Blurb Your Enthusiasm: A Cracking Compendium of Book Blurbs, Writing Tips, Literary Folklore and Publishing Secrets

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It's written by someone who has been in the publishing industry for over two decades with a wealth of knowledge, anecdotes and wise observations and yet somehow the writer still exudes the enthusiasm of a new recruit. Willder has worked as a copywriter at Penguin Books for 25 years. During this time, she has produced blurbs for roughly 5,000 books. MyHome.ie (Opens in new window) • Top 1000 • The Gloss (Opens in new window) • Recruit Ireland (Opens in new window) • Irish Times Training (Opens in new window) I loved it - it was like having a good old natter over coffee with a writer / reader who loves books as much as I do. One for every bookish TBR for 2022! Then as now, hyperbole sold books. And speaking as a copywriter, Willder admits to creating her share. The blub is ‘my 100 words of little white lies’, she says. ‘There has to be some kind of sugar coating and, yes, lying.’

Blurb Your Enthusiasm: An A–Z of literary persuasion - CIEP Blurb Your Enthusiasm: An A–Z of literary persuasion - CIEP

A delightful bibliophile’s miscellany with a great title – not just for the play on words, but also for how it encapsulates what this is about: ways of pithily spreading excitement about books. The first part of the subtitle, “An A–Z of Literary Persuasion,” is puzzling in that the structure is scattershot rather than strictly alphabetical, but the second is perfect: from the title and cover to the contents, Louise Willder is interested in what convinces people to acquire and read a book.This is, then, an easy sell - though it's hard to fault the number of entertaining snippets, whether from history, books themselves or the experiences of other blurbists that Willder crams in. This is a book to savour. Having said that, I'm not

Blurb Your Enthusiasm eBook by Louise Willder | Official Blurb Your Enthusiasm eBook by Louise Willder | Official

Wilder is brilliant. She offers examples of stunning blurbs – generally, these show, not tell, and are pithy, presenting a ‘tell me MORE’ sum-up without spoilers or dry and overloaded detail about plot or character, And she gives samples of the pits of blurb – for example, the cliché ridden oversell, the overweighty comparison of an utterly drab novel to something else, stratospheric ‘if you liked THAT you will love THIS, based purely on some similarity in setting of place, time, or general subject matter They’re just a few words on books. But what are blurbs really doing (other than trying to twist your arm)? This book is all about those 100-or-so words that take seconds to read but can make a world of difference – and what they tell us about literary history, the art of writing, authors from George Orwell to Zadie Smith, genres from children’s fiction to bonkbusters, cover design, the dark arts of persuasion and even who we are as readers. Following the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, the idea took hold that Austria had been the first casualty of Hitler’s aggression when in 1938 it was incorporated into the Third Reich.’She also discusses first lines (Stephen King is a bit of a star here), why titles and covers matter, Anglo-American differences, why blurbs and the world of publishing are often sexist, when and when not to do puns and much more. The book is funny and readable throughout. Wilder enjoys a good digression. She is a huge Orwell fan, so she spends some time on his rules of writing. She discusses the rest of the outside of the book. What makes a good cover? What about illustrations on the cover? Do the American kind of blurbs sell books? She also gives a bunch of hints on writing blurbs which are actually hints on good writing.