Does Anything Pack More Clout in Publishing Than a Blurb?

"Powerful ... A tale that is as forceful as it is affecting, as fierce as it is resonant." -- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times.

"Unflinching, gorgeously written."  -- San Francisco Chronicle.

Those are known as blurbs, or "short descriptions of a book, movie, or other product written for promotional purposes and appearing on the cover of a book or in an advertisement."

When it comes not just to attracting purchasers, but also to getting a book through the conventional publishing mill, nothing is more important than blurbs, it seems.



The two blurbs above were taken off the front and back covers, respectively, of the paperback edition of Toni Morrison's recent novel "God Help the Child" because my wife happened to be reading the book at time I decided to write this post and it was thus close at hand. But as written (and they are reproduced in full), those blurbs could have been attached to just about any book.

What prompted me to write this post was a recent "Literary Hub" interview of Lee Boudreaux the editor of her own, namesake publishing imprint under the umbrella of Little, Brown and Company.

Asked whether "marketing savvy" is a necessary part of an editor's job, Boudreaux said that one good thing about having her own imprint is that she only needs to put out eight to ten books a year.

"You can then work hard to get blurbs for your books if you're not trying to do twenty," she said, explaining that getting blurbs is one of the most time-consuming and difficult parts of her job. "If I could have one wish about publishing it would be to banish blubs," said.

Don't expect that to happen anytime soon, however, because blurbs are necessary before a book even gets published.

"Blurbs work often inside the industry before they ever work with the consumer," Boudreaux said. "You can see people perk up and take notice. Tracy Kidder [winner of a Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction and a National Book Award] just gave me a wonderful blurb for the only non-fiction title that's on my list for 2016. I can't tell you how many people emailed me back the minute I sent that blurb around. It truly meant something in-house and it's going to mean something on that galley when reviewers see it and it's going to mean something to booksellers. We've got these three huge constituencies before we even get to the consumer," she said.

That's fascinating, isn't it?  No one, it seems, from the people who decide what books will get published to the people who review them to the people who attempt to sell them to readers are interested in making their own decisions. The all want to follow an opinion leader. Well it saves time -- one doesn't have to actually read the manuscript, in full anyway. And it's safer -- one doesn't have to risk one's job or reputation by making what might be deemed a wrong judgment.

And who writes these all-powerful blurbs?  Well, in many cases it is other authors who are, at some point, going to need blurbs for their own forthcoming manuscripts. It might be wise to say something good.

Ever wonder why you didn't much care for that recent book despite all the praise it apparently received?