Blurbs: Short but Mighty

“Blurb” is one of those words that, if you look at it long enough, just seems wrong. It’s weird. But blurbs matter. As writers these days we all need to move beyond our genre(s) of choice and do promotional writing. I’m using ‘blurb’ here in the strictest sense: short promotional quotes published on your book jacket or the opening pages of your book – not your own summary for the jacket/website.

Sometimes you’ll need to collect blurbs for your own work and sometimes, write them for fellow authors. I have blurbs on the mind because I just finished collecting them for a Vietnam veteran’s memoir, My Spiritual Walk as a Wolfhound: A Grunt in Vietnam, by Joseph Maes (forthcoming November 2021 with Tuleburg Press; I’ll post in November on making the move from writer to editor; I recommend taking the plunge!).

Our prized blurb acquisitions: Anthony Swofford (Jarhead) and Maxine Hong Kingston (Woman Warrior; China Men). Needless to say, these amazing writers will get pride of place on the cover, but we received loads of praise to include, especially from veterans.

Most of us will need to solicit blurbs before getting invited to write them, so let’s start there.

How can you get blurbs for your book?

Here’s a fun route: write your own! Glenn Wasson, a now dearly-departed friend, showered his book with praise from Shakespeare to Ambrose Bierce. Tales Mark Twain Would Have Loved to Steal is indeed praiseworthy – and as a comic writer, Glenn could get away with blurbs from the dead.

The rest of us can’t.

If you’re self-publishing or your publisher hasn’t assigned you a publicist, you’ve got a challenge – but that shouldn’t stop you in your tracks. Networking is key to a successful publishing career, and blurbs come from networking. Where to find potential blurbers?:

· Writers Groups: If you’re not already in one, find one (btw, more on each of these networking bullet points in upcoming posts). You can even join more than one writers group, time permitting. When one member gets their work in print, they’ll probably be inclined to help others, too. So writing groups are vital for your social network. And they help you with craft and learning how to benefit from constructive criticism.

· Writing Conferences: If you’re not already attending them, start. Find the ones most relevant to your genre(s) of choice – because that’s where you’ll find people whose names will be the most persuasive on your book covers. Conference fees can run from $100 to $600+, depending on location, length, headliners, etc. If your budget is tight, start local. And if you’re a student, check on student discounts (if they don’t mention discounts, ask – some conference coordinators will offer if you approach nicely – I’ve seen it happen).

Attend as many sessions as you can, introduce yourself, go to the Happy Hours, and most important, collect business cards and hand yours out. Don’t be obnoxious, but don’t be shy – because you really can’t afford to lay out money to meet writers then hold back on the networking. If you don’t want to approach headliners, chat up the people selling books and the ones in your workshops. Plenty of already-successful writers continue attending workshops on the conference circuit.

· Friends of Friends: Either within your writers group or beyond, you can benefit from friends’ connections. You might not want to ask Laura Lippman or Laurie King for a blurb, even if you sat next to them at a conference dinner. But do you know somebody who knows them as more than an acquaintance? Or maybe some lesser lights in the mystery world? Asking for a blurb is asking for a favor. They’re a professional courtesy – unpaid work. So not every friend will be willing to dip into their storage-jar-of-favors for you. But some will. After all, helping your book might help their own books down the line.

· Online Workshops: This route is more challenging, because it’s not as easy to make solid connections when you’re not face to face. Still, it’s doable. I say ‘workshops’ rather than ‘classes’ here because workshops tend to get you camera-time with authors and fellow students. Make sure you ask at least one or two good questions during the Q&A so that the teacher will remember if you reach out to them later. As ever, don’t be shy about asking for follow-up contact info.

· Paid Publicist: Maybe you’re just too timid to meet strangers while pounding the pavement at conferences. Maybe writers groups intimidate you. If this sounds familiar – and you’ve got money to invest in your career – pay a professional. Publishing houses have downsized like mad over the last 15 years, and they’ve cut plenty of highly qualified publicists lose from the payroll. These people often go freelance. They’ve got plenty of experience, plus oodles of good connections. Smart Googling will turn up plenty, as well as other freelancing publicists who’ve worked exclusively with self-publishing authors.

I recently learned that a daunting new blurb trend is on the rise. Some people going the traditional publishing route are getting blurbs before they even get an agent! In fact, getting blurbs in order to get an agent. Just when you thought things were already challenging enough. Here’s a word on that from Michael Pietsch, CEO of Hachette Book Group:

"We now very often receive submissions from literary agents to consider a book, and the agent's letter will have endorsements already in place from authors you've heard of. And that's the way the agent is getting the publishing community to read this book ahead of all the other thousands of books on submission at that time."

Nice to have a jump on the competition if you can get it. And scary that the bar keeps rising for securing an agent.

But let’s say you’ve already got an agent and a contract with a traditional publishing firm – and they assign you a publicist. In the case of my travel memoir, Sourcebooks asked me for a wishlist of blurb writers. If that’s your situation, ask yourself: what books are your target readers already reading? Go for those authors. Given my Jane Austen focus, I tried for Sharon Lathan, Amanda Grange, and Michael Thomas Ford. All three, to my delight, complied (btw, you may associate Michael Thomas Ford with his fabulous LGBT+ works, but he’s also been in Austen territory. Check out his fabulous vampire oeuvre, starting with Jane Bites Back).

Should you write blurbs for other authors?

Yes. (Mostly). If you’ve got a least one book in print, you’re likely to get asked to write a blurb or two by friends or other writers. If you stand behind the work, do it. Every sale of that book gets your name in front of potential readers! Plus, it’s very satisfying to be connected to a project you support. I wrote my first blurb thanks to being in a writers group with Lucy Sanna, author of The Cherry Harvest. Seeing her novel go from printouts for our writers circle to publication with HarperCollins was exciting!

So, blurb for others as you would have them blurb for you.

What about requests from people you don’t know? Or books you don’t really like? I was assigned a first-rate publicist at Sourcebooks and she passed on a blurb request from an author who’d written an update of Emma. I said sure, I’ll read it. The book was only so-so, and I was debating my response when I checked out the author’s bio. She listed, among previous work, writing she’d done for Focus on the Family. Decision made – hard NO. I don’t want my name anywhere near a group infamous for anti-LGBT+ activism. Once you put your name to something, it’s out there forever. Choose wisely.

What’s the best way to collect blurbs for somebody else’s book?

If you ever take on an editing project, you might need to help with blurbs. I learned a thing or two, sometimes the hard way, while soliciting them for My Spiritual Walk as a Wolfhound:

1. Decide what kinds of blurbs you’d like. For Joe’s memoir, we wanted blurbs from writers who’ve published on war and from fellow veterans, especially those who’d served in Vietnam. Since he’s Native American (Southern Ute), we also wanted people who could speak to his identity as an underrepresented minority.

What are the elements of your book? If it’s a historical romance set in Italy, of course you’ll want fellow romance writers to blurb you. But travel writers on Italy could be a great option, too – they can speak to how well you depict your setting. Plus non-romance historical fiction writers, to praise the thoroughness of your research. Main point: you’re not limited to blurbers in your genre alone. You can go genre-fluid with blurbs.

2. Make a list with more people than you’ll actually need. So for starters, figure out how many you’d like. Some books only have blurbs on the covers – typically one or two on the front, two to four on the back. Some books also include them on the first several pages. Either way, add at least a third onto your target number. Some writers on your list will say no – and some will say yes, then not come through. Most authors have day jobs as well as writing deadlines, so respect a busy person’s time.

With that in mind, be careful not to ask for too many blurbs. If they deliver then you don’t use their work on the book, the writer could get cranky. Still, if you wind up with extras, you can add them to your website and to sellers’ pages (IndieBound, Amazon, etc.).

3. Be very clear what you’re asking for. Experienced blurbers know the drill. But if you’re working with first-timers, you’ll need to explain that you’d like a short paragraph or two that includes at least one personal statement (“I loved this book!”). Emphasize the personal part, or you might wind up with summaries or review-oriented comments only. Send an example or two, for good measure. And even though you may only use a single sentence from the blurb, ask for more material than you’ll need, so you can pick and choose later.

It’s legit to steer the blurb. I asked the adult child of a Vietnam veteran to address being raised by someone who found it too hard to share their wartime experiences. That way, we could emphasize how Joe’s memoir offers veterans’ families a window into that traumatic world. If you want someone to praise the amazing diversity of characters in your high fantasy novel – ask. Just be sure you actually have an amazing diversity of characters.

Needless to say – but I’ll say it anyway – give blurbers a deadline. Figure out your own hard deadline for delivering to the printer, then ask for the blurbs a month before that. At least. That way you’ve got three weeks or so of wiggle-room when blurbers don’t all get things to you on time.

4. Ask nicely, send reminders – and if need be, let people off the hook. Typically you’ll be in touch with blurbers at four stages: 1) request, 2) deadline-approaching-reminder, 3) delivery, and 4) final-check-in. With the request, let them know why you’re asking them, specifically, and let them know how much you’d appreciate their support. But – assure them you’ll understand if they’re too busy.

With the reminder, couch it politely, maybe with something like “just checking to see if you’ve got any questions.” Plus, repeat that point about being too busy, and give them an out. Some people say yes because they have good intentions but a month or two later, realize they are in fact too busy. Let them save face, and maybe they’ll blurb for you down the road. I don’t mean you should talk people out of actually doing the blurb – just be accommodating.

As for the last two stages: the delivery is simple – “thanks so much!” For the final-check-in, here’s where you show them the specific text you’d like to use and how you’ll present their name. As in, “William Shakespeare, actor and author of the crowd-pleasing Hamlet.” Get their confirmation before you go to press.

5. Collect all blurbs before you decide how to trim and sequence them. You’re likely to find a lot of repetition in what blurbers deliver. This is why you’ll need blurbs at least a week before your own hard deadline with the publisher. With Joe’s memoir, more than half that I collected mentioned “the hell he went through in Vietnam.” Since I’d asked for small paragraphs, I also got material on his writing style, how young he was, his experience of racism, and other topics. Collect them all, then sort out how best to use them. You want to lure in readers with the range of what the book has to offer.

If you go for blurbs inside the text, they can be longer. The ones on the covers need to be tight. Here’s the full blurb we received from Maxine Hong Kingston:

This book is so mighty, so deeply felt, it's hard to find just the right strong words to describe it. Joe Maes has written the true war story that he could not speak when he returned from Vietnam fifty years ago. In My Spiritual Walk as a Wolfhound, Joe Maes takes us the reader with him into the very hell of war. We watch him change from a baby-faced kid to a grunt. We learn with fear and sorrow that the consequences of war last forever. We also learn facts, conditions, history that have not appeared in other books or in the news. Joe Maes has lived to tell this story, and it's vitally important that we read it. -- Maxine Hong Kingston, author of Woman Warrior and China Men

Every word here is golden, but it’s too long for the front cover. Final decisions are still being made, but we’re likely to go with one or the other of these first two sentences:

This book is so mighty, so deeply felt, it's hard to find just the right strong words to describe it. Joe Maes has written the true war story that he could not speak when he returned from Vietnam fifty years ago.

People skim covers, so blurbs need to be powerful – and tight.

There you have it – the wonderful world of blurbs! And never forget: once your blurbers have done their favor for you, be sure to return it. When the book’s in print, send signed copies to all the blurbers, even if you didn’t use their work. That way everybody’s happy.

Check back for upcoming guest posts by Christy Lenzi, literary agent Lisa Adams, and more.