Logrolling in Our Time

Last Sunday, the Denver Post's Robin Vidimos looked at the time-honored practice of blurbs - and found that they have surprising effectiveness:

Cathy Langer, lead buyer for the Tattered Cover bookstores, said that blurbs serve any number of useful purposes. As a reader, she said blurbs "really influence how I see things," and she believes the store's customers see things similarly.

"I have the opportunity to observe people as they are browsing, almost invariably people will read the cover, read the blurbs," she said.

It is when she's making buying decisions, though, that Langer finds blurbs most useful. "My actual buying is not so dependent on my reading as it might be on my blurb reading. I read a particular kind of book, but I buy every kind of book. So I look at a blurb that is from X (a given) mystery writer about a new mystery writer to get a sense of who the book is really for, who the audience is. Also, I will up-buy to aggressively hand-sell a writer who has been blurbed by someone I love," she said.

Then there's Michael Connelly's take:

Connelly takes blurbing seriously and is selective about those authors he chooses to blurb. He said a blurb is most useful in the early stages of a writer's career, and that's where he focuses his attention.

His publisher and his agent send manuscripts they'd like him to read. He said, "I don't blurb everything that comes from my own publisher. I might have a harder level of acceptance, the threshold might be higher for stuff sent by my agent. ... I've never done a favor, or asked them to do one for me." He said he'll sift through more than 100 books a year to arrive at the 10 he'll endorse.

I tend to go with Langer's point of view but that's because as soon as I see who blurbs a book - or the number of blurbers - I have a ballpark estimate of how much the publisher is supporting the book. Even if it's only one or two people, the quality of writers chosen is still a pretty good indicator of how much weight said publisher is throwing behind the book. But reading blurbs is fun as a means of guessing semi-hidden relationships, whether the blurb was, in fact, written by the associated writer and other less-than-above-board things.

Comments

[David Thayer]

David Peace's novel TOKYO YEAR ZERO was blurbed by George Pelecanos and James Ellroy as well as John Burkett. This is a case where the book exceeded my expectations and the blurbs caught my eye.

[Jeff Cohen]

As a reviewer, Sarah, do you look at blurbs when choosing what to read for a review?

[Kevin Wignall]

I'm feeling very contrite now. When my editor asked me to think about blurbs for "Who is Conrad Hirst?" I insisted they didn't work. (proof that I know nothing)

Fortunately, she asked me to do it just for her and we ended up with some great blurbs - Jeffery Deaver and Joseph Finder among them.

[Rosemary Harris]

I was back and forth on the whole blurb thing for my book (my first.) As a reader I don't pay much attention to blurbs - just because Tess Gerritsen likes something, doesn't mean I will. But the time came, and like all good newbies I sent my uncorrected bound manuscripts out into the wilderness hoping that total strangers would say something nice about me. Lo and behold, they did! And I love them for it. I don't know if more people will buy my book because of it, but it's certainly put a spring in my step knowing that 3 bestselling authors thought my book was pretty good.

[Sandra Ruttan]

Most readers I've talked to insist blurbs have little to no impact on them. They indicate nothing to me about publisher support, as the overwhelming majority of authors I've talked to have been largely responsible for seeking out their own blurbs. And the more conversations I see from people who say they'll only blurb friends or books from their own publisher, the less value I give them.

Add in the fact that the community is small, a lot of us know each other, and if you start analyzing it, you could throw doubt on 99% of the blurbs out there, although they may be completely sincere. Best not to pay too much attention.

Kevin, the main thing with blurbs is, they've become expected. There are certain things almost all books in our genre have, and blurbs are one of them. Go through your bookshelf and see how many books from the last few years you've bought that do not have a blurb on the front cover. Then look at the back covers. The blurbless books tend to be by well-known bestsellers who don't need the endorsement to sell. But look at those newer/lesser known authors and see who doesn't have blurbs. The few I can think of on my shelves come from smaller publishers, debut books, authors not American or British.

Or they're self-published.

So, it's something you have to do, because everyone's doing it and you can't risk not doing it.

[ChrisR]

Blurbs and review excerpts on books may not be my only deciding factor but it still stands as a strong deciding factor. If I come across two books that interest me where one has blurbs etc. and the other has none, I will buy the one with blurbing.