I have a blog  and periodically do book giveaways.    I'd love to let the members know about the giveaways and be able to enter them but want to make sure I don't break any rules.    If it is acceptable to post them, where is the place?   Thanks.

I believe that would land in the book bazaar section?

You can advertise that in your signature line...a lot of bloggers do that.

Technically it is not ok to post a thread in any of the forums for blog traffic. Many do put it in their signature and some do posts too, the site admin isn't going to waste their time looking for them and only do something when one is complained about. I will see if I can find the post where another member posted what she was told about it. What it came down to was posting any link that a member benefited from was not allowed in the forums.

Does offering to give away books count as a benefit, per se?  Or is it an offer?

I've seen people post blog givaways in the genre forums.

Pamela, the answer is no. Here are a few responses I was able to find from the PBS Team when the Tour Guides were debating about this last:

"Your post in the Discussion Forums advertising your blog and rectruiting book reviewers violates PBS rules.  No advertising/soliciting or promotion may be done here.  Others have asked if they may do *exactly* what you did, and we told them No."

No, we don't want that kind of focus on blogs that review books.  Members can link to their blogs (just as everyone can link to their webpage even if it is a business) but posting to recruit reviewers from here is not allowed.  These bloggers do this to get traffic, and traffic = $; this is commercial promotion.  So, please, we don't want any topics funneling our members to blogs.  It does fall into the "advertising commercial sites" category.

Members who want to promote anything on our site need to ask us first.

You can put a link to your giveaway in your signature, but there can be no accompanying text, so you can't say something like "check out my blog giveaway".

Okay.   Thanks for the info.    I just put something in my signature.    It does seem a shame though.    Here I am giving away 3 books and getting ready to give away more so I would have thought a site like this would encourage sharing that info.    And as far as making money....are you kidding me?!?!?    I've spent money but never earned a dime.    I don't make money off my blog.    All I get is the products I review.    I'm not trying to "benefit", just do something nice for members of a site I've belonged to for a zillion years. 

But I'll follow the rules.  

I'm also curious about the signature info.   You say I can't post anything but just the link, yet I see many bloggers who ARE saying more before linking to their blogs.  Even in this thread I see it.   I'm seeing lots of info in signatures.  

Thanks for finding that Jennifer, I had stop looking to go vote. Now I can watch this topic so I have the info handy.

I've seen people post blog givaways in the genre forums. - this is actually where I've seen the discussions about the rules and where they have actually cracked down. I've seen people ignore being told they couldn't do it,  and others that have stopped because they were firmly told to do so.

Pamela - I think it is really a case of those who ask get told the rules they should follow and those who don't ask and just do as they want to. The site has had a few instances of cracking down and educating people on what is allowed and what isn't since I've joined, but they really have more important things to do than police the forums for stuff like that and the TGs have better things to do than turning them all in. The siggy lines is where the most site rules are broken I think

Pamela, it is good of you to ask this question and care.

 You mentioned that your not really understanding seeing all your doing is giving books away, not making a dime, but then you mentioned that all you get are products to review. That is a benefit. If you don't have readers people would not give you items to review. Bloggers with bigger reader counts get more and better items to review. I will not get into how I know this of course but simply put, this site is focused on the books here and how this site runs and no advertizing. It is not to be mean, but to help things run smoothly.

Kim, don't want to be argumentative.....really not my style.   But I wasn't really expecting thousands of entries from PBS LOL.    I have a VERY small blog with very small things I give away.    I'll still get the books whether you let me post my link here or not.   So I'm not really benefitting since I'm ALREADY getting the book.   So yes, theoretically if I gained massive numbers from PBS I could maybe move onto better things, but that's not my goal and that's a totally absurd idea I think frankly.    I was expecting maybe 5 or 10 people at most to come from here and sign up--- not a large number.   But anyway.....thanks for the info, and too bad for the members.