![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/wicked-witch.jpg\")
<\/a>Far too many authors think blurbs will magically rocket a book to success. That the right, brilliant blurb by some famous author will impress the publisher, readers, reviewers\u2013and of course our friends, family, and fans.<\/p>\nBut do blurbs really make a difference in terms of sales? It\u2019s hard to say. How can you quantify a blurb\u2019s impact? As a reader, there are actually some authors whose names make me not<\/em> want to read a book because they\u2019re what’s known in publishing as “blurb whores” and love having their names on as many book jackets as possible.<\/p>\n What you can be sure of is that not<\/em> getting a blurb you hope and pray for is a major buzz kill, and getting it is often like July 4th on steroids. The entire world is ablaze with joy. Someone famous, or at least someone you admire, has given you their blessing. They like your book, they really like it\u2013won\u2019t their fame be contagious?<\/p>\n \u201cMy Dear: I understood your letter to be a request, not a demand.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I sympathized with the celebrity author feeling put upon, but I felt sorry for the writer who was embarrassed, and wished The Famous One had simply said \u201cno\u201d the first time.<\/p>\n Stories like that have made me determined never to ignore a request from an author or publisher asking for a blurb. If I can\u2019t do it for whatever reason, I always let them know ASAP.<\/p>\n Still, you never know how competent a publisher is. Once a publisher of mine in New York never got advance copies of my book out in time for blurbs and had to rely on reviews for my previous book. That wasn\u2019t a disaster, but it was very frustrating. And I recently did a blurb that the author loved, but despite her insistence, it didn\u2019t show up on the book. The publisher wasted my time and the author\u2019s, which is just more proof\u2013if anyone needed it\u2013that publishing is a crazy business.<\/p>\n Lev Raphael is the author of Writer\u2019s Guide is Bunk<\/a> and 24 other books in genres from mystery to memoir which have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Before I got my first book published, a novelist I knew quipped, \u201cThe only thing worse than not being published is being published.\u201d I had no idea what he meant, but I soon figured it out. Take blurbs. Begging for blurbs for your forthcoming book is a definite downside of being published. It\u2019s humiliating to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[445,497,653,446,658,948,5,660,768,496,950,380,495],"class_list":["post-2899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writers","tag-author-blurbs","tag-authors","tag-blurbs","tag-book-blurbs","tag-book-marketing","tag-book-publishing","tag-books","tag-famous-authors","tag-newbie-authors","tag-publishing","tag-the-publishing-industry","tag-writers","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2899"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2916,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions\/2916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>Is it any wonder blurbs can make us writers frazzled? A writer friend told me a hilarious, sad story about a new author asking a national best-selling author for a blurb. I can\u2019t name the celebrity writer, but she\u2019s huge. The newbie waited and waited. No response. So the anxious author tried again. This time she got a swift and stinging reply:<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"