This site carries advertising. This page explains what that buys, what it does not, and how you can check that the line held.
We would rather over-explain this than have you wonder.
The one-sentence version
Advertisers buy attention — and only attention. They cannot buy coverage, a verdict, a place on a list, advance notice of what is coming, or the removal of something they dislike.
What an advertiser can buy
– A labelled advertisement in a defined slot on this site. – A labelled sponsorship of a newsletter issue, identified as such in the email itself. – A labelled sponsored post, written or supplied by the advertiser, marked as advertising at the top, excluded from our review and recommendation systems, and never counted as editorial coverage.
Every one of those is marked. If it is paid, it says so, in a place you will see before you read it — not in small print underneath.
What no amount of money buys
– A review, a rating, or a verdict. Not a positive one, not a scheduled one, not a faster one. – A place on a list. Our lists are editorial selections. Advertising spend is not an input to them and never has been. – Advance sight of coverage. Advertisers do not see a piece before publication, are not told what is coming, and get no opportunity to comment on a draft. – Removal or amendment. An advertiser who dislikes a review can withdraw their advertising. They cannot alter the review. If we ever pull a piece for a reason other than it being wrong, we will say why on this page. – Editorial contact. Advertising enquiries do not reach the editor with a request attached.
How the separation is enforced
A policy nobody can check is a slogan — these are the mechanics.
Separate decisions, separate order. Books are selected for coverage before any commercial conversation about them exists, under our pull-only rule: a book enters the library, and only then can anything be asserted about it. A publisher buying advertising cannot retroactively put a book into a list it was not already selected for.
Disclosure travels with the piece. If a book, author, or publisher covered in an article has a current or recent commercial relationship with us, that is stated on the article itself, not only here. The reader who needs the information gets it in the place they need it.
Advertisers are named. We publish who advertises with us. A publication that takes money from people it will not name has a reason — and it is never a good one.
Corrections are public. When we get something wrong we correct it in public with a note saying what changed and when. That applies identically whether or not the subject buys advertising.
Refusal is on the table. We decline advertising that we think would compromise the desk, and we do not owe an explanation for it beyond this sentence.
The conflict we cannot design away, stated plainly
We review books published by companies that may also advertise with us. That is the standing conflict in every publication that covers an industry, and no policy removes it — what a policy can do is make it visible, and make abusing it costly.
So: our verdicts run negative when the book deserves it, including for advertisers, and if you ever notice that stopping, you have caught something real and we would like to hear about it.
Riley Locke is also a working novelist publishing into the same genre this desk covers. We do not review our own books, and any piece touching a corner of the business we work in says so.
Affiliate links
Book links on this site are affiliate links, mostly to Bookshop.org, which supports independent bookshops. If you buy through one we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
Two things follow, and both matter more than the disclosure itself. The commission is the same whether we praise a book or take it apart, so there is no financial reason to be kind. And no book is recommended because of its commission, which you can check against how often this site tells readers not to buy something.
What we do not do
We do not run third-party behavioural advertising. We have deliberately stayed out of the ad networks that track readers across the internet in order to target them here. That decision costs us revenue. It is worth it, because it means this site does not need to follow you around to pay for itself, and our privacy policy stays short enough to read.
If that ever changes, this page changes first, the privacy policy changes with it, and readers in regions requiring consent will be asked rather than assumed.
We do not accept payment for a specific verdict, ranking, or inclusion. If someone claiming to represent us has offered you this, they do not represent us.
Advertising enquiries
Enquiries are welcome, including from publishers and authors whose books we have criticised. Being reviewed unkindly does not disqualify anyone from advertising, and buying advertising does not stop us doing it again.