McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Back cover faux-pas.....

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BobForPresident:
After a trip to Barnes and Noble yesterday, I realized something: you totally can judge a book by its cover. How? If you turn it over and see a back cover crawling with quotations about how awesome the author is instead of telling me what the book is about!!!!

There are few turn-offs for me more likely to make me put the thing back on the shelf. I feel that just because fellow author John Hyphen-happy thinks that your book is "a cover-to-cover heart-pounding liver-clenching stroke of modern-storytelling-genius" doesn't mean that I will enjoy it in the slightest. Now, if said quote is then followed by a paragraph about plot, and if said plot intrigues me, the odds go up that I'll slide my Visa for it.

Whew. So...why do publishers elect to do this? Doesn't a tiny little plot synopsis trump a buncha glomp about what the author's friends think about him?

Shecky:
It's name-dropping... and it does work on a lot of people.

Landing:
If I didn't have enough experience to know that the name dropping didn't really amount to much, I might be tempted by something that Jim said was good. Unfortunately I have seen some authors I really like put their comments on the back of some really bad books so you learn not to trust them, much like your can't really trust anything printed on the back of a book.  ;D

Starbeam:
If I see a back cover like that, I'll open to the first or second page, because they'll usually have either a short paragraph excerpt, or the blurb.  If not, then I read the first line/paragraph, and maybe skim the first page.  

Darla:
Some authors--and I believe Jim is one of them--are really picky about which books they write blurbs for.  Others just do it whenever they're asked. 

Of course, even if you know an author is careful, sometimes the publisher will use a blurb for a previous book on a new one. 

So mostly, I just ignore them.

Except when it's an author who writes under a couple of pseudonyms and one pseudonym blurbs another--I find that hilarious and will buy the book simply because I appreciate the humor.  But then, I'm a bit of a book slut.  I've been known to buy books for less reason than that.

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