It seems kind of silly to write a disclosure statement for this blog when I have yet to crack the three digit barrier.
I thought about skipping it altogether, but I’m scared of the consequences. Who knows what the FTC could do to me? Hang me up by my thumbs? Throw me into an isolation chamber? Or worse? They could make me read the 81 page Federal Trade Commission Disclosure Guidelines.
I’m taking the path of least resistance, and copying from other blogs.
Fill In The Bubble
The easiest way to create a disclosure statements is to fill in the bubbles on the forms in DisclosurePolicy.org:
This policy is valid from 01 June 2009
This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.
The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in this blog. All advertising is in the form of advertisements generated by a third party ad network. Those advertisements will be identified as paid advertisements.
The owner(s) of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog owners. If we claim or appear to be experts on a certain topic or product or service area, we will only endorse products or services that we believe, based on our expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.
This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.
Personalizing The Disclosure Statement
Then, the savvy blogger can add their personal adjustments to the generic form. And the really lazy blogger, i.e. me, will use another bloggers’ “personal adjustments” as a template to describe similar forms of compensation:
BlogHerAds – I am a member of BlogHerAds. One ad for BlogHer appears in my blog’s sidebar. I receive monetary payment not based on the content published on my blog but for showing their ads in my blog’s sidebar.
BlogHerAds has strict rules regarding the content I publish on my blog and I am bound by contract to adhere to their rules. For example, I am prohibited from posting any reviews for which I’ve been paid money to write.
This is the only source of monetary compensation that I have received for this blog, but it isn’t the only affiliate program that I’ve tried.
No Free Lunches, or Books
When I was starting out, I looked through affiliate programs, hoping to find something that I could confidently recommend. Most of the items I saw in places like Clickbank just seemed like overpriced crap or dust catchers. Nothing that I’d buy, or recommend. However, I’m a heavy user of Amazon’s Two-Day 1-Click and Wishlist buttons, and it made sense to sign up for the Amazon Associates Program:
Amazon Associates Program – Purchases made through Amazon affiliate links on this blogs, or those of my children (see sidebar) yield a small referral fee. This applies to all purchases made on Amazon regardless of whether the product the consumer purchased was mentioned by me or not. The consumer’s purchases are confidential; I don’t know who has purchased items using my blog’s Amazon Associate links.
Note that even after years of referring Amazon links, I have not earned enough to meet the minimum needed to receive a check. Pathetic, I know. But, I don’t enjoy writing book reviews, and I suspect that’s a necessary prerequisite.
That’s it. I have little or nothing to disclose at this time. When I do, I’ll let you know.
Disclosure Statement Tips:
- DisclosurePolicy.org
- Disclosure Best Practices Toolkit
- How to Turn Affiliate Marketing Disclosure Into a Selling Point
- FTC Disclosure Icons (Warning: View at own risk! May cause spontaneous laughter.)
A Few Good Disclosure Statements:
- The Thinking Mother
- Jessica Gottlieb
- Real Mommy Review
- JOHO – Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I love it!
BTW, writing reviews doesn’t help with getting clicks for Amazon, or at least it hasn’t helped me.
I’ll have enough clicks from my Google ads to get a check in 2020, although I haven’t registered the domain for that long (too expensive for my budget).
Roberta´s last blog ..Seed of the Week: Acacia salicina
2020 – Now that’s long-term planning!
More from Blogher on their advertorial policy:
A quick reminder – we’re still seeing a lot of advertorial posts, giveaways and reviews around the network. Most of these are not allowed on pages that have BlogHer’s advertising on them.
Please familiarize yourselves with our guidelines, and ask questions if you are unsure how to proceed. Our Welcome Letter has the most up-to-date definitions, and our issue #64 newsletter found here has a complete explanation as well.
Please understand that if you post giveaways or advertorial content alongside our ads, we may have to suspend your ads before contacting you. Repeated violations of our editorial guidelines will result in the removal of your blog from the network.
If after reading the above links you still have questions about our policies, or about how to create an ad-free page, please let us know. We are happy to help!
I have little to disclose, but try to disclose whenever there is the slightest hint of anything to disclose. I am an Amazon Associates member and have been playing around with the language you use here and realized I should probably find out if this is your language and if I may have your permission to use it or a version of it as part of my disclosure? Or if it is not yours, find out the original source. Thanks for this post, it’s been helpful!
JavaMom´s last blog ..Get Smart, Get Screened
Go ahead, JavaMom! The blog disclosure pertaining to Amazon Associates is mine, although it was inspired by Thinking Mom’s disclosure (see above for link.)