Monday, April 30, 2007

The Blurb

And yet more news about non-blogger reviewers. The New York Times Sunday Book Review section has an article about blurbing: Literary Misblurbing: Genius!

Since the NYT omitted that section with my weekend delivery, I found out about the article via galleycat.

I guess I'm very cynical (yes, I'm Gen X!) because part of my reaction was "that's something new? Hasn't misblurbing been happening, like, forever?"

Anyway.

So, my varied & sundry questions:

Blogger review blurbs. What do you think? I've seen blurbs on author websites; and at both Kane/Miller and Lee & Low. Where have you seen your blog blurbed? And when do you think the first blogger blurb will appear on a book?

5 comments:

Andromeda Jazmon said...

Well, like everyone else my blog was blurbed at LibraryThing. It took my by surprise and made me feel special until I looked a little more closely and saw how many blogs were blurbed... At least I am glad to be in such fine company!

web said...

My online review (pre-blogs) was blurbed for the boardbook version of A, You're Adorable. The highlight of my career, even though they fudged with it and the grammer was weird. :-)

Anonymous said...

I've definitely been blurbed on author websites. I think the first was Chris Abouzeid's Anatopsis website. And, as you mentioned, at Kane/Miller. I can imagine some of the more blog-friendly publishers like Kane/Miller, Lee & Low, or Chronicle Books putting a blog-blurb on a book before too long. It's not SO different from putting it up on the website, or including it in the newsletter. And it would be cool, from any of our fellow-bloggers.

Anonymous said...

Blog blurbs will be appearing in our upcoming catalog so you are all correct, it won't be much longer until these same blurbs start appearing on reprints of our books.

We appreciate your fine insight and taking the time to review our books.

Thanks for the mention, as always. It's nice to see us alongside such well-respected names as Lee & Low and Chronicle.

Anonymous said...

Liz, I thought of you just now as I started reading the ARC of the second Kiki Strike book. There are 2 pages of blurbs at the beginning (which I'm guessing won't be in the printed version, but still...), including blurbs from TeenReads.com and Bookslut.com. On the back is a blurb by Tina Jordan from Entertainment Weekly which says (online). So presumably they're referencing an online review, though not a blog review. So, it's coming, moving in that direction.

I also think that the mere fact that Sondra commented (positively) on this post tells you where things are going.