Covered with mosquito bites

[pegkerr]

but I've pulled out five huge Hefty bags of weeds from two of the gardens. Go me.

Thinking about the blurb I've promised to write. Thinking about blurbs in general. What about a blurb makes a book attractive to the targeted market? The identity of the author who is saying "it's good"? The only truism I can think of is that I've noticed that a real turn off for me when I read is a blurb is when the author says, "The best thing since Tolkien." (Somebody did this on the Pullman trilogy, btw.) First of all, just accept it: nobody's as good as Tolkien. And if they are good in their own way, they're going to be good in an entirely different way, and the comparison just seems nonsensical. When I read that on a book, it strikes me that the blurber is just lazy.

I remember reading in a review of the LOTR:FOTR movie and being very struck by a critic remarking that Tolkien to the field of fantasy is like Mount Fuji is to the craft of Japanese landscape painting: it's always there. You're either seeing something on the mountain slopes, or the mountain is there in the distance, or you don't see it at all because you're standing on it.

I think it's a combination of the identity of the person writing the blurb and what they say about it. I know that some writers "dilute" their value as a blurber by blurbing so many books, saying on all them "it's great!" until you just can't believe them any more. (I think that kind of happened with Steven King, although I'm not sure--I don't read any horror and so am not familiar with marketing in that field).

For those so inclined, send in the blurb on a wonderful book you found, where the blurb made you pick it up. What was it about the blurb that snagged your attention?

Cheers,
Peg

Comments

[diony.livejournal.com]

I hope you don't mind a random reader posting comments...

Blurbs interest me the most when I know that I like what the blurbing author writes. I really love Pamela Dean's writing, for example, so anything she recommended I would be more inclined to check out. If I really /don't/ enjoy the blurbing author it doesn't rule out an interest in the book, but it does make me slightly more dubious.

The content of the blurb also matters - generic adjectives ('fabulous!') are uninformative, and unlikely superlatives (like your 'best thing since Tolkien' example) tend to leave me entirely cold.

You like Pamela Dean's writing, too?

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Good taste! I love her books, too. Tam Lin is one of my favorite books of all time, and a real impetus in the writing of my second book, The Wild Swans, although by the time I had finished writing it, Terri Windling had ceased editing the Tor fairytales series and so I sold it to Warner instead. I had the very great pleasure of being in a Shakespeare reading group with Pamela for several years--she lives pretty close to me.

I mention Pamela in the afterward of The Wild Swans, because it was in her kitchen (at a Shakespeare reading meeting, actually) when she made the crucial comment that made that book's double strand structure all bloom inside my imagination.

And yes, she blurbed it.

Thanks for commenting.

Cheers,
Peg

Re: You like Pamela Dean's writing, too?

[diony.livejournal.com]

I picked up The Wild Swans (which I loved) because I had enjoyed Emerald House Rising, and I picked up that latter because AlexLit told me I might like it. I honestly didn't remember that Pamela Dean had blurbed it; how ironic!

I love Pamela Dean's writing, almost an embarassing amount; there is something about it which goes straight to the back of my brain and leaves me happily gibbering. Unfortunately, this means any sort of intelligent analysis of why her books work for me is completely impossible. "Gibber," I say, waving my arms enthusiastically. "Gibber."

I was very pleased to find your livejournal (via kijjohnson simply because I'm always so curious about the lives of people who make things, especially when they write books I enjoy.