Are Blurbs Dead?

We all know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover. But do we also ignore the riveting, luminous, unparalleled and unputdownable words of praise that we find there?

Simon & Schuster thinks so. Publisher Sean Manning recently changed company policy to no longer require titles from its flagship imprint to carry blurbs, the industry term for those laudatory bits of superlative-heavy salescraft.

“It takes a lot of time to produce great books, and trying to get blurbs is not a good use of anyone’s time,” Manning wrote in Publishers Weekly, citing the hours spent in outreach requesting blurbs, reading (or skimming) books before writing the blurbs, and polishing the expected collection of flattering adjectives.

Requests for blurbs often come from colleagues or friends, creating an implicit tit-for-tat exchange, critics say.

“What’s worse, this kind of favor trading creates an incestuous and unmeritocratic literary ecosystem that often rewards connections over talent,” Manning wrote, adding that S&S isn’t outlawing blurbs, just ending the asks.

The move caps decades of complaints from the literary community. From George Orwell’s oft-quoted 1936 characterization of blurbs as “disgusting tripe” to Rebecca Makkai’s Dec.16 Substack column detailing why she was taking a break from blurbing, there is a long tradition of writers decrying the whole system.

“I know better than to call something a tour-de-force, or unflinching, or worse yet a slim volume of surprising and uncommon power, but aside from being able to mark out the most obvious pitfalls like Scylla and Charybdis, I’m completely lost,” lamented writer Daniel Lavery in a 2023 column about blurbs. “Why have I described a book as ‘readable’? That’s like calling a television show ‘watchable,’ which – hideously – I am almost sure I have done at some point.”

“Who doesn’t hate the tyranny of the blurb? So much effort expended for so little result!” wrote agent Sharon Bowers in 2012 as part of a New York Times collection of industry takes on the blurb.

Asking for blurbs can be panic-inducing as well as time-consuming, writers say. One bestselling mystery author told Esquire that the ritual of requests is like “a sorority hazing that never ends.”

The ostensible reason for enduring the process is that the right blurb from the right person will help sell the book — not just to readers, but to critics considering titles for review and booksellers deciding how many copies to stock. Prolific blurber Stephen King, known for lending his name and praise to debut authors, opined that a well-wrought blurb will do wonders: “A blurb is sometimes a better way to point people toward the good stuff than a 2,500-word review. It’s certainly more direct,” he wrote in Entertainment Weekly.

But that was way back in 2008. Today, blurbing is so widespread–one author recently asked LitHub if a dozen was too many to feature – that many join Simon & Schuster’s Manning in wondering how effective they are.

“I got a blurb from Gabrielle Zevin, who had the biggest book of 2022 with Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,” one novelist told Slate, “and it didn’t change the amount that retailers had ordered my book in at all. And I was like, Wait, so how much do these … blurbs actually matter if having none punishes me, but also having one that’s really good and important seems to do nothing?”

Still, we seem far from abandoning the practice completely. As of this writing, none of the other major publishers appeared to be following Simon & Schuster’s example. And Makkai, in a Feb. 4 essay for the New York Times springing off her Substack column, said she’d still be asking.

“Will I be procuring blurbs for my next novel–my sixth? Absolutely. Because in this ecosystem they still matter. And because lord knows I’ve paid in advance.”