Blurbs

[Fred_Patten]

Has furry specialty publishing progressed to the point of authors requesting other authors for blurbs for their new books? It looks to me that we’re still small enough that almost all of us are equally well-known to the average furry book-purchaser. Blurbs seem like unnecessary extra adornments.

How Do You Ask for a Blurb? - SFWA

I think I’ve reprinted this before, but here is how blurbs got started. Incidentally, in case you’re curious, before about World War I most books did not have dust jackets where blurbs could be published. Books (hardcovers) had embossed covers protected by glassine envelopes. Check out the original editions of “The Island of Dr. Moreau” by H. G. Wells, “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame, etc.

Blurb

And I’m sure that I’ve mentioned “Scratch the Surface; A Cat Lover’s Mystery” by Susan Conant (Berkley Prime Crime, June 2005), a murder mystery set in the world of “cat cozy” mystery writers, most of whom get blurbs for their books. Felicity Pride is a leading author of them, and she is used to getting requests from new authors for a short blurb praising their new books. When she gets another, she hastily agrees and forgets all about it. When she is reminded at the last minute and reads the manuscript, she is horrified to find that it is a blatant plagiarism of a well-known novel in the genre. All of the other writers who have provided glowing short blurbs obviously did not bother to read it.

[FuzzWolf]

The hardcover edition of Summerhill by Kevin Frane has blurbs from Kyell Gold, Ryan Campbell, Watts Martin, and Buck C. Turner.

If I recall correctly this was the first time we did this at FurPlanet. I’ve seen M.C.A. Hogarth and Ursula Vernon discuss blurbs for each other also, not sure if that was something they actually did or only talked about on Twitter though.

[Chipotle]

I don’t think blurbs are bad ideas, although I think you’re mostly right within furry, Fred. For books that have a potential of breaking out into wider audiences, though, they might be useful. Lawrence M. Schoen, who had a story in my magazine Mythagoras long ago, sold a novel set in that world to Tor (Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard) – and while I’m not sure furry readers will care much about the cover quotes from Robert Sawyer and Walter Jon Williams, it might help persuade the wider audience that, yes, they actually do want to read a book set in a universe of anthropomorphic animals. It’s not hard for me to imagine a book from FurPlanet (or Argyll) or Sofawolf getting a push into the mainstream sf market via a blurb from someone mainstream sf readers have heard of.

[KJ_Kabza]

It’s not hard for me to imagine a book from FurPlanet (or Argyll) or Sofawolf getting a push into the mainstream sf market via a blurb from someone mainstream sf readers have heard of.

But then again, there’s the matter of distribution/visibility. I mean, sure, an endorsement on a furry novel by Neil Gaiman would certainly be something, but until I started nosing around in the fandom, I’d never heard of Sofawolf, Fur Planet, or Rabbit Valley. Blurbs take advantage of the potential power of cross-pollination of readers, but since non-furs don’t generally have much of an awareness of furry publishers, they aren’t likely to look at the books (or publisher’s website) and see the blurb in the first place.

[Ryffnah]

It’s not hard for me to imagine a book from FurPlanet (or Argyll) or Sofawolf getting a push into the mainstream sf market via a blurb from someone mainstream sf readers have heard of.

But then again, there’s the matter of distribution/visibility. I mean, sure, an endorsement on a furry novel by Neil Gaiman would certainly be something, but until I started nosing around in the fandom, I’d never heard of Sofawolf, Fur Planet, or Rabbit Valley. Blurbs take advantage of the potential power of cross-pollination of readers, but since non-furs don’t generally have much of an awareness of furry publishers, they aren’t likely to look at the books (or publisher’s website) and see the blurb in the first place.

Except that furry publishers sometimes get tables at mainstream sf/f events.

[KJ_Kabza]

Except that furry publishers sometimes get tables at mainstream sf/f events.

Oh! Do they? I hadn’t noticed. I wonder which events, how often, and how sales at a mainstream SF con would compare to sales at, say, strictly furry cons–but I guess those are questions and considerations for the publishers.

[Fred_Patten]

I believe that FurPlanet and Sofawolf have had tables at some of s-f fandom’s Worldcons and comics fandom’s San Diego Comic-Cons. I don’t know about other non-furry conventions like Dragon*Con, or whether Rabbit Valley has been to any.

How well have they done there? Well enough to make it worth continuing? How well do furry books sell at non-furry conventions?

[Poetigress]

I think especially with the mainstream events, the publishers tend to put the focus on their graphic novels.

[Chipotle]

But then again, there’s the matter of distribution/visibility. I mean, sure, an endorsement on a furry novel by Neil Gaiman would certainly be something, but until I started nosing around in the fandom, I’d never heard of Sofawolf, Fur Planet, or Rabbit Valley. Blurbs take advantage of the potential power of cross-pollination of readers, but since non-furs don’t generally have much of an awareness of furry publishers, they aren’t likely to look at the books (or publisher’s website) and see the blurb in the first place.

Well, my thought here was primarily sales on places like Amazon, promotions on Goodreads, and increasing the chance of getting books in front of non-furry reviewers. What would the effect of having an endorsement from Boing Boing or io9 be, for instance? I don’t know, but I’d like to increase the chances that we’ll eventually find out.

I would really love for Sofawolf and Argyll/FurPlanet to get a few of their titles onto the shelves of at least independent book stores – and I’m pretty sure there are at least a few book stores across the country that would be open to the idea, especially if the book had that theoretical Kim Stanley Robinson blurb. I don’t know whether those publishers are up for the extra work that would involve, though. (I’m not actually sure how much work that is, either; some printers will ship directly to book stores for you, but not all will, and there might be minimum order requirements and other catches.)

[Lawrence_M_Schoen]

Coming in late to the party, I hope you won’t mind if I add a thought that’s been on my mind of late.

In 20 days my anthropomorphic SF novel, Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard comes out from Tor Books. This is my sixth book, but the past five have all been from small presses. It’s not enough to say the difference between big and small press is like that between night and day. More like the darkness of a coal mine and the heart of a supernova (please remember to bring your shades).

When I went into this, I blithely gave my publisher a long list of potential blurbers made up of some pretty Big Name Authors in mainstream SF that I’ve had the pleasure to get to know over the years. My naive and ignorant thinking was something like “hey, these folks are friends of mine, they’ll be happy to help me out.” If only it were that simple.

Not long after that, as the machinery of the big press gripped me in its maw, I came to realize just what a time suck blurbing can be. I’ve been writing and publishing for more than two decades, but I’ve never been more busy than in the past year. And the point that it’s driven home is this: time is the one resource that I cannot replenish.

Which means, that when another author asks me for a blurb, to accommodate her I will have to steal the time needed to read her book from some other project. That’s the generous gift that people like Robert Sawyer and Walter Jon Williams have given to me. And sure, I can buy them all drinks at the bar the next time we’re at the same convention, but I can never really repay them for their time.

The only thing I can do is pay it forward.

Which means that when I enjoy whatever success Barsk brings and other authors come to me asking for blurbs, my plan is, wherever possible, to answer with two sentences. A statement of fact followed by a simple question:

1. I really don’t have the time.

2. When do you need it by?