Blurb Your Enthusiasm: A Cracking Compendium of Book Blurbs, Writing Tips, Literary Folklore and Publishing Secrets

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Louise Wilder has fascinatingly lifted the lid on the art of blurb writing, in as crisp, amusing, and informative a way as Diana Athill did for the story of publishing and editing in Stet I really liked this book, what would have been great was a reading list of the books mentioned at the end along with the bibliography , that would have taken it to five stars. This is an enthusiastic and opinionated review of the world of blurbs. She skewers lazy blurbs. "Moving", "compelling", "brilliant", etc., are empty words that add nothing. Good blurbs latch onto one or two specific things that explain why you should read the book. Spoilers do not belong in the blurb. The tone of the blurb should match the tone of the book. A humorous blurb works for a humorous book, it does not work for a serious literary novel.

Blurb Your Enthusiasm: A Cracking Compendium of Book Bl… Blurb Your Enthusiasm: A Cracking Compendium of Book Bl…

Gotcha, didn’t it? That line got me too. It’s from a blurb for The Plague, and the nameless copywriter deserves a plaque. Those five words conveyed all the ominous menace of the book and got there a lot faster than Camus, bless him. A reply as true as Steele, to a Rusty, Rayling, Ridiculous, Lying, Libell; which was lately written by an impudent unsoder’d Ironmonger and called by the name of An Answer to a foolish Pamphlet Entssuled. A Swarme of Sectaries and Schismatiques. The Divill is hard bound and did hardly straine; to shit a Libeller a knave in graine.If you’re a writer, it’s all about finding your voice. If you’re a copywriter, it’s usually about expressing someone else’s. One is an art; one is a craft (or if it’s an art, it’s the art of imitation). You just have to listen.’ I loved the chapter on the classics, the opening quote from Alan Bennett is all too true and highlights Wilders previous point about how a opening line can make or break a novel. Being a big whodunit fan I really found the section on writing blurbs for these books very interesting and it does explain why that sometimes the blurb is better than the actual book. The section of woman’s literature was my favourite I have had many of the same thoughts as the author, and I particularly loved the discussion and quotes from Marian Keyes. Constructing an effective blurb is a task that many independent authors can find daunting – and it is a task that the editors helping them may find a challenge, too – so this book may be a great resource to recommend for help, advice and inspiration. But to be an editor is to love books, to want to make them the best they can be, and to want to see the authors we work with succeed, and Blurb Your Enthusiasm is ideal for us: people who love books, who find them interesting, and who would happily spend hours thinking about how covers work.

Blurb Your Enthusiasm by Louise Willder | Book review - TLS Blurb Your Enthusiasm by Louise Willder | Book review - TLS

Louise Willder has been a copy writer for over twenty years and really knows what she’s talking about. She has read a huge number and a vast range of books, and both her knowledge and her engaging love of books shows through consistently. She is quite brilliant on the use of language, I think, quoting some excellent examples and analysing what makes good writing in a variety of contexts. She also has a very clear-eyed view of publishing and isn’t reverential where she thinks pomposity or pretence needs to be punctured. Following the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, the idea took hold that Austria had been the first casualty of Hitler’s aggression when in 1938 it was incorporated into the Third Reich.’ Willder is an English copywriter. She has written hundreds of blurbs. She has blurbed bestselling romance books, reprints of literature classics, self-help books, mysteries, and more. She considers the blurb to be one of the minor arts of publishing.

Funder reveals how O’Shaughnessy Blair self-effacingly supported Orwell intellectually, emotionally, medically and financially ... why didn’t Orwell do the same for his wife in her equally serious time of need?’ Or this, talking about thinking one must enjoy “classics”: “My most important classics principle, however, is this: some of them are definitely better than others, and you don’t have to like all of them. Magical realism, the Beats and most ‘Great American Novels’ have never done it for me, and I am at peace with that.” Whether you agree with her taste here or not, that’s a sensible, humane and, for me, helpful and encouraging approach.

Blurb Your Enthusiasm: An A-Z of Literary Persuasion — Inside

king charles I on himself: ‘Eikon Basilike or the Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings.’ Wise and witty...she is full of vim, blessed too with an unusual sense of enquiry, a comic turn of phrase and a talent for investigation into almost every nook and cranny of the business and pleasure of books.’ there’s a bit in the chapter titled “ventriloquism” that would be good for teaching the analysis of syntax but it’s too long to write out here

Similarly, Wilder is impatient with a new Kurt Vonnegut blurb that “gives little clue as to what the book is about,” when anyone who has read Vonnegut knows that that’s the least interesting thing about his novels (and, arguably, most novels) anyway. The fact that the blurb captures the voice and spirit of Vonnegut is far more important — to readers anyway, if not to unit-floggers. I love all that and loved the book. (And anyway, anyone who says that Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker is a masterpiece, that her new favourite detective is DI Manon Bradshaw and that Sue Townsend is a stone cold comic genius can Do No Wrong in my view.) Blurb Your Enthusiasm is a real gem and anyone with any interest in books will enjoy it immensely, I think. She gives some examples of terrible real-life blurbs which have genuinely been used e.g. for a recent edition of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: "Mom's fishing for husbands - but the girls are hunting for love" and other blurbs which, in contrast, do their job perfectly: distilling the essence of the book into a few sentences while still leaving you thirsty for more. A joyful celebration of books – the perfect gift for bibliophiles, word lovers and anyone who’s ever wondered, should you judge a book by its cover?

Blurb Your Enthusiasm eBook by Louise Willder | Official Blurb Your Enthusiasm eBook by Louise Willder | Official

I loved it - it was like having a good old natter over coffee with a writer / reader who loves books as much as I do. One for every bookish TBR for 2022! I’d recommend it more specifically, however, to people who have an interest in the publishing industry (which includes aspiring authors) and anyone who has a general interest in marketing. It’s quite a long book, but it’s easy-to-read and pretty funny. More importantly though, it’s really interesting.Louise Willder has worked in publishing as a copywriter for 25 years and she’s written more than 5,000 blurbs. She seems eminently qualified, then, to guide us on ‘the outside story of books’ (as the book’s own blurb puts it). This is a good description, as Willder doesn’t limit herself to exploring blurbs – there are lots of elements that combine to produce a book’s cover and most of them are touched on here. Hooray! Publishers (and reviewers), take note. I never could understand ‘incandescent’. Even light bulbs aren’t incandescent anymore. And while we’re at it, I’d like to blue-pencil the noun phrases ‘rite of passage’, ‘coming of age’ and ‘richly woven tapestry’.