Image via Shutterstock
Jane says:
‘Often, publishers will ask you to find someone famous-ish to say something kind about your book for the front cover. When it’s your first book it can be tricky, because there’s a good chance you don’t know anyone famous-ish.
‘You have to put your shyness and shame aside. Call in some favours. Ask friends if they know anyone. Google contact details. Hit people up on Twitter. It’s embarrassing, sure, but you just have to do it. Eventually someone will say yes. When they do, send them the manuscript as promptly as you can to give them the maximum possible time to read it and be clear about when you need to get a blurb back.
‘For my most recent book, From the Wreck, I Googled and emailed some very famous writers. Only George Saunders replied, but said ‘no’ in his extremely polite way. No one else got back to me. Via Twitter, I contacted the amazingly imaginative author Lian Hearn, who I knew had liked my first novel… and she wrote me this amazing blurb:
“It’s hard to find the right words to praise this novel. I think we need a whole new critical vocabulary to be invented. Rawson recreates a vanished historical world with utterly convincing characters as well as inhabits the mind of a cephalopod alien and make us feel, in both cases, “yes, that’s exactly how it is”. Jane Rawson’s writing is mysterious, chilling and tender. The book is a sort of miracle.”‘
If you’re self-publishing, a blurb is even more helpful because it gives you that extra level of credibility. Annabel Smith’s first two novels were conventionally published, but she published her third, The Ark, herself.
Author of From the Wreck, Jane Rawson, image supplied.
Annabel says:
‘I made a wish-list of 17 authors whose books I admired and whose works had something in common with mine. Here’s part of the email I sent to Hugh Howey with some sample pages from my novel:
‘I often describe The Ark as “Wool meets Super Sad True Love Story“. I believe it would appeal to readers of relationship-driven quality speculative-fiction exactly like the Wool series. I discovered your work via your interview on the self-publishing podcast in September last year and have since been an unashamed torchbearer for the series, eagerly awaiting Dust and the revelation of what happens to Juliette. To have your endorsement on the cover of The Ark would significantly help with the book being discovered by the right audience and would mean a great deal to me. I’m sure you receive many requests of this kind and I know you are working on the next Molly Fyde book, therefore I understand if it is not possible for you to assist with my request. But, at only 55,000 words The Ark is just a little dumpling of a book and if, by chance, you are amenable, I can provide you with a hard or soft copy of the manuscript immediately. I need a cover quote by the end of October 2013.”
‘To my utter astonishment, Hugh Howey replied to my email the very same night! Here is what he wrote: “I love the premise of this, and you can flat-out write! I was hooked by the very first document. It took a ton of creativity to put all these found pieces together, and the presentation is top-notch.”‘
Author of The Ark, Annabel Smith at her desk. Image supplied.
This is an edited extract from What to expect when you’re expecting a book, a series for first time authors by Jane Rawson and Annabelle Smith. Read the full blog post to find out how first-time novelist Mel Campbell got a Hemsworth brother to blurb her book.
