Dave:
I won't attempt to speak for Kevin (he's fully capable of speaking for himself) but while blurbing for higher profile authors may have the appearance of sucking up, more blurbing for lesser known authors can make the blurber appear to be an authority while helping to build the community of readers for similar types of work. I don't think there's anything wrong with that unless the blurbers create expectations that the blurbees do not fulfill. Not that it's that simple, either.
By the way, is that a comma splice I see dangling from the end of your reply, pardner?
Yers in yuks,
Kerry
----- Original Message -----
From: davezeltserman
To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 4:16 PM
Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: Blurbs (Ignore That Sucking Sound)
--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Kevin Burton Smith <kvnsmith@...> wrote:
>
> When I see a blurb, I always hope it's from a legit review or other
> source. But too often, it's just a premixed, premeasured endorsement
> from one brown noser to another; a circle jerk of thumbs-up. A recent
> book I've read featured some pretty nice blurbs from some writers I
> respect -- or at least I used to. The book was horrible.
>
Kevin, you've made it pretty damn clear in your recent posts that the above was meant for myself and Allan Guthrie, and I guess also Bill Crider and Ed Gorman, who have all said positive things about The Disassembled Man. I can only speak for myself, although I'm pretty sure the others feel the same way, that we all saw the same excesses and indulgences that you did, but we also saw real talent in the writing and wanted to support both that and a new writer from a tiny press who was up against it and would be lucky to sell 200 copies. For me what stood out in the book was the absurdest humor when Avicious's mentor/tormentor/devil would appear. But let me ask you, what it the world did you think any of was expecting in return from this new and virtually unknown writer? Do you think a blurb from him would matter to any of us? And if any of us were trying to play the quid pro quid blurb game don't you think we could've picked much higher profile authors??? If you really want t
o show some balls why don't you start looking at some of the clearly manufactured blurbs on bestsellers? What was that famous quote from Robert Parker when he was asked by an author seeking a blurb whether Parker had read his book yet: "Do you want a blurb or do you want me to read your book, you can't have both"?
--Dave
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