Our Promise to You: No Buzz Marketing
A reporter mentioned the other day that some lit blogs get a cut of sales generated from their site traffic. I presume she was speaking of online bookselling affiliate programs.
Perhaps it's that old print background rearing its head, but isn't this a (rather large) conflict of interest? How can you actually claim to blog blindly if the chances are, a positive or salesworthy blog might generate some extra income?
And how can the reader follow you if this motivation is (even a small) part of your day-to-day job. Am I the only person who feels like this could come right out of a William Gibson novel?
And why stop there. Why not do some cross-promotional blogging, like this fellow, who runs 17 of them out of his home in Australia -- recommending everything from cameras to Olympic coverage?
It's one thing to accept advertising money: that's what has kept papers afloat for years. It's quite another to make a commission off the very object you are purporting to criticize.
Poynter has set one possible example by simply declaring they are part of the Amazon program when they put up book links. In the meantime, here's our promise to you: we won't be profiting by recommending one title or another; and certain, absolutely, no buzz marketing.
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posted by John Freeman 5:43:00 PM
15 Comments:
I don't really think Amazon links are a very big deal. The New York Review of Books has Barnes & Noble links that they get a cut off of. Are you going to complain about them?
For all except the largest blogs (no lit blogs vaguely approach this size) the "extra income" is laughable. Also, what about other conflicts of interest--wanting to please your advertisers; wanting to please your editor; having author/publicits friends that will read your review. I guarantee these all will sway your opinion of a book for more than the 50 cents or so to be gleaned from selling something via Amazon's affiliates program.
If the margin is so small why do it then? I think you are comparing apples and oranges with advertising versus affiliates. The difference here is that a blog is a self-generated, self-run organ, while, say, the Times book review is part of a company. In other words, Sam Tanenhaus will never profit from a review his section runs. But a blogger who has a link with amazon will.
That last comment, listed under "critical mass" was by John Freeman, just so there's no confusion.
I agree: It's clearly ethically sketchy to review books you personally get a cut of anyone buying. Even if that cut is only $0.50 per click. Thirty clicks and you've just made more than some publications pay to publish reviews in the first place ...
First of all, it's not per click, it's per sale (Amazon isn't trying to go out of business here).
To say Tanenhaus will never profit off a review he runs is pretty ridiculous. His job is contingent, in part, on bringing in advertising for the NYTBR, which goes directly back to what books are covered and, yes, how they're covered. Sometimes, Tanenhaus wants reviews that are going to generate buzz. (For instance: giving Leon Wieseltier "Checkpoint," which Tanenhaus certainly could have predicted would have ended up as a hatchet job.) If he can't do that with enough success, he's outta there. That right there is a financial pressure, and one ad in the NYTBR is going to represent far more money than I'll ever get out of Amazon.
I'm not saying that there's no ethical questions with Amazon links. Obviously there are. But to pretend like Amazon links represent the first instance of conflict-of-interest in book reviewing is ridiculous.
Frankly, much of my popularity as a blogger comes from the fact that people expect to get my honest opinion. That's a big factor for anyone's popularity in this medium. If I were to risk that in order to generate Amazon sales, then I think I'd be doing a stupid thing.
And no one has yet told me why it's okay for the new York Review of Books (and several other book reivews) to sell Barnes & Noble books through their links.
And why do it if the money's so low? It's nice to get tipped. It's nice to feel that someone's thankful for your blogging and wants to toss a little change your way.
It's also nice to know if people are reading the authors I recommend. I champion a lot of underrated writers, and it's nice if I can get confirmation that they're getting read (in some small part) because of my efforts. (Although I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of people who go on to buy a book that I've recommended don't do it through my links.)
I agree with Scott here (and not just because I have Amazon links on my blog). I've spent many hours a week for over three years now talking about books on my blog. I don't expect to get rich doing this, but it seems silly to turn down "a tip" (as Scott puts it) here and there when I put in a lot of effort doing this. This was especially the case when I worked in bookstore and was a student. Even the pennies a day that Amazon links generate helped keep me blogging when a second job would have been more practical.
But beyond that, even if Amazon didn't have its affiliate program I would link there anyway when mentioning the title of a book. It's a great source of information for people who want to know more about a book that I'm discussing.
Finally, I know from three years of experience that in reality "good" reviews don't sell books. Every morning I can see which books (if any) or other products were bought by people who clicked through to Amazon from a link on my site on the previous day. 49 times out of 50 what's being bought is a book that I've never mentioned on my blog. In fact a lot of times it's not even a book. People buy hand mixers, wristwatches, tennis rackets... Anything you can think of. So, it's hard to see where the conflict of interest lies.
And as long as we're pointing out mainstream sites that sell the books they review, how about timesonline.co.uk/books which lets you "Buy all of the books reviewed here at The Times Online bookshop."
I think that the conflict of interest, given the current state of litblogs on the net, is too small to worry about. However, barely a day passes without a new post or five appearing on the meteoric rise of the blog, and the possibility for blogs to become media tools of authority. If the growth in this media continues, then such conflicts of interest will start to look awkward, and to at least consider the problem before it gets out of hand does seem an ethical and responsible thing for bloggers to do. Book reviews are always swayed by any number of different factors - knowing the author, having links to the publisher, pleasing the boss or appealing to the fickle taste of popular opinion. Perhaps, then, the cooperative bloggers will be able to maintain obvious integrity most easily by posting multiple reviews from differing perspectives. Independent bloggers will have to do what they should always do anyhow - make a clear statement of their own position and gain (as Scott implies) the trust of their readers over time.
Litlove has a point -- but I think litblogs will never achieve a place of actual authority while their operators make direct profits off book sales, no matter how small. Indeed, as C. Max points out, some English newspapers have links through to online booksellers. But I serious doubt that Tim Adams, Erica Wagner, or any of the other staff critics at these papers find those commissions being paid straight into their bank account. So I think the analogy is slight off - so is that of tipping, which is a gratuity for a service provided. It should not be the bookstores which are tipping but readers, right? And therein lies the rub of web publishing. No one wants to pay.
OK John, I think you have a good point about blog authority. I'll make you a deal. You find someone to pay me for blogging, and I'll get rid of every single last Amazon link from my site.
But still, why hasn't CM acknowledged that there's far larger forces at work in print media to influence a book reviewer? With blogs, you're talking pennies. Do you really think that's going to carry more influence than the forces I've mentioned in my comments above?
I think this is ridiculous, personally, as the idea of getting money from recommending a book on my site isn't even a consideration when I make a recommendation (or the opposite).
Typepad generates the Amazon links on its own for my book sidebar (one of the reasons I chose Typepad, as I'm functionally HTML-illiterate and they look pretty). A reader actually wrote me and asked if I knew that when people bought money through the books in my sidebars, the cut went to Typepad -- that they would rather it go to me. I've since had several people tell me this. So that's why I set up an Amazon affiliate account. (I suppose I could learn how to code, but let's be realistic -- this isn't a "job" we're talking about, it's a blog.)
I don't even bother looking to see which books people have bought. I don't bother coding links in actual posts to credit me as an affiliate (too time-consuming). It's ludicrous to think that this has Any Bearing Whatsoever on what books I read or discuss or my opinions of them. And I think the people who read my blog and follow any of my recommendations would agree with that statement.
If this is the biggest ethical dilemma you can come up with re: litblogs, try harder.
I'm with Scott Esposito, Gwenda & C. Max on this one. Why is a lit blogger with links to booksellers any less trustworthy a voice than, say, John Dean on the Mark Felt memoir in the NYTBR--which has book advertisements in print and links to B&N online?
We all know how poorly reviewers are paid for their work. Why get all sanctimonious over the miserable pittance that bloggers may--just may--be getting for theirs?
Hi Bella -- John has no gripes about bloggers who link to booksellers (we do it here all the time so people can get more info about a book). His beef is with people who post reviews on their blogs while being part of affiliate programs that pay them a certain amount of money each time someone buys a book or other item after clicking a link in their review.
Hmmm. Controversial.
I agree with Scott.
It would be unethical to attempt to coerce people into buying books through a link that provides you with a cut by giving a dishonest review.
As a frequent book buyer, however, I appreciate having links to any place where I can get more information about a book - and that includes a link to a bookstore.
For the record, I do not link directly through an affiliate account when I place a link within a blog.
Is it part of an official code of conduct for NBCC members to refrain from providing those links?
As an aside, how would you define/measure "profit" when it comes to bloggers?
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