[contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Website’ type=’url’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form] Blurb. Funny word, blurb. Hmmm, BLURB. Even looks funny.
A good one can possibly sell a book. A bad one might not sell a book. Not so funny now.
I managed to get a few for my masterpiece, but this isn’t about me. It’s about an adventure! An adventure to Blurbville in Book County.
The magical book blurb seems to go one of two ways: it can aid a reader in choosing the book, or it’s seen as useless crap and unneeded words of blah, blah, blah. BLAH!
Readers have told me that the blurb, if written by another author of whom they tend to like, will sway them to read, buy, steal, or get the book. Others have informed that they don’t even look at the suggestive blurbs. They find them an added annoyance of cluttered composition. Tumbling texts of throwaway.
As a writer, the blurb is simply WEIRD shit. Asking for it is WEIRD. Writing one is WEIRD. Get it? It’s—just—weird. Weird. I have to forcefully hide my shame and ask other authors to be advertising shills for my book in return for a glorious seal of approval and cheap advertising of their famous name and most recent penned performance or upcoming literary treat. FINE.
I’m in!
Then I wait. And wait…
Yeah, it’s patiently at first.
Then it’s like, goddamn, I know me and I don’t have patients. “HEY, where the fuck is my blurb? I’m waiting here. I’ve sold my soul to get a… Oh, thanks. Hope it wasn’t a problem. Thanks again. I really appreciate it.”
What if they read it, didn’t like it, and their blurb reads like this: “The book was great, despite its shitty ending.” This is where the whole asking, giving, and getting blurbs is, well, weird. What the hell would I even do with a blurb like that? Don’t even know.
For a new author like me, it’s important to have a blurb or two, maybe even four or five on the back, inside cover, or even on the web for all to see. Question is: How the hell do I get a blurb, you know, being a new author and all? Answer is, open the sealed envelope now: I really have no fucking clue. Not the answer I was looking for from myself. So, as a semi-intelligent person (I may have stretched there) I asked for help on this issue, concern, quandary.
Being a new author, I went to the place where I have found a lot of answers on writing and writing-related questions, a writing group. Ah, the naysayers are already blurting, “Hey, just Google it.” Well smarty, while Google does have most of life’s answers, it doesn’t have this one – necessarily. Not what I’m looking for anyway. I did, you know, Google it just for giggles. I mean, I tried anyway. As with all things Internet, I went from site to site, clicked on a few links, saw an add for Viagra, ended up with too many fucking pop-ups, and finally landed on some weird porn site. Those crazy-ass Germans! It was a strange, but typical surfing trip. Oh, that just happens to me… Well, shit then!
I did manage to bob ‘n weave through the Web’s landmines just along enough to find a few useful things and quite a good article about the Holy Grail of all things blurbed.
I read the article by Josh Sanburn and took away a good quote from author A.J. Jacobs when asked by Sanburn whether blurbs help book sales. “That is a great mystery. My gut says they don’t have a big effect. I don’t buy books based on blurbs.”
In other words, he has no fucking clue. Me neither!
I’ve never been asked to give a blurb. There are many reasons for that, the biggest being that I’m a new author, a nobody on the literary scene, a highly functioning illiterate in writing circles, not such a big deal – yet.
So, my quagmire still exists as how to get a book blurb. If you’ve read this post and your like, “Well shit Chris, I have a great idea!” then send it to me.
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