Blurb Your Enthusiasm: A Cracking Compendium of Book Blurbs, Writing Tips, Literary Folklore and Publishing Secrets

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She also discusses first lines (Stephen King is a bit of a star here), why titles and covers matter, Anglo-American differences, why blurbs and the world of publishing are often sexist, when and when not to do puns and much more. The book is funny and readable throughout.

Blurb Your Enthusiasm eBook by Louise Willder | Official

Jammed with funny, curious and stylish thoughts and insights, Blurb Your Enthusiasm will be loved by absolutely everybody with an obsessive interest in books and their appearance.’ So I think blurbing serves a purpose, if you know how to read it. Some blurbs are over the top, such as when a blurber feels flattered, or when he is unconsciously seeking good karma. But I don't think many people want to be blamed by readers for making them read bad books. Writing briefly means every word must earn its place. Use fewer and make them better. Don’t make the reader do the hard work; be on their side. Never be boring. Ask, why should anybody care? There are more tips inside my book. (It’s an unputdownable tour de force.)A New York publishing CEO joked that Lincoln’s Doctor’s Dog would be an optimal title to appeal to readers (respected president + health + animal), but there are actually now six books with some variation on that title and all were presumably flops! Written by a professional copywriter who really knows her stuff, this is an immensely interesting book about all aspects of publishing (including cover design, marketing etc), taking as its focus the difficult job of attracting the widest range of readers using just 100 or so words, keeping as close as possible to the tone and spirit of the author. A haunting tour de force of genre-defying wit and love, Blurb Your Enthusiasm will take you gently by the hand of Reading and hold your head under the water of Literary Appeal until you finally, finally appreciate the Art of Blurbs. Wilder is brilliant. She offers examples of stunning blurbs – generally, these show, not tell, and are pithy, presenting a ‘tell me MORE’ sum-up without spoilers or dry and overloaded detail about plot or character, And she gives samples of the pits of blurb – for example, the cliché ridden oversell, the overweighty comparison of an utterly drab novel to something else, stratospheric ‘if you liked THAT you will love THIS, based purely on some similarity in setting of place, time, or general subject matter Hooray! Publishers (and reviewers), take note. I never could understand ‘incandescent’. Even light bulbs aren’t incandescent anymore. And while we’re at it, I’d like to blue-pencil the noun phrases ‘rite of passage’, ‘coming of age’ and ‘richly woven tapestry’.

Blurb Your Enthusiasm: An A-Z of Literary Persuasion Blurb Your Enthusiasm: An A-Z of Literary Persuasion

john yorke: ‘the shape of all stories; the enduring pattern of how someone is found by being lost.’ specificity is key. vague waffle, in fact most description – whether of a character or the book itself – should be avoided. Willder has worked as a copywriter at Penguin Books for 25 years. During this time, she has produced blurbs for roughly 5,000 books. If you’re a writer, it’s all about finding your voice. If you’re a copywriter, it’s usually about expressing someone else’s. One is an art; one is a craft (or if it’s an art, it’s the art of imitation). You just have to listen. Although Willder admires blurbal perfection, she has also put together a ‘little cabinet of horrors’ – blurbs so deliciously bad that we suspect the copywriters were impaired or never read the books. She describes these productions as ‘unhinged’, ‘barking’, ‘bats’, ‘deranged abominations’ and ‘a big “screw-you” to the reader’. A standout in that last category: ‘This is a Lord Peter Wimsey story. Need we say more?’ Well, yes.I really liked this book, what would have been great was a reading list of the books mentioned at the end along with the bibliography , that would have taken it to five stars. This is, then, an easy sell - though it's hard to fault the number of entertaining snippets, whether from history, books themselves or the experiences of other blurbists that Willder crams in. This is a book to savour. Having said that, I'm not sure it's a book that is best read from cover to cover as I did, because after a while it can feel a little samey. The book is dividing into many short sections (though it's not an A to Z in the conventional sense, despite the subtitle), and I suspect it would be perfect as a loo book, or for short train journeys, taking it in a chunk at a time.