You’re not crazy. The blurb industrial complex has gone into overdrive in the last few years and part of every book’s publicity plan is getting upwards of ten new blurbs if possible. This has meant pressure not only for those who ask for blurbage, but those who get asked. The tide may be turning but the pressure is still there. In my 15-year career I have accrued 10 pages of pull quotes, written by reviewers I don’t know from major publications around the world. Some of them are even complimentary. I also already have blurbs from absolute giants of both literature and the bestseller list, and I went through Preston Sturges–levels of striving and screwball comedy to get to them.
But there’ll always be the request: Nah, we’re going to need blurbs that mention this new book specifically.
So then I’m off to talk to the only people as awkward as I am: other writers. The sad thing is the quest for my own blurbs has started to take up the emotional space that I used for something I genuinely loved doing: writing blurbs for other people.
For me that’s part of the bargain of this art form. After all, those aforementioned giants helped me out with a few donated adjectives and that means I should use whatever clout I have to help my own friends, former students, or strangers. (And yes, in that order.) Yet the frenzy of the last few years has transformed this rite of passage into something like a desperate Kabuki play.
Here’s how to ask for a blurb in 2026 and make it a little less cringe for everyone involved.
