Do book blurbs matter?

Looks like you're new here. Get all the fun of 52 Novels as it happens and subscribe by e-mail or subscribe using your favorite RSS feed reader. Might as well. Don't cost nothin.

That’s the question raised in the Sunday, September 16th, 2007, edition of The Denver Post, in a story called “Not all blurbs are created equal.”

This big, splashy article contends that blurbs do, in fact, matter.

Cathy Langer, lead buyer for the Tattered Cover bookstores, said that blurbs serve any number of useful purposes. As a reader, she said blurbs “really influence how I see things,” and she believes the store’s customers see things similarly.

“I have the opportunity to observe people as they are browsing, almost invariably people will read the cover, read the blurbs,” she said.

It is when she’s making buying decisions, though, that Langer finds blurbs most useful. “My actual buying is not so dependent on my reading as it might be on my blurb reading. I read a particular kind of book, but I buy every kind of book. So I look at a blurb that is from (a given) mystery writer about a new mystery writer to get a sense of who the book is really for, who the audience is. Also, I will up-buy to aggressively hand-sell a writer who has been blurbed by someone I love,” she said.

But does that actually reflect what most readers feel about the snippets of praise included the jackets and covers of the books we buy? Just because they’re read doesn’t mean they’re influencing the buying decision. Does it?

I’m not most readers so I can only speak for myself.

I read blurbs, and, to some extent, they do matter. But it’s usually when I’m on the fence about a particular title. If I don’t recognize any of the blurb writers—or if they’re mostly culled from trade reviews—I usually take a pass and wait for some other recommendation, whether it’s from someone I know personally or someone whose opinion I otherwise respect.

But the fact of the matter is that I’ve also been influenced by decent blurbs from names I do recognize… only to be let down by the book.

And sometimes the I read the blurbs and they don’t matter one iota, say, when I know I want the book and I’m simply looking for purchase validation. I figure if others are giving it praise, I must be on the right track.

And there are some authors I look for… like Ken Bruen and Michael Connelly. I love both of those authors, so I’m impressed when they’ve taken the time to lavish praise on other writers.

Where Connelly is concerned, that’s a wise strategy according the The Denver Post story:

[Connelly's] publisher and agent send manuscripts they’d like him to read. He said, “I don’t blurb everything that comes from my own publisher. I might have a harder level of acceptance, the threshold might be higher for stuff sent by my agent. … I’ve never done a favor, or asked them to do one for me.” He said he’ll sift through more than 100 books a year to arrive at the 10 he’ll endorse.

Is it with Bruen? I’m not sure because he’s renowned in the mystery community for his generosity. He blurbs a lot of books, and the praise is so glowing, that it’s hard to tell whether it’s genuine.

I should mention that I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard from a number of people that’s he’s truly a wonderful man and a great person to have as a fan. So, even though I see his name on a lot of books, I tend to trust what he says.

But enough about me… I want to hear form you. What’s your opinion of blurbs? How do they shape what’s in your TBR pile?

Tags: book-blurbs, Ken-Bruen, Michael-Connelly, On books, The-Tattered-Cover

Sphere: Related Content

Tagged as: book-blurbs, Ken-Bruen, Michael-Connelly, On books, The-Tattered-Cover