My advertorial and sponsored post policy

An advertorial is a post paid for by the advertiser.

A sponsored post is a post in which somebody pays me to cover a topic.

I will write either -- I'm a professional writer, that means writing for money.

In either case, the post will be clearly labeled as either a sponsored post or an advertorial.

The distinction is this. With an advertorial, the advertiser gets content approval (For this blog, I insist on joint approval; we both must be happy with it.) With a sponsored post, the sponsor does not get content approval; the sponsor sees it for the first time when it goes live. This is cheaper.

Either one always raises a question: Would you praise this item/event/concept if you weren't being paid?

My advertorial/sponsored post policy here is simple.

I will not write an advertorial about something I oppose. And I will try not to write a sponsored post any differently than an unsponsored post.

Thus if you see me writing an advertorial about a certain wine, it means I like that wine. I won't rate wine in an advertorial or a sponsored post, so a 95-point rating is not for sale here.

Advertisers or sponsors interested in commissioning a post should contact me.

For the rest of you, and unfortunately for me, the vast, overwhelming majority of posts are not sponsored or advertorials -- likely a much higher ratio than stories in your favorite magazine.