Courtney on book blurbing

This is kind of an insider conversation on the publishing industry, but Courtney’s opinion is super important–and relevant to all of us young and hopeful writers, This also has a big impact on whose writing gets noticed.
Her piece in Publisher’s Weekly tackles the old and hallowed system of book blurbing–getting a famous someone to write a short (and hopefully glowing) review of your book for the back cover. From Courtney:

Let’s be honest. Rare is the blurb that genuinely evolved from an established writer sitting down with the manuscript of a new writer (not a former student, best friend’s child, or shared agent’s new golden boy) and being inspired to offer a few words on the quality of the work. This is what my mom thinks happens. This is what the majority of the American book-buying public believes.
The reality is more like this: one of my young writer friends couldn’t get a single literary novelist to blurb (such an ugly verb) her new book, not because they read it and thought it undeserving, but because they didn’t recognize her name. It wasn’t until her supervisor at work asked one of his famous friends to do him a favor and offer a few words that she finally got a books-flying-off-the-shelf blurb. Good boss. Crappy system.

Courtney doesn’t only have criticisms, she’s also got ideas about how to change the system.

Let’s team up–the bestsellers and the first timers–and imagine a new system. Maybe each author informally agrees to read (at least in part) five new manuscripts a year by unknowns, thinking of it as their dues for succeeding in a difficult industry. Even better, maybe we throw a big party, get some whiskey company to sponsor it and do short readings from new manuscripts. Authors who’ve heard something special can follow up right then and there with their genuine praise. Everyone interacts face to face. Everyone gets a shot at the literary dream of having random readers like my mom find their book on a shelf, flip it over and say, “Wow, if Zadie Smith likes this, I’ve definitely got to pick it up.”

Check out the whole piece here.
Via Isak

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