seeking the rights from publishers and authors to digitize others. These books will be made available to libraries, booksellers and educational sector.

Amazon has now announced it will ship the Kindle 2 on October 19 to over 100 countries (not Canada though) and will provide wireless access through ATT & its international partners. This announcement is accompanied by a Kindle 2 price drop from $299 to $259.00. Because the Kindle will be shipped from the U.S., international readers will have to pay a customs surcharge (usually over $50 USD) and international shipping costs. This will likely add around $100 USD to the price of the Kindle. Ironically the International Kindle will also ship with the US power adapter. The Kindle’s availability does not remove geographical restrictions. The same ebooks that are unavailable to international purchases yesterday are unavailable today. It is possible that the increased international exposure to ebooks will increase pressure on authors and publishers to grant worldwide digital rights. Maybe.

Harlequin is partnering with ABC to produce four titles based on the lives of the students at the fictional Cyprus-Rhodes University which is the basis for the TV show ‘Greek’. These sound like Sweet Valley High like. (Having said that, I have no idea what Greek is about as I’ve never, ever watched it.)

Boston Bibliophile has a FAQ with a lawyer on the new guidelines for bloggers. One thing that I think is important to remember about the FTC guidelines is that the guidelines are tied to a person and not a location. For me, because I believe the regulations, as interpreted by the FTC, require a disclaimer whenever a person makes a positive statement about a product received directly from the publisher and/or author, my book discussions will take place here at Dear Author where the disclaimer is in the sidebar.

FTC Guide re Endorsement Update

Jane — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:24:16 +0000

I spoke with Richard Cleland this morning. I shared with him my concerns. I think that the enforcement of the rules are still in the developmental stage. Cleland reiterated what he told other blogs that this is the educational period. I don’t see the FTC regulations being revised, but apparently there is some room for crafting guidelines for enforcement.

I suggested a warning and opportunity to cure and Cleland liked that idea. He said that they have used it in the past in the health product field except they are called advisory letters.

I asked about the issue of the fines. Cleland stated that this is something the AP took out of context. The FTC has no ability to levy fines. A charge must be made and taken to an administrative law judge and a cease and desist is requested and provided if the FTC fulfills its burden. If the C&D is ignored, then a civil penalty can be requested for up to $11,000.00. The full explanation of enforcement and penalties for all FTC violations can be read here.

No case would be brought in federal court unless it involved a very serious fraud else the FTC would likely be frowned upon by the court for wasting judicial time.

We discussed the issue of Twitter and whether each and every positive statement about a book that had been received for review would need to carry a disclaimer. Cleland was of the opinion that it would however we did discuss the issue of the product itself. In many other industries, the review product is nearly always returned and not kept by the reviewer. In the book industry, it is common for all reviewers, regardless of whether they review for mainstream publications or whether they review for a personal blog, to keep the books that are reviewed. I also brought up the issue of e-arcs and how any blogger could prove that the product had been deleted or kept.

I’m fairly certain that Cleland is not familiar with the book industry or the book blogging industry. He certainly was open to hearing more from us. I plan to continue to discuss this issue with him.

The FTC and the Unreasonable Case of Disclosure

Jane — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:00:02 +0000

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I had a different post planned for today. Really. It was from Louisa Edwards and Tessa Dare on the topic of the unlikeable heroine. But yesterday news broke that the new revised Guide from the FTC on endorsements was going to go into effect on December 1, 2009.

Let me start off with saying that I believe in transparency. When I remember, I almost always state in a review whether the book was provided to me for free or whether I purchased it because I’ve always thought that a reader’s decision making process is interesting. To some extent, DA serves as reading journal for myself.

If you note, we have ads in the feed and it says that we are paid an affiliate fee. When we had an Amazon bookstore, we told you we received an affiliate fee from that. When we got the Sony Readers, we told you that as well. We believe in transparency. We believe that it is one of the most important parts of our relationship as bloggers with you as the readers and commenters.

However, I don’t believe that the new FTC guidelines actually help to further the goals of transparency but rather, instead, the new rules will be rife with abuse and misuse and uneven application. Here’s why:

1. Adversely affects smaller blogs. Small blogs like ours do not have editors. We don’t get paid to review and what we do is truly a labor of love. Yes, we are starting to host ads but we cannot afford a full time editor for our reviews. Blogs without editorial staffs will be subject to the new rules while blogs and mainstream publications, regardless of other issues and relationships, will not. Let me state it this way: the blogs with the highest earning capacity will likely be exempt while the blogs with the lowest earning capacity will not. I found it fascinating that Richard Cleland of the Bureau of Consumer Protection said this:

Cleland said that a disclosure was necessary when it came to an individual blogger, particularly one who is laboring for free. A paid reviewer was in the clear because money was transferred from an institution to the reviewer, and the reviewer was obligated to dispense with the product. I wondered if Cleland was aware of how many paid reviewers held onto their swag.

"I expect that when I read my local newspaper, I may expect that the reviewer got paid," said Cleland. "His job is to be paid to do reviews. Your economic model is the advertising on the side."

From Cleland’s standpoint, because the reviewer is an individual, the product becomes "compensation."

2. Uncertainty. Looking at the interview Ed Rants had with Cleland, it’s unclear who will be held to this new standard and what will be the trigger. Each situation is viewed on a case by case basis and dependent on the “degree of relationship between the advertiser and the blogger.” By having buy links at the end of the blog, we are engaged in activity that would “raise the eyebrows” of the FTC. To avoid scrutiny, Cleland suggests that we return the ARCs and, I suppose, remove the buy links.

I’m even uncertain if I buy the book post review but still hold onto the ARC whether I am in violation of the Cleland interpretation. The fact is that a) none of us keep our ARCs because we aren’t supposed to sell them. All of mine go into the recycler and b) I often buy ebook copies of paper books that I have enjoyed.

Again, the lack of clarity in the drafting is so difficult for the blogger in trying to comply.

3. Inappropriate publisher involvement. The new Guide makes advertisers (or those that provide the product so in this case either authors or publishers) liable to the FTC for any misleading statements made by the blogger. Thus, if a blogger says something misleading, then the advertiser (publisher/author) is responsible for misleading the consumer as well. The Guide, in fact, says

In order to limit its potential liability, the advertiser should ensure that the advertising service provides guidance and training to its bloggers concerning the need to ensure that statements they make are truthful and substantiated. The advertiser should also monitor bloggers who are being paid to promote its products and take steps necessary to halt the continued publication of deceptive representations when they are discovered

Like I want publishers breathing down my neck while I try to write fair and honest reviews. We’ve already turned away publishers who wanted to have oversight over our reviews. And frankly, I feel like I should be giving instruction to publishers on labeling issues.

4. Encouraging negative reviews. Sarah Weinman jokingly said that FTC guidelines would be encouraging bloggers to be snarkier and meaner. This is because the FTC equates endorsements with positive reviews. According to Cleland, publishers send product in the hopes of a positive review. In the examples in the FTC guidelines, a blogger who receives product and then gives a “positive review” will be said to have given an endorsement requiring appropriate disclaimer. Therefore, the F reviews at Dear Author will be named FTC Review (because these don’t require disclaimers). Alternatively, if we never gave another positive review or recommendation, we would probably be okay.

5. Author endorsements. Author blurbs are some of the worst offenders of the Guide in the business. Some of the authors giving endorsements haven’t even read the book. Some will give endorsements to everyone who asks. Read this piece by Jenny Crusie on author blurbs. The FTC Guides have long covered these as inappropriate but has enforced its own rules against publishers?

6. International Effect. A commenter on Mashable noted that ‘Anti-Cyber Squatting Act’ extended to Canadian bloggers

For example the ‘Anti-Cyber Squatting Act’ has seen Canadian companies suing Canadian citizens under US law because the servers that were used (to perform domain registration in this example) resided on US soil.

But the effect could be that publishers will refuse to send books to bloggers, no matter where they are located, if the blogger isn’t complying because the possibility of publisher liability.

7. Eliminating any relationships. § 255.5 requires disclosure of “material connections”.

When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed.

I’m not sure what this pertains to. I have attended luncheons, parties with publishers. Do I need to explain each and every piece of swag I am ever given? Could I even possibly remember every pen and mint tin I picked up? I doubt it.

It’s important to note that in various interviews around the web and in the Guide itself, the FTC contemplates that any comment, tweet, post on a facebook page, participation on a message board, must be accompanied by the relevant disclosure.

As for Twitter, the FTC isn’t letting you get a pass with the excuse that 140 characters–Twitter’s famous text limit–is simply too short. “There are ways to abbreviate a disclosure that fit within 140 characters,” Cleland said. “You may have to say a little bit of something else, but if you can’t make the disclosure, you can’t make the ad.”

8. Violates the First Amendments. The reviews at Dear Author go far beyond a product description. Commercial speech is speech by a manufacturer or seller designed to sell a product. It’s pure advertising. I defy anyone to say that a review, even an A one, is pure advertising. Yes, the government can regulate commercial speech and it can regulate truthful, accurate commercial speech. I would argue, though, that Dear Author reviews are not commercial speech.

9. Potential for abuse. You might not be aware of this but there are people who not only hate Dear Author but despise me personally. There are people who enjoy posting my legal name and place of employment on the internet, I’m sure in hopes of getting me to shut up.

The FTC says that it is going to focus on advertisers and not bloggers but if the FTC gets enough complaints, there is no doubt the blog will be investigated. The fact is that this sort of thing will actually serve to chill speech instead of encourage honest dissemination of thoughtful opinions. The end effect will be that fewer discussions of books will take place. Fewer books will be reviewed.

Book bloggers’ compensation is so tiny that it’s not likely to influence a reviewer. I mean, do you really think we are for sale for $7.99? Relationships are much more likely to influence reviews. There are plenty of established review sites that don’t divulge the private breakfasts, meet and greets, email exchanges and so forth that aren’t subject to these sorts of regulations. You have to rely on those reviewers to be impartial without knowing everyone who is in the inbox. This is the reason that we have always tried to disclose these relationships because we know that you all rely on us to tell you these things.

The FTC issue is not about whether transparency is good or bad. It’s about placing an uncertain burden on those who are least able to manage the compliance. This doesn’t protect the consumer because the most insidious relationships aren’t required to be disclosed. (For example, we disclosed that Janine is critique partners with Sherry Thomas and Meredith Duran. The FTC Guide would not require this).

I would like to see the FTC Guides revised to include some kind of monetary floor. I think that there should be a warning system so that the blogger gets the opportunity to cure the defect. The Guide should require the complainant to show links, tweets, comments, that would be considered to be violative of the new regulation. There should be some qualification in the guide that reviews that are not commercial speech should be exempted. There should also be some time expiration so that a person doesn’t have to keep receipts or proof of payment for products after a significant period of time. The fine should be equal to to the value of the product. (i.e., I could live with paying a $7.99 fine, not an $11,000 fine). These are all I can think of for the moment. The problem is that the Guide is now a new Federal Regulation and short of a lawsuit, I’m not sure we’ll get more clarity.

Until the FTC regulations are more clear, I don’t feel comfortable stating my positive opinion outside of Dear Author but don’t blame me, blame the FTC.