I Am a Piece of Shit
I received a manuscript yesterday from an editor looking for a blurb. It’s a book by a person with an eating disorder. It doesn’t look like anything I would ever read. I can’t do it. Until now, I’ve basically blurbed every book I’ve been asked to, which predictably have been books on writing and fat books. How can I say no? I was an editor for sixteen years. It’s hands down the worst part of the job, trawling for blurbs. You know what makes me insane, when a writer says that he or she has a “policy” of not giving out blurbs. A policy? What do they think they are? Statewide Insurance? Can’t you just say you don’t have the time or you don’t care? Do you really have to make a policy? And is it a policy if you make it up and enforce it yourself? Because I should have a policy of not weighing myself the morning after I eat pepperoni pizza.
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Betsy Lerner 
Blurb is a funny word, sounds like some of the noises I make after I eat pepperoni pizza, blurrb,
That is a tough dilemma. I would have a hard time saying no, but, on the other hand, when I see an author who blurbs a thousand books of widely varying quality, I start to see any blurb by them as a warning that the editor was desperate.
Jeff Yeager, aka The Ultimate Cheapskate, told me that when I get published, he’ll “blurb my dust jacket”
Then we decided that sounded a little kinky.
So we’re definately going to do it.
Speaking of Khaled Hosseini…. How does he have time to write? I see his blurbs on three out of every ten books I look at.
I was with you until this part: “Can’t you just say you don’t have the time or your book looks retarded?”
It’s the retarded-as-an-insult part that bothers me so.
I hate the retreaded ones.