What’s blurb got to do, got to do with it?

Moving on from last week's lurve- to blurbs. And the blurb-removal machine.

Who reads blurbs anyway, and who takes notice of them? Why bother looking at a blurb- surely you’re going to buy a book because you like the cover, or you like the writer, or someone you know or trust recommended it?

And who writes blurbs? Have they even read the book or did they just flick through and say something nice because they ought to?

Does it matter if publishing houses decide not to bother with them, and if one publishing house decides, will they all follow suit?

So many questions for me to consider in my exploration of blurbs next week. Like, who came up with the stupid name in the first place?

I was going to do a thing on blurbs anyway, and so it was like a gift when I heard that Simon and Schuster were doing away with them. Hooray, I thought, here’s a good angle for me to approach from. It turns out that blurbs have lots of angles, like a dodecahedron, and are more interesting than I thought.

So, what are they? Of course, the meaning is vague and multifaceted- blurbs can be plot outlines, quotes from the book itself or praise from other authors. They can incorporate star-ratings or be just one word, but only if the word is positive and the stars are multiple- it’s not a literary Ofsted inspection. Blurbs are promotional. Blurbs want you to buy the book; blurbs want your money.

So why would a publisher not want to emblazon their book covers with large, lavish, loving banners? What’s not to lurve?

This article here, says it best if you want more details.

This week, I’ll be having a look at blurbs from my personal point of view. Blurbs have featured a lot in my life- when at primary school and early secondary school it was fun to design book covers and write blurbs about our favourite books. We did it for love and for genuine appreciation of a favourite book - not in some cynical, sycophantic way.

Maybe blurbs should be written by ordinary readers with no expectation of reward, other than more good books to read? Like, my blurb of What you are Looking for is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama would be, “I wanted to take this book to bed with me at night and cuddle it.”

What would you put in a blurb on your favourite books?

Whilst you ponder, here’s my machine-embroidered life-drawing of three muses, featuring the message, Every day you play with the light of the universe by the poet Pablo Neruda.

Mixed media message: my life drawing, painted onto fabric with acrylic paint and then stitched by machine and by hand.