How to Judge a Book by Its Blurb

Here at Blurbs R Us, the phone has been ringing off the hook. Every five minutes in the United States (and every 20 seconds in my neighborhood), someone writes a book and needs a book jacket blurb. Never underestimate the power of the blurb. It’ll be read by more people than the book.

Being a blurb donor gives me a social responsibility to become a Great Person. If I make it, my blurbs increase in value. It’s a literary Ponzi scam.

I personally have benefited from blurb-flation; I have been on the groveling end of the blurb. I knew Whoopi Goldberg before she rose, fell and rose again. She blurbed my first book and taught me the basic lesson in The Art of the Blurb: Say something catchy. She said something so catchy that publishers have been noticing it for years. Unfortunately, by the time the expletives were deleted, what appeared was:

“ . . . is funny.” --Whoopi Goldberg

The danger for the blurb hunter and gatherer is the risk of being handed the truth. The truth can be the cruelest blurb. You don’t want to call some smart person and have him write what he really thinks:

“A surprisingly long first novel.” --John Updike

Sometimes you can get around the need-for-honesty problem by just quipping. You don’t need to be a flatterer or a phony. For example, had Shakespeare wanted a blurb for “Hamlet,” I’d have offered:

“Men! Can’t be with them; can’t not-to-be without them.”

The other thing you can do with blurbs is use them as bargaining chips. You blurb my book and I’ll blurb yours. Had he only asked, I would gladly have given Tom Wolfe a blurb pro quo--something along the lines of what he would doubtlessly like to say about my book:

“The only book needed to understand the 20th Century.” --Alice Kahn

You can also blatantly use other people’s book jackets as advertisements for yourself. I’ll never understand why old Dave Barry didn’t ask me for a blurb for his witty book “Dave Barry Turns 40.” I would have said:

“Not bad.” --Alice Kahn, author of several much more brilliant books

One of the most difficult aspects of blurb generation is the need to do it without actually reading the book. Just the suggestion that someone should take time out of a busy schedule and read your work can seem offensive. Most people who have contacted me have had the good manners to send only excerpts. I have gratefully obliged:

“Short and to the point.” --Alice Kahn

But sometimes the requests seem a little too demanding. For example, yesterday someone whose book I have not seen called and said he needed a blurb and it had to be into his publisher the next day. He left the publisher’s fax number.

“Audacious!” --Alice Kahn

Ideally, a blurb should be descriptive but also contain certain phrases that suggest that this is the hot book to have.

For example, were Jane Austen writing “Pride and Prejudice” today, she might appreciate a blurb like:

“A kind of ‘Women Who Love Too Much’ for the ‘90s.”

There are also certain buzzwords that help market a book to a target audience. Had Alice Walker come to me, I could have helped her sell a few copies of “The Color Purple” with something like:

“Deconstructs male motivational patterns--from a feminist perspective.”

The importance of the blurb in modern publishing may have to do with the fact that many book ideas start with a blurb. A publisher suggests that I come up with a book that is:

“A cross between ‘An American Life’ by Ronald Reagan and ‘American Psycho’ by Bret Easton Ellis.”

Catchy blurb. I’m still working out the details of the plot.