Your Blurbs: Glean the Best of the Best the Easy Way

 

My best results for getting blurbs for all genres--poetry to how-to nonfiction books--has been cribbing quotes from what some call fan letters but I just call communication with my readers. People seem to be more effusive when they are writing e-mail or letters they have no idea might be reprinted. To put it another way, the idea of someone's words being published seems to make their prose stiff and less readable or memorable. And authors are not immune to this block. Let's call it blurb block. 

 To counteract this tendency, I copy and paste the part of a communication (or fan letter)  I'd like to use as a blurb back to them and ask permission to use it. Then I ask how they'd prefer to be credited.  The last part of that question is important because it lets my possible blurb benefactor know that providing the quote can help their exposure to the public, too. (-:

The downside to this method is that an author doesn't get fan mail until after she or he is published, so--though sometimes an e-mail or letter will compliment the author in more general terms--most blurb-getting processes must be supplemented with the tried-and-true method of asking folks to collect enough blurbs needed for the book's cover before the publication date. Well before.

 

The way to do that is a slightly different topic that I cover in my own Frugal Book Promoter (http://budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo). And this specific question on getting blurbs came up in the Independent Book Publishers Association newsletter so I thought I'd share my take on doing it the frugal way--frugal of time. Short on headaches.

 

CHJ

 

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including the award-winning second edition of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog: