On about books. We delve into the latest news about the Publishing Industry with interesting insider interviews with Publishing Industry experts. Well also give you updates on current nonfiction authors and books. The latest book reviews. And well talk about the current nonfiction books featured on cspans book looking at the bus of publishing. And now we want to introduce you to british writer louise wilder. She has spent most of her career trying to get readers to buy other authors books. She does it through blurb writing. In fact, she is so prolific, shes written a book about it. Blurb your enthusiasm. Book tvs john mcardle sat down with her recently to talk about her new book. Louise welder whats a blurb and how important is it to a book . Success . Right. Well, the word blurb, i guess, has different meanings. And over your side of the atlantic that it does here in england, i think in the u. S. , its more commonly used to describe an advanced endorsement that this, an author will give for another authors book. Whereas here we tend to use it to mean the descriptive copy that goes on a book. So you know that the synopsis, although i think its much more than a synopsis which is why i wrote a whole book about it and i think that the words we see on books, i mean, we probably read more of them than we do actual books themselves can tell us so much about the history of books, about the art of words publishing. About storytelling. And the more i delved into them, the more fascinating things i discovered. So, yeah. And they theyve been around a lot longer than we think. The word blurb was in. I think it was coined that theres no evidence before that in 1987 by an american writer. It was on an advert for his book called are you a bromide . Which means like or you really dont person. And so this whole thing is lumped in the language of literary hype. You can see the art. If you look for online, its got a photo of a woman they call misspelled in a blurb and the art of blurb. And shes saying how this book is so wonderful that its going to make you want to crawl through miles of tropical jungle and bite someone on the neck because its so spectacular. So the whole idea is that its just mocking this, you know, the puffery of publishing. So i sort of think whether we use it, your sense or the sense, we more commonly use it in here, in england that the blurb is definitely a piece of hype. You know, maybe something we dont quite trust on the history of blurbs. You get into that in your book, blurb your enthusiasm, and one quote from George Orwell that you start your book with question any thinking person as to why he never reads novels and you will usually find that at bottom it is because of the disgusting tripe that is written by the blurb reviewers. Yes, thats quite strong, isnt it . Yes, i think its interesting. I think in this sense orwell was talking a little bit more about blurbs in terms of a quotation, you know, a puff from another author. But i found it interesting that when i looked into this, orwell wrote off not long after actually writing that in. An essay he wrote to his friends to connolly, asking him if he could give him a nice blurb. Facebook basically saying, you know, ill scratch your back if you scratch mine. So, you know, i think everyones everyones in on it. But orwell did have quite a lot of obviously a lot of control over the words that went on his covers. Theres theres some letters between him and his his editor when they would just before the publication of 1984. And he said, you know, i really dont like the way youve described this book. It makes it sound like a thriller mixed up with a love story. And so presumably being orwell, he got his own way. And so his the blurb that he wrote talks much more about totalitarian is it it sets up this dystopian world and it starts 1984 was the year in which it happened, which i actually think is a really good book as well. That gives you a sense of mystery. Well, this is your first book, but youre no stranger to writing blurbs. How long have you been in the blurb business . Yeah, the blurb business. Its its its over 25 years now. So since the last century, i guess. Which makes me feel very old. Yeah, i started out in publishing in the 1990s and things have changed quite a lot since then. Initially, there was a department of us who would just wrote the cover, copy the jacket, copy for the books. Thats all we did. And we read books all day and we wrote blurbs and it was just wonderful. But since then, we have been kind of separate it out and folded into marketing departments, which actually i do think works well because you know what . Were doing in a sense is marketing to to the consumer directly. You know, theres probably no more direct way of doing it than the words that they will see when they browse in a bookshop and pick a book up and look at the back of it. I think people there are a lot of estimations that people might not spend more than about 30 seconds doing this. But, you know, hopefully something in those words that we that weve crafted will jump out and make them want to want to buy. Yeah. And in your 25 years, have they all been at Penguin Books in the uk . They have, yes. Obviously now with Penguin Random house in the uk. But yes, it was at penguin. Ive worked in various departments, so ive worked on very commercial books, you know, like thrillers. And now i tend to work on more serious nonfiction and a lot of classics. But i think, you know, its it seems to be the same where wherever i am, you know, often will get, you know, were working with a book that might not yet be written or well just have a few lines about it and not know that much. You know, hopefully theres a manuscript that we can get our hands on, but thats not always the case. But its yeah, its been such an instructive, an amazing experience. You know, ive got to read incredible works of literature. Ive learned so much more than i ever did when i was at university about, you know, the art of writing and putting together a piece of writing and i think that, you know, writing these very short paragraphs can actually teach you a lot about, you know, writing as a whole and, you know, writing a whole book. Well, what makes a good blurb . Oh, the Million Dollar question. I would say that a blurb is a lot more than a synopsis. You know, if you want a synopsis of a bookstore, you can just look on wikipedia. The author, iris murdoch, said that a blurb is a mini art form, and thats how i like to see it. It should tell a story. It should have a beginning, middle and an end. It should that story should contain tensions and drama. And mr. It should do a kind of a dance between divulging and withholding. It should set up you know, a time and a place, but do it in a way that really hooks reader in, you know, i think its really important that a blurb will make an emotional connection with the reader, whether its Something Like the, the opening of the blurb on. The first discworld novel by terry pratchett. It starts in the beginning there was a turtle which just makes you smile or Something Like the blurb thats been on Margaret Atwoods novel, the handmaids tale for years, which starts the republic of gilead, allows offred only one function to breed, which obviously creates a completely different kind of emotion. It unnerves you and unsettle you. So i think a good bloke has to hook you in. It has to tell a story and it has to try and be original in some way, which is difficult when youre writing thousands of these things. But, you know, it needs to try and stay true to the book if it can, and pick out some some kind of intriguing detail from it. You know, i think we have a responsibility with what we do as well. Well, how do you write a good blurb for a bad book . A book that you dont have any emotional connection to, that youre not that youre not feeling that with . Oh, thats a good question. And i really i think sometimes it can be easier because you dont youre not involved. So or, you know, if its something that im not an expert in at all, you know, some science, but that a on the subject i know nothing about in a way that can be easy because im kind of like the layman, you know, i dont have this expertise. And so i can step back from something and hopefully try and make it clear, try and make it accessible, which is what im there to do. And i think and i think, you know, perhaps with a novel, its not that great, you know, i like to be positive and think that theres always something that you can find to love in a book. And its my job to try and dig it out. Have you ever lied in a blurb . Oh, well, i would describe it as more of a fib. Maybe that a lie. You know, its. Its like a kind of a white lie. Theres an italian author, roberto calasso, who i quote in the book, and he talks about the art of blurb and being like introducing someone at a party. You know, you you could be talking to someone who doesnt know anything about them. And so you concentrate on the good parts and the positive, you know, rather than saying this day or this person like this book is a bit kind of soggy in the middle and rambles on a bit. You know, i think its our job to try and highlight those good things. And and i also think that perhaps as readers, you know, most readers are very savvy. Theyre aware of whats going on. And partly, i think i know as a reader that i want to be hooked in. And there was a quote on a book that i bought the book because of the quote in it on the front. And it said, if if George Clooney had walked into the room while i was reading this book, i would have sent him away right. I have to buy this book. And so it works for me. And, you know, i knew that i was being manipulated, but at the same time, i just couldnt resist. Well, of course, everybody wants to know, did you write the blurb for your own book . Why . Well, initially, as a kind of experiment, i got six copywriters who i knew from from my days in publishing, who i do still work in the industry or freelance. And we i asked each of them to write a blurb for my book. And i thought, you know, maybe the best one go on that bit because i have this theory that ideally an author shouldnt write their own blurb because you need an outsiders perspective. An author can often be far too close to the material, and in the end they would just all so great and so different that we decided to put them as an appendix at the end of the book, along with a blurb that i used, a kind of Computer Generated blurb, theres a program you can use to do them, which was just terrible and made me feel really glad that, you know, i, ill still be at a job because computers definitely cant write blurbs at the moment. And so in the end, and i did end up kind of ignoring my own advice and my editor and i worked on the globe, on my book together, which actually had to be incredibly short because ive actually ive got a copy of it here in you might not be able to see, but thats the sort of that much space for the blurb because i was lucky enough to get some really nice endorsements for the book as well. And so we really just had to try and employ that. There was a lot in there, you know, it covers all sorts of subjects and areas, but just do it in this tiny space. So yes, i completely ignored my own advice. Well, authors always want to read their own works, so go ahead and read out the blurb thats on the back of your book. Oh, you might hate it. So it says this is the outside story of bits from blurbs to titles, quotes to checks, jacket, cute animal designs. This is a joke because it has a little cute mouse on the front and via author for you to writing tricks classic literature bunker busters plot spoilers and publishing secrets discover why its good to judge a book by its cover, maybe even this one for an american audience. Whats a bunker buster . Yeah. So its. Its. Its a little bit readers, i think they were also known as sex and shopping novels. So i think possibly a bunker buster is how they do it in the in the uk. So its all those marvelous eighties and huge doorstop novels by the likes of Jackie Collins and shirley conran, which i do go into quite a you know, theres one chapter devoted to them, my book, just because they were an important part of my teenage reading experience, well, you cant obviously have any complaints about your own blurb, but do you find in the 5000 or so blurbs that youve written in you in your career, do authors like the blurbs . Whats their relationship as as you create these for other authors . I think it really varies. I think some are incredibly protective of their work and they want to control every area of it. And others are very happy to have this outsider step in. But often, you know that their idea of what is what will sell something and mine are quite different life, you know, a lot of authors will try and make things really long. And one wrote to me saying, you know, this blood is a comprehensive. Nobodys going to have to buy the book now, which is completely not our aim. And and yeah, the mercy quite reasonable. I had a i had a letter from john updike, which was lovely. You know, obviously, you know, quite a few years ago now, id rewritten the blurb for his novel couples, and it was meant to be very short and very snappy and and its such a charming letter. He includes the blurb that he wrote for the First Edition and said, you know, this is this is by far less giddy attempt to describe its contents and at the end, you know, he sort of did this. And then just says, oh, my, have have it your way. So that was a lovely example of an author agreeing to what id written. But, you know, there have been far worse incidents, you know, some some i would name any names, but someone being pretty horrible. A friend of mine has had, you know, blurbs torn up in front of him. Hes had to write, you know, 21 different versions of a blurb. And there was the british author, jeanette winterson, who really hated the blurbs on her assignments and reissued some of her backlist novels. They gave them new covers and they rewrote the blurbs at the same time. And she hated them so much that she decided to set fire line of her own books in her garden and then put it on social media, which is, i think, possibly the most extreme example of blurb hating ive come across. What are some of the other examples of wellknown books that our readers might have seen that your words are on the back of . Oh yeah, a lot of penguin classics, things like that. There was i am not quite sure how it translate to to the united states. There was a novel called alone in berlin that did incredibly well here. It was became a sort of an international bestseller. And i was i was really pleased to have have worked on that book. You know, a lot of the time, i think that i never know if im that pleased to see my blurb some books because invariably theyve been changed by somebody, either an editor or an author. You know, theyve always been slightly tweaked. And so i never know if im really 100 happy, but im sure thats the same with people who write anything, you know . Is it true that that j. D. Salinger wanted only his name and title on the back of his books, and he wanted to let his books speak for themselves . Yes, its absolute really true. And and you know, delving into publishing history, nobody really seems to know why this is the case. But he had it in his contracts. They stipulated that it should only his name and the books title should appear on the cover. Nothing else . No. No information about him. So no biography and no quotes and absolutely no blurb. He was notoriously published shy. So perhaps, you know, this was part of it. I also found the blurb on like the original edition of catcher in the rye did have a blurb on it. This is obviously before he instigated this rule and it was pretty terrible. I wasnt sure if that was anything to do with it. But yeah, i think its its gone. Its, you know, its a publishing mystery, but a but one that has been adhered to well before we ended. I wanted to to get your thoughts on some of the words that stuck out to me looking through my bookshelf, reading blurbs of books that i have. These are some of the words that just kept coming up compelling, refreshingly unique, fascinating, readable, timely, intimate and revealing. Oh, yeah, so right. Youre so right. And that readable. Thats the worst one, isnt it . Its like, well, its a book, of course. Its readable. Yeah, i, i feel very ashamed too. And i say this because i do think there is this kind of language of publishing cliche where all too often, you know, people who work in the industry will fall back on these adjectives, you know, hauntings and other one. And, you know, theyre often kind of light references, you know, dazzling, luminous, searing, like, you know, why do we use these words . Obviously, i try and avoid using it wherever possible. And i think one rule with copy with all good writing is to try and avoid, you know, its the show, dont tell, you know, avoid just sounding like a publisher telling people why they need to read this book and why its that most earth shattering thing thats ever, ever been written. And instead, going back to the work itself, think of something concrete from the book. You know, orwell talked about using pictures and sensations. To get your message across, which i think is far stronger than you know, any kind of landmark Ground Breaking putdown of all all of those kind of words that we use the book is blurb your enthusiasm in a to z of literary persuasion. The author is louise wielder appreciate your time on about near future. On book tv. Well, thanks for joining us on about books, a program and podcast produced by cspans book tv. Book tv will continue to bring you publishing news. A new author programs and to get this podcast and all other cspan podcasts go to our cspan now app. And a reminder that all book tv programs are available to watch online at book tv dot org. Our brother, yes, our brother, is the taliban and the iraqi insurgent and alqaeda and the russian soldiers. And he has an automatic rifle, and he kills, and and is he is becoming us war is always the same plague. It imparts the same deadly virus. It teaches us to deny anothers humanity, worth, being and to kill and be killed. 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