When Book Blurbs Go Bad
Here's an article on the sometimes questionable promotional blurbs we see on books: "This Book Will Change Your Life": The Reckless Art of Book Blurbing
Andre Mayer, arts writer for CBC.ca, discusses the over-excited prose currently found in book blurbs and gives a few entertaining examples.
posted by Amy at 5/04/2006 01:29:00 a.m.
2 Comments:
Some of those blurbs were just daft! That one from Eggars was so over the top, it sounds as if he wrote it as a parody and some publisher/marketer took it seriously.
Have you seen David Montgomery's "blurb factory", a great idea -- he wrote a good post about it when he started doing it? http://www.crimefictionblog.com/
I find it very annoying when an author one really likes has written an enthusiastic blurb on a book that is really not that good. Tess Gerriston does this quite a lot.
Some authors seem much more prone than others to "blurb" -- Harlan Coben for example, whose name is everywhere: how on Earth could he read that many books, as well as write them?
I know--I tend to not trust over the top blurbs. In fact, I'm starting to not read author blurbs at all. I still pay attention to reviews that are quoted though. I'll cheerfully read a book that's recommended by Publisher's Weekly or Booklist, and although I may not like the book, it's not usually because of poor writing.
I haven't read the post by David Montgomery, but I'll check it out. Thanks for the tip!
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