FTC Guide to Endorsements

Hello, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm gonna talk about something you may or may not know: FTC Guidelines when posting an endorsement or testimonial.

Did you know:
When you give someone a review, these guidelines say you're supposed to fully disclose your relationship and method of procurement of the product in question clearly?

Neither did I. Not until I was on Goodreads and checked out the link to the FTC guidelines.

If you were given a free copy of a book in exchange for a review, you're supposed to state that in your endorsement/testimonial.

I didn't see anything on the site that said you had to disclose that information when slamming something with a bad review, but I think it should be common courtesy either way.

This raises the following:
How many authors give their books to readers in exchange for a review and have had the review come back with negative tones, a bad rating, or anything else that's critical and not say where they got the reviewed material? Wouldn't it be safer to simply purchase the books and have it be a verified purchase review? Or to gift them?

I don't have an answer. Just food for thought today. If you're a reviewer, you might consider adding whether or not you were paid for the review in your copy.

Today's questions:
Did you know these guidelines existed? Have you ever paid for a review? Did your reviewer mention they were paid?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo