Review Policy & Procedure

As ordered by the Federal Trade Commission, all bloggers who receive any type of compensation for their posts must disclose this to his or her readers -- this is not limited to cash, but also to freebies.

I'm fairly new to the book blogging world, and have thus just begun during the past couple of weeks to request advance reading copies (ARCs) from publishers and authors. After a particularly embarrassing series of emails (both my mother and I separately wrote to author Adriana Trigiani about a recent post on her novel Viola in Reel Life -- leading me to think Trigiani probably feels a bit stalked by us), I was sent my first ARC of Brava, Valentine, which prompted the writing of this disclosure.

I have not ever received compensation for a book review other than a review copy of a book. Review copies arrive from both authors and book publishers. I have not been asked by anyone -- author, publisher, or publicist -- to write a positive review of a book. I write what I feel about the book, both good and bad. I do not sell or in any way make a profit from these review copies.

As far as other sources of income go, I do allow Google Adsense to post advertisements on my blog in the hopes that I might receive some advertising money to help out a bit (no checks in the mail so far!). I also link to Amazon and as part of the Amazon Associates may -- if anyone ever buys anything from Amazon after linking from my page -- also be compensated by Amazon for providing a link to them. However, this also has resulted in no checks with my name on them so far.

In summary, compensation I have received for writing my feelings about reading and books comes to a grand total of $0 and some review copies of books. I have never, nor will I ever in the future, accepted compensation in the form of cash from publishers or authors for the writing I do on this blog, nor do I write what they want to me to write. In other words, I love to receive copies for review, but at no time have exchanges between myself and authors or publishers swayed my opinion of an actual book or the review I subsequently post.

All review copies received gratis (free of charge) will be marked in the labels section as "Review Copy" so that they can be separated by blog readers as such.

All that being said, if you are a publisher or author who would like to send me a book to review, I would love to hear from you! Please email me at jlauren.mcneal@gmail.com for review requests or questions. My primary areas of interest are books by female authors, modern lit, southern lit, mysteries, crime fiction, memoirs, and some chick lit. However, I'm happy to consider other genres. Thanks so much and happy reading!