Blurbs

Pick up a book, any book, in any store that sells books in the US. It's covered in blurbs, those little written soundbites that are plastered all over the front cover, back cover and inside cover. They usually say something like "Best novel of the year", or "Year's ten best", or "Astounding".

They're garbage. Blurbs are artificial and only serve to make the book more marketable. This in itself is not such a bad thing. After all, marketing happens in lots of interesting, unforeseen ways. What I object to is the complete lack of design involved with their usage. They're just slapped on the book, often as a list. Everytime I see them I feel personally insulted. It's like I'm being yelled at by smug people some editor thought should be associated with this author to make them seem acceptable.

Blurbs represent the literary version of brute force marketing for what is probably a crap product. I picked up a book and there were 10 blurbs on the front cover. The front cover! "So and so has crafted, with wit and superior observation of the human condition, the blah blah blah of blah blah blah". The problem today is that they're on ALL books.

What needs to happen is the editors and art directors who hire the cover artist need to talk to whoever is guilty of plastering those blurbs on the cover and figure out some sort of synthesis strategy. I mean, does Chip Kidd sit there and compose 20% for title, 30% for author, 30% for blurbs and 20% for other (the rest of the cover image)?

Is there no better way to move books? I mean, c'mon people, let's try a little harder shall we? It reminds me of those Saab ads from 10 years ago. "People who test drive a Saab usually buy one". Just what the hell is that supposed to mean? Most people like this product so I should too? I can hear my Mom chiding me for going along with that logic. Why do book editors?

Incidentally, go to the UK. Books are still blurb free.