The question of whether reviewers or recipients of ARCs should be allowed to post less than positive reviews is not a new one. We have been blogging over ten years here and authors and blog tour organizers periodically raise this question. The general argument (often from indie authors) seems to be that 1) authors work hard and deserve positive reviews in return and thus 2) anyone who accepts an ARC or agrees to be on a blog tour is entering into an agreement to promote the book, which means 3) that negative reviews should be withheld, either by the reviewer agreeing to do a generic promo piece instead or by agreeing to delay any negative (or even neutral) review until some specified date (to give the book time to launch with high praise only and thus generate more sales). Reviewers have typically pushed back on this practice, reminding authors that reviews are for readers and not authors. They are supposed to be honest assessments, not promotional or marketing material. But what is concerning is the level of anger some authors seem to have at reviewers who dare to disagree because they do not understand why readers and reviewers seem so concerned about ethics.
The general tenor of the discussion on social media currently seems to be that readers "owe" authors something, not only because authors work hard but also because reviewers are "just scammers trying to get free books." I have seen authors condescendingly thanking reviewers for their "opinions" when they gently point out that the marketing practices some authors are engaging in are potentially deceptive to consumers. But the points reviewers are raising are not merely their opinions; they are referring to their interpretation of the law.
Now, I am not a lawyer and I am not claiming to be definitively interpreting the law here and am not offering any legal advice. However, I do want to point out that the reviewers engaging in these discussion with authors are clearly referring to their understanding of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)* guidelines for endorsements and reviews (or perhaps to an equivalent in their own country). This means that a number of people see the FTC guidelines as at least gesturing towards the idea that authors cannot ask for only positive reviews (even if only for a specified period of time).
So, at a minimum, authors and marketers should be consulting a lawyer or contacting the FTC with questions about their marketing practices before going online to say that they maybe or maybe not are accidentally violating them. Because, even if some authors do not believe that the opinions of their readers regarding their marketing matter--they do. Their readers are the ones who are going to buy their books and recommend them to friends and family. Their readers are the ones giving them money. If their readers abandon them because they no longer trust an author's business practices or reviews, that affects the author, regardless of whether or not the author thinks it should.
Again, I am not a lawyer, but here are some points from the FTC's guidelines that bookish influencers seem to have in mind when engaging with authors online. On soliciting reviews:
"Don't ask for reviews only from customers you think will leave positive ones." (FTC)
"If you offer an incentive for a review, don't condition it, explicitly or implicitly, on the review being positive. Even without that condition, the review should disclose the incentive, because its offer may introduce bias or change the weight and credibility that readers give the review." (FTC)
Though I could not find anything specifically discussing asking reviewers to hold off on negative reviews for a specified time period, the spirit of the guidelines suggests that any practice that could skew the ratings for a product is not permitted. For example, here is a Q&A the FTC posted:
"My company would like to get more online reviews by sending a link to a review page to customers in specific regions where we have the highest customer satisfaction. We would not send a link to customers in areas where we know our customer experience is poor. Is that OK?
"No. Only asking for reviews from customers who you think are more likely to be happy with your product would be misleading if it substantially skews the favorability of the reviews." (FTC)
Nowhere could I find an exemption saying that reviews could be skewed favorably at the launch of a product. Or an exemption saying that reviewers should be enticed to post a generic promotional image or text instead of an honest (negative) review (because again, that could skew the favorability of the reviews). The whole point of the FTC is to protect consumers, and creating a campaign with skewed results only for a specified time is still unfair to consumers. Authors may feel that their books are art, not products, and should thus be exempt from the mundanity of consumer regulations, but if they are asking people to pay money for their art, they are indeed part of the market and they need to follow the law.
Now, again, I am not lawyer. However, it seems to me that authors interacting with their readers online should want to act with the utmost integrity--and that means following the spirit and certainly the letter of consumer protection guidelines. No one is denying that writing is hard work, that authors should probably make more money than most do, or that getting one's work noticed in a crowded market is really, really hard. Readers do appreciate authors and they do want to support them. But they want to do so ethically and legally.
Authors who insult or complain about reviewers who leave anything but a five-star review are at risk of alienating the audience who is trying to support them and buy their works. No one wants to be called "mean" or "entitled" or a "scammer" because they accepted an ARC and wrote an honest review. Reviews exist to provide information to consumers so they can make knowledgeable decisions. They do not exist solely to promote sales for authors, no matter how much some authors wish they would (or fiercely maintain that "all reviews are of course promotional"). The FTC agrees with the reviewers and influencers here; it is not their personal "opinion" that reviews and overall ratings need to be honest and not manipulated in the author's favor.
And as some authors become more vocal about their tactics to suppress negative reviews, they are ironically making those initial positive reviews meaningless in the eyes of the consumer. Consumers are arguably getting savvier about marketing techniques, and people do notice when a book only seems to have five-star ratings before a release--and then when the rating dips dramatically when non-incentivized consumers have the opportunity to review it. The result is a lack of trust on the end of readers both for the integrity of the review system and of certain authors who were loudest in asserting their rights to game the system. It is not a game worth playing in the long term if authors want to keep a fan base.
So, even if authors firmly believe that their practices are not violating any FTC guidelines, it is still worthwhile for them to ask if their business practices are impacting their relationship with their readers. Consumers want to trust a product and their creator. Knowing that an author is asking influencers to withhold or delay reviews violates that trust because it threatens the integrity of the review system and the whole point of having reviews at all. Trusting one's product to the market and all its vagaries is no doubt difficult--but if an author truly believes they have written a gem, the reviews should naturally reflect that without manipulation on the part of an author or their marketing team.
*Note that through the FTC guidelines are for the United States, they could potentially apply to authors who are using platforms or reviewers based in the U.S. Also, many other countries have their own laws regarding consumer protections and reviews, so international authors are not necessarily exempt from similar guidelines and should look into their own regulations. Again, I am not a lawyer, so I am not offering legal advice, but merely voicing the perspective of a consumer who is watching this conversation unfold online--and it seems like many authors might want to engage a lawyer to navigate these murky waters since many reviewers are clearly worried that guidelines are being violated or at least pushed in a way that concerns them.
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