“This book is good.” 

—an important reviewer

My latest obsession is trying to dissect “author blurbs.” Sometimes I find them more entertaining than the actual book.

Author blurbs are praise quotes that you usually spot on the top of a book cover or the backmatter. They’re usually written by a fellow writer or well-known personality, or are snippets taken from reviews by prominent publications, like USA Today or The Washington Post or The New York Times. 

They look a lot like this…

“Candid, witty and heartfelt. This is a beautiful look at marriage, motherhood and friendship. I devoured it” — {insert name of bestselling author here.} 

An author’s blurb is, simply put, a sales pitch from a well-known author in an effort to appeal to consumers who maybe haven’t heard of the book or author. 

(Wait? What? You’ve never seen an author quote/blurb on a cover like, “This book is a waste of time! More boring than shopping for paper towels!” — [Insert name of bestselling author here])

Some research shows authors have only 30 seconds to generate interest in their book. So, one could argue blurbs from renowned fellow authors does matter — they might be the first thing a book browser reads while perusing a bookstore stocked with 70,000 books.

But do blurbs really influence a reader’s decision to actually buy a book? Do they influence you?

Often author blurbs are so ridiculously funny with their overuse of adverbs. Or they’re ridiculously vague or ridiculously bland or ridiculously indulgent or ridiculously useless.

Take, “A dazzling tragicomic masterpiece of inventive exuberance!” (Try saying THAT five times fast! ) Would this mouthful of a blurb make you want to buy the book? Or would it encourage you to think, “Um, if I can’t even understand the blurb, would I enjoy this book?”

I try not to giggle when I see blurbs on covers of thrillers like, “A thrilling adventure with a twist ending.” I mean, thanks for that VERY insightful blurb that could apply, well, to pretty much any thriller!

Sometimes blurbs are beyond vague, like “Wow! Just Wow!” 

Does “Wow! Just Wow!” mean that the author thought the book they blurbed was amazing? Or does “Wow! Just Wow!” mean the author has no fucking clue why the book they were asked to blurb was ever published in the first place?

A better blurb would be, “This is a fascinating novel about a fascinating woman who does fascinating shit.” A good blurb should include something — anything — to do with the book.

Blurbs that make me think are the best of the worst!

Take, “Her prose is like a beautiful poisonous flower.” WTF does this mean? Aren’t we told to stay away from “poisonous" things? Will I end up in the E.R. if I read this author’s book? (You tell me! I was kicked out of Girl Scouts after day one for refusing to wear that cap!)

To be clear, an author blurb is not the summary or description that’s on the inside jacket or the back — although, many times now, I’ve seen entire back covers papered with a wall of author blurbs, followed by a short description of the book.  

This, to me, shows that publishers believe blurbs may not just matter greatly but may be MORE effective than the actual book description in grabbing a reader's attention — even though, again, there’s never been any solid evidence that supports this.

I just picked up Hillbilly Elegy after watching the movie on Netflix. (Yes, sometimes I watch the movie first!)

The first 10 PAGES in the book are solely praise blurbs, quotes and endorsements. There were 64 blurbs about the book. SIXTY-FOUR! (We get it. People really liked it.)

As an author, I’ve been asked numerous times over many years to provide a book blurb. To be fair, I’ve also asked people to blurb my books. And I’m not going to lie about how I blurb books. (One spoiler alert? I rarely, if ever, read the entire book!) 

I’m not sure if those who so kindly and generously blubbed my books helped with sales in the end. Likewise, I’m not sure books I’ve blurbed helped the author with their sales either. 

But in our defence, these authors didn’t sign an affidavit guaranteeing everyone would love the book we blurbed. Plus, reading, like art, is subject to taste, so maybe the blurber really did think the book was “a classic?”

See? Even authors are clueless about the impact of another author's quote on their books.

“I honestly have no idea how important blurbs are for the general reading public,” author Kate Christensen, who gets about 300 requests to blurb a year, once said. “Knowing what I know, whenever I see a blurb, I immediately assume the writer is friends with that person or has studied with them or babysat their kids — or slept with them, or is blackmailing them, or has a gun to their head. In other words, I give blurbs no credence whatsoever.” (She’s not wrong about assuming the writer is friends with the blurber! Or at least friends with the editor of the book that needs a blurb!)

So, the importance of blurbs remains a mystery in publishing, which I find compelling, intriguing, astonishing and totally intoxicating! I’m kidding. But I do hope you get my not-so-subtle point.

My eyes literally glaze over, like I just took a hit off a joint five minutes earlier, when I spot any blurb followed by “—New York Times Bestselling Author of [insert name of their book]” — it seems everyone is now is a New York Times Bestseller...or have written a book compared to The Glass Castle (too many to name).

Here are some phrases that would be nice to never ever see again:

• “Intoxicating…” 

• “Deeply moving…”

• “A poignant read...”

• “A tale of triumph and tribulations...”

• “A rollercoaster ride of emotions…”

• “An epic tale…”

• “A talented new voice for the new generation.”

• “Mesmerizing…”

• “A journey of self-discovery…”

• “An important and timely read…”

• “I devoured this…”

• "A classic…”

(Whoops! Sorry, I think I just dozed off for a second there after typing the above. I’m awake now! And whatever you do, do NOT make a drinking game out of seeing the same words in blurbs, because I promise you will get alcohol poisoning.)

And please, publishers, don’t feature blurbs that reference other famous authors. There is a chance many readers will be all like, “You lied to me! The writing here is nothing at all like Elizabeth Gilbert or Cheryl Strayed. So, fuck you, blurber, who said it was!”

I stopped relying on author blurbs years ago after buying a book based on a praise quote by someone I very much respected. Her blurb “promised” the book was, “Bananas good!” Well, I did NOT think it was “Bananas good!” and now I don’t read her, or any book she blurbs. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice? Shame on me!

To me, it’s pretty apparent when an author has blurbed a book but probably hasn’t read it. If I see “Brilliant!” or “Powerful” I’m pretty certain they haven’t read more than 10 pages. Or, I wonder if they’ve even seen the book at all. Or, I wonder if they blurb because it’s their daughter’s hairdresser’s book and are simply thinking, “Who cares if my name is on something I don't really want to endorse? I really need to keep my hairdresser on my good side so she’ll fit me in whenever!”

Memoirist Frank McCourt is often used as an example, called out after reportedly blurbing at least three different books with the exact same phrase, “You’ll claw yourself with pleasure!” (Again, is that a good thing?)

Some writers are such prolific blurb writers, they should be sent to blurbing-rehab.

A.J. Jacobs, the author of The Year of Living Biblically, once said, “It's hard to compete with Malcolm Gladwell. He is always going to get the front cover. I get the back cover or, maybe, inside.” (Don’t you just love men’s egos? The thought of where my blurbs end up has never once entered my mind!) Some authors seem to have turned blurbing into a competitive sport.

We hear the polarizing effect if a well-known author blurts too much; one said that seeing a certain famous author blurb made them “almost” buy the book. Another said a blurb from that author “has the opposite of its intended effect,” and simply won’t buy any book endorsed by that author.

I have a friend who became a sensation for a while after his first book turned out to be an instant (Canadian) bestseller. So, of course, every single Canadian debut author wanted him to blurb their book. He loved the attention, but his prolific blurbing disturbed his publishers, who basically told him to “please quietly go away for a while.” (I believe I read somewhere that A.J. Jacob’s publisher once told him to stop blurbing so much, too.)

The more blurbs my friend wrote for others, his publisher explained, the more his blurbs would either be ignored by potential book buyers, or his fans would get sick of seeing his name, which would affect his future book sales.

But Malcolm Gladwell blurbs a lot, and it doesn’t seem to affect his sales negatively. Though, even he admits that, “The more blurbs you give, the lower the value of the blurb. It’s the tragedy of the commons.” And I believe by providing so many blurbs, he is genuinely trying to help other authors.

I was speaking to a publisher recently. Sometimes their books feature blurbs on the cover, and sometimes they don’t. I asked why. This publisher believes blurbs work (at least, better than an author’s photo.)

“We always try to put blurbs on covers…unless we run out of time,” this publisher told me.

Um, unless you run out of time? 

Sure, in the world of publishing there are a lot of deadlines, not just for the author but for the production team.

But if blurbs really were THAT important to a book's success, wouldn’t a publisher make sure they made time to source them?

I mean, if a guy says, “I was going to buy you flowers for our anniversary today but…I ran out of time!” then that relationship isn’t going to be so successful because, obviously, you were not a priority. (Am I right, ladies?) 

Personally, I hate writing blurbs. But I like helping people. I’m going to share a super-secret that I think most authors do but would never admit to. 

I usually write to the author, “Please send your first three chapters and write whatever you would want in a blurb about your book, and I’ll just sign off on it.”

I figure no one knows the book better than the author, so let them blurb their own book and slap my name on it if they think it will help. 

In fact, I also know many authors who go directly to their own bookshelves and mix and match words or phrases from other book blurbs, which is probably why almost all blurbs are so cliché, conventional, standard, and trite.

Margaret Atwood — who I adore so much I have a photograph of her taken by a famous photographer hanging in my guest bathroom — made it clear as vodka that she would NOT blurb. 

"It takes four to six hours to read the book, and I get 10 or so of these requests a week. Multiply 5 hours times 10 requests and you get a 50 hour a week job,” she writes on her website. “Choosing a few of the books to blurb doesn’t make things much easier, partly because it takes a long time to make a well-informed choice, and partly because choosing between books is akin to choosing which of your two sisters should be your maid of honour….no matter what you do, someone’s bound to have their feelings hurt. So my answer is no, to everybody.”

She directs people to her poetic “no” that she sends in reply to blurb requests. You can read it in full here. Here’s how it starts…

“You are well-known, Ms. Atwood,” the Editor said,

And we long for your quote on this book:

A few well-placed words wouldn’t bother your head,

And would help us to get in the hook!”…

However, in one of Margaret Atwood’s recent tweets to her TWO MILLION FOLLOWERS, she praises a book as a “Murderous + fun #SummerRead,” but it only got 13 retweets and 57 likes. That doesn't seem like a lot considering her amount of followers, a topic that I wrote about here last week.

So maybe Atwood’s website needs to be updated? Or has Peggy become more of a softie? Does she now have more time to blurb? And for whom and why? 

On the 2020 paperback edition of Republic of Shame: How Ireland Punished 'Fallen Women’ and Their Children by Caelainn Hogan, there IS indeed an author blurb at the top of the paperback edition, where Atwood writes, “At least in The Handmaid’s Tale, they value babies. Not so in the true stories here.” (I love how even Margaret Atwood recognizes the importance of self-promotion!) But at least she agreed to give a blurb, and to a 33-year-old author too. #AuthorsSupportingAuthors. 

At the bottom of the same cover, bestselling author Marian Keyes also blurbs: “It’s utterly brilliant. Please read it!” I do kind of like the idea of having a very prominent author do a call-out with, “Please read it!” because, really, if we are relying on our favourite authors for recommendations through their author blurbs, do we really need more than that? (And Keyes managed to blurb without mentioning one of her books that have sold more than 33 million copies!)

While Atwood now shows some love to other authors on Twitter, who knows if people are running out to buy her recommendations? In a survey of 6,000 people, when asked about the last book they bought, only 1% were persuaded to buy a book because of a blurb/recommendation from their favourite authors!

Here’s the truth: the business case for blurbs is more for the publisher/agent who receives submissions. With praise already in place from prominent authors, publishers are more likely to look at the book. And according to one head book buyer, who decides where to stock books, a book with a blurb by a familiar or high-profile name on a book written by an unfamiliar person can increase the odds of a book winding up in better placement in a bookstore. 

And for debut or self-published authors? Getting a blurb from a well-known author certainly can help grab a book browser’s attention and increase the chances of a talented new voice getting noticed!

Now for fun, I’ll reread the hyped-up blurb after finishing the book to see if what I imagined or expected the book would be about actually coincides with what I've just read. It’s really quite a fun experiment. Try it! 

I guess you could say I have “trust” issues with author blurbs, although I do enjoy reading them. 

But I’ll save that for my intelligent, insightful, intriguing, and introspective therapist.

Do author blurbs convince YOU to buy a book? Tell me why, or why not, here!

xoxox

Rebecca