What is in it for an author like Steven King to provide one of those little dust-jacket blurbs for another author’s book? I’m talking of the line that will read something like " So & so’s skill in creating non-stop action and suspense kept me up all night! A must-read!" This sort of thing always sounds phony as hell to me.
Authors like John Grisham, Dean Koontz et al cannot possibly make much money providing their name & “quote” for this kind of thing; & besides I’m sure they don’t need the extra dough. So is it a buddy system thing? Do they only do this for authors working with the same publisher?
They don’t do it for money, it’s a you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours kind of thing. That way they can trade audiences; a lot of people think “Hey, if my favourite author likes this book, I’ll like it too,” and then if they do they’ll keep buying from that author.
Um, we (publishers) don’t offer money in return for blurbs.
It’s a karma thing. Authors like King and Grisham and Koontz know, down deep, that they’ve become famous bestselling authors NOT because they’re better writers than all those midlist authors out there, but because they were fantastically lucky.
Their agent decided to push them, their publisher decided to push them, the publicity and the marketing and the advertsing all came togteher, and…most important…the public took to them. It could have happened to any of hundreds of other writers.
So when a publisher sends them a nice letter and a manuscript, and asks for a blurb, they come through. Sometimes. And, often, they say “write it yourself, then fax it to me so’s I can approve it.”
Also, yes, in many cases, it IS a friendship thing. Auhtors hang out together, or meet each other at conferences. And it works from publisher to publisher; actually, it looks better if you get a quote from an author who’s with another publisher.
Hi. I am a writer. Authors are not paid for book blurbs. They may write them as favors to friends, or because they really believe a book is exceptional. They do not have to be books by their own publishers. It is hard for a new author to get a quote from a successful (well known) writer. The beginning author will have to depend on quotes from book reviewers (which are often more legitimate anyway). I have been asked to comment on books that I did not care for. I declined, saying that I did not feel qualified in the particular genre. Many writers have a flat policy of not endorsing books because they will be inundated with requests.
May I also add that most authors are great readers and just like anyone else who reads a book that he or she likes, that person likes to tell others about it. It is part of the beast.
It is especially true if, as Ike said, you have met the fellow author somewhere and developed a friendship and an appreciation of his or her skills. You want to share that appreciation with others.
As for people not blaming the reviewing author for a book the reader didn’t like: I am familiar with a number of situations where angry letters were written to authors by fans calling them to task for recommending a book the reading didn’t like. I could produce more than a couple of letters saying “I bought this book because you recommended it. How could you let me down like this?”
If I read a book that I really like, I tell people about it, especially people who I think have similar taste in books. Why would things be any different were I a writer?
Okay, let’s suppose that behind that dynamic Chronos mask, you’re actually Danielle Steel. And when you’re not busy writing your matchless prose or traveling around the country on publicity tours or being interviewed on teevee, you like to relax with a good axe-murderer novel.
So the executive editor at Lycanthropy Press sends you an advance galley of Eat My Liver, a first novel by a chronically depressed university sophomore in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It deals with a serial killer who forces his victims to ingest the internal organs of his previous victims, and the massive manhunt carried on by the FBI to track him down, and a trail of bloody violence ranging from Bangor to Baja.
You enjoy it and provide a blurb. Eat My Liver hits the bookshops with the words “Fine Goddamned Book! I Liked It! – Danielle Steel” on the jacket, bigger than either the title or the author’s name.
Now, YOUR fans are going to think that Eat My Liver is somehow similar to the sort of work YOU do, and thousands of copies are going to be flung with great force across living rooms, subway cars, and beach blankets across America.
If a publisher wants a blurb for a tough private eye novel, he’ll ask Robert B. Parker. If he wants a blurb for a novel of psychological suspense, he’ll ask Ruth Rendell. For an occult thriller, he’ll ask F. Paul Wilson.
The idea behind the blurb is, “You like THIS guy’s work? Then you’ll enjoy THIS, as it’s similar!”