Recently on Twitter, I posted about disclosing personal relationships between bloggers/reviewers and authors. And while I wrote it to ask about disclosure, after the responses came in and other discussions with friends, I believe it is more about transparency. This is particularly relevant as we close out the year and best of/favorite lists will be released by blogs, reviewers and entertainment news sites.
I think about the following questions frequently. How transparent should I be when I review/recommend a book? At what point is a relationship disclosure worthy? How transparent do I want others to be? Should I expect more transparency from sites/reviewers that have large visibility to the community? Is a recommendation from someone with a close relationship with an author unreliable? Does anyone besides me even care when personal/professional relationships aren’t disclosed?
Based on my a few offline conversations, I am not the only one who notices these things. But it seems to be one of those things that we aren’t talking about. And maybe it doesn’t matter to a lot of people. But it matters to me when I see books get recommended by sites with large visibility and a personal or professional relationship between the recommender and one of the authors of a recommended book is not disclosed. It’s using influence without being honest.
It is almost impossible for a blogger/reviewer to not develop a friendship with an author. Especially if both parties are on social media. The ‘ship can vary from minor interactions on a Tweet or belonging the same Facebook group to chatting more in-depth offline and in direct messages. And for the record, there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these. Romancelandia is a relatively small circle and we have our love in romance in common. I have met so many friends in this community and I want that same experience for anyone who wants it.
In my opinion, we as reviewers/bloggers/influencers have a responsibility to be honest about these relationships. If I recommend Molly O’Keefe’s books (which are fantastic and you should read all of them) I should also tell you that I am friendly-ish with her. The logistics of this might be difficult as I am not sure I could squeeze that into a tweet where I might recommend one of her books. But when I write a review on Smexy, where the visibility is significantly higher, I should disclose that ‘ship in my review.
It is completely acceptable for friends and people with professional relationships to recommend their friends’ books. I just want to know if it’s your friend’s book. Especially if your review/recommendation is in/on a site that is a major news/entertainment site. It is hard for me to take recommendations seriously when I know a relationship exists and it isn’t disclosed.
At Smexy, we do our best to disclose when we have more than minimal social media interaction relationships with authors on the books that we review. We believe it’s our responsibility to be transparent with our readers.
We’d love to hear what you think in the comments below.
Thanks for writing about this on your blog. (I also responded to your original tweet.) I think being upfront about any and all possible conflicts is the way to go. Then the reader can decide. After reading a blog for awhile, you get to know which reviewers have similar tastes, but I do want to know if any reviews are influenced by anything other than the book. I appreciate more the blogs (and tweets) from people concerned about ethics of their reviews, as well as the reviews themselves.
I may be in the minority here, but I wouldn’t require a friendship with an author to be disclosed unless that friendship were of significant depth (e.g. She was my maid of honor) or duration (We met in third grade). I take reviews with a grain of salt anyway. When I read a review, I’m aware that I’m reading someone’s opinion. I then download a sample of the book and form my own. But I appreciate your intention to be transparent.
I believe in complete disclosure, even if you think you’re going overboard. It’s better to be completely transparent than have someone say later, “You only recommended X because you’re friends with X’s writer.”
And I’m jealous that you’re friends with Molly O’Keefe. Lol. She’s one of my favorite writers.
I prefer disclosure. I am still kind of angry about the Jane of Dear Author thing. I realize that is a different scenario but I would just prefer to know so I can make my own judgements from that moment forward.
I’ve seen a lot of people successfully strike a cheerful tone while saying something like, “by the way, So-and-So is my friend, but I would be gushing about this book even if she wasn’t because . . .” And I didn’t think twice about it. Just nice to have more context. But if I read a super positive review and then found out later the reviewer and author were pretty friendly, it would leave a bad taste in my mouth. The disclosure doesn’t have to be framed as a dire warning, it could just be a quick aside. And it covers everybody’s ass. People are going to be way more turned off if they thought the reviewer was trying to hide something.