Ground Rules for Blogging Professionally in the Publishing Industry

This recent guest post on The Intern Spills is a really interesting little article about the role of publishing blogs and what is or isn't appropriate to say. Since I recently was made an intern it made me think about what I should and shouldn't be posting on here. I want to maintain a balance between interesting, useful, and true information, and the privacy of my agent, literary agency, and their clients. I thought that Liv, the author of the post, and many of the commenters had come up with some pretty good ground rules.

I wanted to post them here just for my own and anyone else's future reference along with some additions I have added myself.

1. I will never use the names of my authors, agents, or books on this site. All opinions are mine and I don't want my opinions to reflect on their work.

2. I will never post anyone else's work without their permission, including queries. If I give query examples they will be either posted with the permission of the author, or written by me. On that note, I don't cite the photo's I use, so if you would like me to take down an image, please let me know and I will be happy to do so.

3. Any information I post could be found somewhere else on the internet. I.E. I will not leak release dates, acquisition information, or anything else like that.

4. I won't post negative reviews. I was always taught that if you don't have something nice to say (or can't say it in a sufficiently sassy way) then don't say it at all. I like to think I'm a pretty positive person, so don't expect any seething critiques on books, authors, or agents.

I am using my real name and identity in these posts, because I believe in the value of the internet, free information, and blogging. I have learned so much from other people's blogs and I hope that people will eventually be able to learn things from mine. But, in order to maintain my professionalism I felt it was important to establish these rules. Sorry this post is so boring! I hope to bring you something more exciting next time!