There his been some talk in the blogosphere about changes in review policy (not specific to books, but to product reviews and the like). It seems there is a push to make it law that blog reviewers who receive products must disclose that information so as to make it clear that they are essentially being paid to review something (i.e. paid in product). This may or may not change the way books are reviewed (I don’t think it will), so I wanted to offer some information regarding my reviews.
From this point on, and certainly for most of what I have reviewed in the past, assume that a book I review has been sent to me by a publisher, publicity agent, or author. I do not write good reviews for either of those entities because I get a free book, and in fact I have ripped into some books in the past that failed epically. But, since it might be of interest to everyone, I want to make it clear that I do get books for review, and that most of the books I review have been sent to me, free of charge, by someone responsible for that book.
This should also be a note to anyone wanting to send me books: I do not give nice reviews just because you buttered me up or gave me free bookmarks or whatever. Crappy books are crappy books, and my readers, I hope, expect me to be honest with them in regards to my reviews. Anyone who knows anything about book reviews, however, will also know that even a negative review can sell books. All publicity is good publicity, as they say.
And that’s that!
