One of the most frequent complaints that book reviewers who work in the print industry have about those online upstarts moving in on their territory is the notion that blogs can be “bought,” co-opted by publishers and transformed into marketing tools rather than genuinely critical forums. Of course, the idea that book publishers would view print media as a promotional opportunity never seems to occur to them—at least they occasionally recognize that some bloggers might have cultivated personal integrity without the benefit of a paycheck—but that doesn’t mean the threat they perceive isn’t real. Media companies are, in fact, looking for ways to get their products into more and more blogs, and they don’t always treat the bloggers the way they treat book review editors, so bloggers do need to keep their eyes open.
Yesterday, for example, Dr. Blogstein got all excited about a dust jacket for the new Brad Thor thriller, The First Commandment (coming out this July). But it wasn’t just a picture of an American flag flapping in the breeze that put Blogstein in such an ecstatic mood. “Brad Thor has entrusted me with a small quantity of autographed copies of the rare uncorrected advance galley proofs that ordinarily only get sent to the media,” he enthused. “If you’re a blogger and promise to write up a review of The First Commandment after you’ve read it (NO SPOILERS ALLOWED!) I’ll have one of these autographed galleys sent to you!”
You don’t really need me to interpret the image of trading signed copies for reviews; it pretty much speaks for itself. (And I’d love to see them try to enforce that “no spoilers” nonsense; you think Janet Maslin’s getting that warning?) But is it really a bad thing? One of the issues that came up during my debate Sunday with Andrew Keen was Keen’s concern that corporate interests could not only pretend to be ordinary people who happen to love certain products, but they could co-opt ordinary people into becoming shills for said products. And that’s a genuine concern, to be sure, but is this all that different than passing out free samples of, say, a new shampoo in a test market and hoping positive word-of-mouth will spread?
After all, very few people who take themselves seriously as “literary bloggers” would participate in this sort of giveaway, and if the fans want to rush in, more power to them. I’ve always maintained that we, as readers, possess sufficient “bullshit detectors” to gauge the credibility and reliability of book reviews we read in any online or print venue, and I think we can recognize when we’re being sold a bill of goods.
In that context, I’ve got to hand it to the folks at the “digital brand management” firm <a href="http://www.electricartists.com/"Electric Artists, who sent us a nice email yesterday explaining that they were hired to promote the USA Network miniseries The Starter Wife, based on a novel by Gigi Levangie Grazer which is apparently too funny for Lifetime, and that they’ve got “assets and opportunities” like advertorial content, online trailers, and banner ads to share “if you are interested in supporting The Starter Wife.” No pussyfooting around; they just had an “associate account executive” ask if we want to be part of the marketing campaign… and then refuse to show us the “assets” unless we register on their site. Makes it a lot easier for us to say no.