She is just another person making a living. The thing I find distasteful is the way she is held up as some kind of saint for her pretty mediocre reviews of pretty mediocre books. Sure her site is popular, so is “One Direction”.

That doesn’t even get into the issue that every comment she makes about how hard she works or how she does it because she loves it and not for the money is a pretty obvious lie.

FWIW, the books in question were this amazingly mediocre business autobiography and this gimmick, neither of which IMO lived up to their writeup. In the second case, I can see that I might just not have “got it” or been the target market, but the Holiday review was pure and simple hype.

I do not believe that there was any malice in Maria’s use of Amazon links. Within 24 hours of the inane bruhaha that erupted, she clarified her usage of the links. Well done, Maria, and thank you. I hope this is now officially over. Let’s get on to the backlash to the backlash.

Frankly, what I can’t get over is the comment about women being happier bloggers. Seriously? Is this a joke? Or is it simply the best you can muster in a passive-aggressive attempt to blatantly disregard Maria’s success and petulantly put her in her place?

Onto to substance: I have been following Popova for some time and what she has accomplished in pretty remarkable. What was once a small blog in a vast internet ocean has become a cultural force. Brava!

With that success comes all kinds of responsibility. Whether or not she writes only about books that she loves, Brain Pickings moves lots of product. Brain Pickings has become a brand with some clout. It is very heartening to hear about the affiliate disclosures now appearing on every page. Kickbacks, big or small, are kickbacks. Imagine if her passion were stock picks instead of books…

To the point about whether or not she is a journalist, where is the line? What are the metrics?

All the really good journalists I have met could also say, “It is MY LIFE.” Whether or not they are reporting stories, they are always asking questions, researching topics, following leads, connecting dots. You cannot separate the journalist from the person. It is infused in who they are. They, too, “work” at least 450 hours per month.

A subtle but important difference may be to do with objectivity and distance. Just about every reference Popova made to another writer or journalist was prefaced with personal connection: “my friend, one the best thus’n'such’es” or “In my opinion, the greatest fill-in-the-blank” around,” etc. Likewise, there is often a certain personal reverence in her writing with liberal uses of the words “icon” and “iconic,” etc. Some writers have become both celebrated and celebratized, their every work or thought on how to live / love / work listed and, occasionally commoditized in the form of posters for sale.

Which is fine. Popova has very sharp eye for people and ideas that are interesting and that’s the beat. So this is about a personal journey of exploration to which we are all invited to come along, paying—or not—as we go.

But a real journalist would keep distance. The personal connections and flattery would be stripped outWe wouldn’t be told that someone was an icon or iconic, but move onto what they said, did, thought.

As for the book buyer who was disappointed in Popova’s picks, do a little more due diligence. These are Popova’s opinions and it’s not a good match for you. Seek out more reviews (though, for gosh sake, don’t trust the ones on Amazon itself – talk about a gamed system…)

Not really. You should familiarize yourself with the business of affiliate revenue-based websites. Many revolve around the promotion of very few books, sometimes just a single book.

Even if it were true that there were some financial benefit to writing about a lot of books as opposed to just a handful, the fact of the matter is that Popova doesn’t just write about books; many of her Brain Pickings come from freely available and public domain material.

“Affiliate links do produce a conflict, then: they give an incentive to write positively about books for sale which might not actually be particularly worth buying.”

Not really. Have you noticed that Amazon contains just about every book in existence? And that there’s no particular incentive for promoting one over another?

What would be the incentive, then, for promoting books Popova doesn’t like all that much, when the whole impetus for the website lies in writing about writing she genuinely likes?

“To the extent that donations are voluntary, they tend to be based on an interpersonal desire to help somebody out.”

Hm. I’m not sure you can really make that assertion anymore. There’s a growing culture around pay-what-you-can, with many people feeling a very real sense of obligation to monetarily contribute to things they are getting a lot of value out of it — particularly in cases where the publisher has asserted a commitment to not showing ads.

I’m kind of astonished that you got through this whole analysis without bringing up the fundamental semantic difference between placed advertising and affiliate links: the fact that links to books occur within the controlled context of the publisher’s writing, whereas ads show messages produced and sculpted by the advertisers. The ad literally carves out its own linguistic space, and has the privilege of delivering a message that is pragmatically separated from that of the publisher.

That, to me, is the fundamental difference between affiliate links and ads, and why I think Popova is on solid ethical footing.