A spot of business.

Let's talk objectivity. Blogger Kimbofo at Reading Matters had an interesting post recently about the place of personal reading Weblogs in book promotion -- specifically, that viral marketing via blogs is a little insidious, people trust book blogs as someone's personal recommendations unless they hear otherwise, and free books ought to be declared as such. The trigger for this was a form e-mail from a publisher announcing a contest for bloggers who plugged a certain book -- Kimbofo got this e-mail and deleted it, and then saw that there were other bloggers who wrote about the book without mentioning they could win $100 and free books to do it.

Publishing institution Miss Snark shoots back that a book's mention in a blog, which is not the same as a plug, is seen as a win for publicists, and that just because you get a free book doesn't mean you've sold your soul -- unless of course you want to. Also, that publishers send out tons of free books, and they're just harnessing the book blogging community as another destination for those promo or advance copies.

Reading this made me a little jealous because I for one have not received any free books as a result of keeping this blog. Zero! And, being a student and mostly broke, I am always on the lookout for freebies. But I do want to make the following things clear:

• I do review books for money, but when I do, I don't write about them at length on this blog. Places that review books have different policies on first rights to review versus all rights, but for my own benefit it's better that I don't repeat myself. For example, see this post, in which I say I've read four good books lately. The fourth was for a review. I may start linking to those reviews on a regular basis.
• Most of the books I write about, I get from the library. Sometimes I buy books (even though I'm trying not to), like this one.
• That said, I do occasionally get free books -- from the giveaway table at my Place of Business, from friends, found in train stations, that kind of thing. Should I be more scrupulous about mentioning where I got each book? I think I will only mention it if it's from a publisher. For example, I did get both MARLEY AND ME and BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME, mentioned in my summer round-up, for free on a field trip at HarperCollins. (Yes, a field trip. Because I am 12. Not really.) Well, now you know.
• That means if you are a publisher reading this [HA!], feel free to e-mail me [lnvsml AT gmail DOT com] about sending me books, but I will mention in my review that you did so, and I won't necessarily like it.

This is all a bit grim, really. I'll post something more fun later.