One of the worst aspects of being an editor (and a new author) is the frenzy to get blurbs. Having no blurbs is like having no extra curriculars on your college application. Or no lace on your bra. It still fits, it still does its job, but where are the frills?

Most people are highly cynical and believe that you can only get blurbs from friends and through connections. This is mostly true, but it still requires a degree of chutzpah. That said, it does happen from time to time that a writer of note notices a new writer. I still have a postcard sent from William Trevor that endorsed a young Irish-American author. Just a hand written sentence from a leaky fountain pen — it meant the world to us.

From a publishing perspective, blurbs are most useful to the people inside the publishing house and the retailers to stir excitement pre-publication. People need validation. It’s one thing when an editor says that this is best novel he or she has ever read; it’s another entirely when it’s from Toni Morrison or Philip Roth. Discerning readers also scan blurbs when perusing a book. An endorsement from a respected author can be a deciding factor. [Note to self: write about spying on shoppers in bookstores.]

Much as I hated trying to get blurbs for my writers, after all who likes imposing on other people, I was never more flattered than the first time someone asked me to blurb their book. By the sixth time, it got a little tiresome especially as I was asked to blurb all the eating disorder books, you know, Fat Like Me, The Fat and the Fury, For Whom the Fat Tolls, Eat Me, to name a few. Still, I always blurbed the books, remembering how hard I worked as an editor to get support for my authors, and how much it meant to me to get some quotes on my own books.

One day, I confessed to a fellow agent that I didn’t love one of the books I blurbed. She was HORRIFIED. What about my good name? I replied that I basically traded that in when I became an agent. She didn’t laugh. She thought it was horrible of me. Was it? Was I becoming what Lucy Grealy lovingly called herself, “a blurb whore?” Bad enough to be a publishing slut.

And you can quote me on that.

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