There was a question asked on Facebook in a writing-centered group, and I answered it. A little snarky, but an answer, and the snark wouldn’t have been obvious to the casual reader.
The question was: “What’s your experience with asking for cover blurbs? I’m working with a marketing director for the first time ever and it’s one of the things he wants me to try to get for the book (middle-grade contemporary fantasy for boys, 50k words)
I’m more or less looking for book endorsements from qualified people and I don’t know where to start.”
Now, here’s where the snark came in – I know this author, and I’m the acquisitions editor who recommended his book be accepted by the press. I am also, in and of my own right, an author of young adult fiction. So I wrote up a little blurb for his book and dropped it in a comment.
I was inspired in part to do this by a conversation years ago. I was wandering through the dealer’s room at a con, and had paused to let a conversation group by. There were two ‘young’ authors asking an established author the same thing. “How would you get a cover blurb from a big name?”
I whipped around, grinned up at the established author (who stands a head and a half taller than I) and asked him nicely for a blurb for my just-finished novel. He laughed, told me to email it to him, and he wouldn’t read it but he would send me a blurb. He was as good as his word, the blurb was wildly inappropriate for my book, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, I’d demonstrated for those authors how to get a cover blurb: you ask politely. This is also what I was doing in the Facebook group, showing how it’s done, only this time I got to be the established author, which was fun.
There was another comment by Shami Stovall, herself an accomplished author, in the comment thread. “I’ve gotten many blurbs from fellow authors over the years and I think the best thing about it is that (if the author really liked your work) they will occasionally bring it up and champion it as well.
However, just having a blurb on the cover doesn’t seem to have any real effect on whether someone will buy it, if that makes sense.”
She is absolutely correct. It’s a Nice Thing to have for your book. Ultimately, it’s unlikely to move the needle on sales unless that author is also sharing it around to their fanbase. Which means the authors need to know one another’s work and trust the work to not only be good (I think we’ll just take that as a given) but that their readerships are compatible. It does no good to have a Romantasy author blurb a Hard SciFi book, or vice-versa. It also doesn’t mean a lot unless the author who is being named on the book cover has a decently-sized fanbase who will recognize their name and be intrigued. Which brings me to the last point about cover blurbs – they are really only effective on a paper copy. Ebook covers are just too small for them to be readily readable, usually. Poor design can lead to them just being distracting clutter.
To sum up: how do you get a blurb? Ask.
Do you need a blurb? Maybe not, and be judicious about who you ask and whether they are compatible with your marketing goals.
Oh, and the book? Will be Fossil Force, by Graham Bradley. Coming from Raconteur Press in late 2025!
Mad Genius Club 
2 responses to “Shared Clout”
When Robert Spencer (historian of Islam, not the other R. Spencer) got threatening, one-star reviews, he used those as blurbs, on the assumption that it would get people curious about the book. Apparently it worked. (He also lives in hiding and has for years, so this might not be the best approach for most of us!)
I’ve never really considered asking for blurbs, since most of my work isn’t in print, and I don’t distribute through bookstores or libraries. It didn’t seem like a good marketing method in my case.
I have a horribly horrible idea to, if I ever write a book, get a collection of completely fake blurbs like: “Contained live bobcat, do not recommend.” just because I am curious is seeing something so completely off would make someone look twice at it.