Blurbs are like creampuffs

Doug Johnstone hates blurbs and he's happy to tell anyone in the near vicinity just how much:

This irritation comes in two incarnations. Firstly there is the uncredited puff by someone in the marketing department of the publishing house, declaring the book to be "a tour de force" or "an outstanding, memorable and moving tale, brimming with laughter and passion". The author will be "one of the most remarkable writers of his/her generation" and, naturally, a "singular and unique new voice". Says who, exactly? Say the people trying to sell me the book, that's who. A bit of self-promotion is understandable, but when such effusive hyperbole declares everything "brilliant", "superb" and "amazing" it all ceases to mean anything, and leads to a depressing sense of deflation when you come to read the thing, and it's just OK.

The other distinct type of exasperating blurb is the quote from a fellow author, telling me that one of the writer's peers thinks he or she is "a master of narrative and prose" and the book is "wholly fresh and original". Of course nepotism is rife across the arts but nowhere is it more obvious than here, where the bigger name author (it's always a bigger name, of course) is clearly either a pal or shares the same publisher or agent. And it's always the same names cropping up. For years you couldn't pick up any urban Scottish novel without Irvine Welsh telling you how bloody great it was. These days everyone is at it. I don't want Louise Welsh, Andrew O'Hagan or Nick Hornby telling me how awesome a novel is, I want to make that decision for myself. Let the book stand or fall on its own merits. Writing and publishing are undoubtedly hard worlds in which to make a living; but a tad more dignity and a little less hyperbole would not go amiss.

Well yes, it's all true, but the blurbs aren't for readers like Johnstone, they are for marketing people to position the book properly and get excited in-house. A blurb by author X might signify it's a completely different book than if author Y blurbed it. And if an unexpected author's name appears on the back page, you start wondering why their words were solicited.

That said, author blurbs could have an interesting benefit if publishers approached it properly. This idea belongs to a writer I had a recent conversation with about the sales of his earlier books and where to take his career now. He wondered why bookstores don't take a bestselling author's books and put them next to those books he or she has blurbed. It takes the "if you like" part of bookselling to a different level, does it not?

Thoughts on this in the backblog, if you choose to.

Comments

[Charlie W]

"He wondered why bookstores don't take a bestselling author's books and put them next to those books he or she has blurbed"

What, you mean putting Nick Hornby's books next to those of all the books he's blurbed? So then you're going to sell even more Hornby books. To me, that doesn't seem such a great outcome.

Or have I got that wrong? Do you mean gather all the books Hornby has blurbed around his books? Well that would be OK, for the Hornby blurbees. You could call them "Nick Hornby's Little Urban Achievers".

[P.J. Parrish]

Sarah: Long time lurker, first time poster here. Was intrigued by this notion of grouping like books together. Good indies have been doing this for some time, and Amazon makes a stab at it, for better or worse. It would make enormous sense for all stores (including the chains) to do it, but then that requires that the people working in the stores actually read the books they sell. Now THERE'S a revolutionary concept.

[Karen Olson]

This wouldn't be a bad idea, putting all the blurbed books around the blurbee. I'd love to have my books next to Denise Hamilton's. Perhaps we should start a movement...

[Jim Winter]

Blurbs move books. Let's be honest here. No one would have paid attention to mine (I think we're up to 2 dozen readers now) if I hadn't had the blurbs I received.

That said, I have rules: Has to be someone whose books I've already read, and they have to be honest. I don't want any blurb whores. Well, I do, but I don't want to be blurb whored.

And I'm going to bail before this comment gets me into more trouble. =)

[David J. Montgomery]

I love blurbs, especially when they're mine. :) I still get a kick of out of seeing something I wrote appear on the cover of a book. Granted, my name isn't actually there, but I still know it's me.

One of the things that I've noticed recently regarding blurbs, though, is how strange a book looks when it doesn't have any. When you pick up a book and the backcover only contains, say, a synopsis of the plot, it looks weird.

So blurbs, if nothing else, fill empty space on a jacket cover.

[Mary]

I think that would be a great idea for a special display in bookstores. Its not something they'd likely do on a regular basis. But it could be an interesting rotating display.

Now it might also backfire a bit. All those folks who mindlessly blurb things might not appreciate seeing the results of this in display form. Especially if they didn't really believe what they said about the books.

[David J. Montgomery]

You know, that would be a funny idea for a website, for someone who has too much free time on their hands.... Keep track of all the books that authors blurb, and post them all in one place.

[jon]

The problem with putting books together by blurbs or by "if you like this you might like..." is that a lot of stores don't have that lind of room.

Of course that's where the advantage of having well read booksellers comes in.

I ignore b;lurbs, but unlike most readers, I have the advantage of having pre knowledge of what I'm looking at.

[JA Konrath]

I love creampuffs!

[marty]

Well, I buy books I by authors I like, or because the title or the blurb catches my eye -- but I use "blurb" to mean the bit on the back that (hopefully*) mentions something about the book... endorsements (blurbs ex celebrity?) I pretty much ignore.
Half the time, I don't even recognise the name of the endorser -- why would I care if the name means nothing to me?
* see "Ghastly beyond Belief" for great examples of the blurb :)

[Ingrid]

I, too, love creampuffs, but I like to be surprised by them. Going around bumming creampuffs from friends and strangers just isn't good form. And how awful when they refuse!
I do like excerpts from reviews. Having said this: since my current book pretends to be my first, it has no blurbs -- except one teeny one. :)

[Elaine Flinn]

I like Dave's idea about a blurb website. I can see it now-'Blurbs I Have Known'- or - 'What's A Little Blurb Between Friends?'. Actually, I'm very appreciative of blurbs for my books. Hell, I need all the help I can get.

[Mike Vogel]

Having worked in bookstores in the past, I'd hate to be the employee running copies of books back and forth based on who blurbed who.

[Graham]

I had a story in a long-running anthology series, and I opened the front cover of my contrib copy to see a line from a review I wrote of the previous entry. Now I'm not sure if I'll respect myself in the morning.

[Mary]

We could start a new game - Six Degrees of Blurbdom.