Before I got my first book published, a novelist I knew quipped, “The only thing worse than not being published is being published.” I had no idea what he meant, but I soon figured it out.
I have a funny blurb story. On my last book I asked a well-known author (I won't say who) if she would mind doing a blurb for me. She is a friend and said she would be happy--but could I write up something for her to give an idea of what I wanted/needed? I dashed off a few lines and sent them to her to review. She responded, saying "that's perfect. Go ahead and put my name on it." So--I wrote the blurb and she attached her name to it without hesitation or changing a single word or punctuation mark! That's show biz, kids.... :-)
This happens much more often than people outside of publishing realize. And then there are the authors who say, "I'll either write a blurb or read the book but I can't do both."
Those authors are selfish and wishywashy. Do it or dont. That is almost like saying you go into a good deli and give a halfassed order because you cant decide if you want a bagel with creamcheese and lox, or a bagel with ONLY only lox and without creamcheese. And now you can be crediably established as a bonafide lunatic unlless you have sworn statement from your therapist, minister, or pet rock
I rounded up 14 blurbs for my forthcoming book -- and two of them appear on the back cover. They are good blurbs. But I'm urging my publisher to include the rest inside the book. She doesn't seem convinced.
It was really weird asking for blurbs. "Please tell the world that you think my book is great. Please."
All the blurbs are from people I know. The people I didn't know personally mostly didn't reply. One said yes, but she ended up not being able to. One other did give me nice blurbs -- a few to choose from.
I am posting for you the blurbs I've gotten for Autobiography of a Book, which is forthcoming from AC Books. I suppose this is presumptuous, but after being so presumptuous as to ask people to tell me they totally love the book -- and effervesce about it in public under their own names -- sharing the blurbs here seems a minor imposition. The first two blurbs are the ones that were chosen for the back cover -- as you can see, they are rather long. But they are erudite and chewy, and they both get the concept of Book as well as its realization.
What Book says is its life. Book talks itself into existence. Not until Book has talked and talked has Book acquired enough body to be called a book.
I sent out self-contained chapters and got them published in little magazines and ezines, while I continued to send around the full manuscript to book publishers. One of the ezine editors even nominated chapters for the Pushcart, which was a heartening upvote. (I asked him for a blurb when at last I placed the full ms -- and he gave me one.)
(You have no obligation to read the blurbs, and I won't be hurt if you don't.)
The blurbs:
In 1644, in Areopagitica, the Puritan poet, John Milton announced that “books are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of life in them.” In 2022, the American poet, Glenn Ingersoll has taken Milton’s notion––not to mention the later notion of “the death of the author”––one step further. What if a book awakened and began to speak, to write itself? Autobiography of a Book is an I-based production, but this “I” is not a human author: this “I” is an object, a thing made of paper and words, written words. If a human life begins with a breath, a book’s life “begins with an utterance. A word.” But the book is not “finished”: like a human, it must develop, it must explore infinite possibilities. “I am so new. I am just starting.” Ingersoll’s brilliant concept results in a book about almost everything, including pages “left intentionally blank.” It is, as the book itself tells us, “more idea than construct, more spirit than body.” It is also one of the most delightful and original reads of any season. Who needs an author when one has a book?
—Jack Foley, author of Visions & Affiliations: A California Literary Time Line and Eyes: Selected Poems
A fascinating journey! But take courage, whoever opens this book. What begins as a bizarre and charming conceit -- letting the book write itself -- morphs into a true-pitch recording of the subtext running underneath, well, everything. It’s uncanny. Even running underneath everything I do. Bringing into view all manner of creativity, any creativity, any motion, any act, and then calls into question their value, without ever stating that’s what it’s doing. Are these demons of my own device? Are they truly running underneath everything? Can you continue without dealing with the questions? I did write “courage,” and that is what I meant. —Clive Matson, author of Mainline to the Heart and Let the Crazy Child Write! finding your creative writing voice
Can a novel that anthropomorphizes language be a page-turner? Glenn Ingersoll’s Autobiography of a Book says, “Yes!” And this reader agrees.
—Eric Darton, author of Free City
Book is imbued with the longings of a body, the vulnerable reality of a Frankenstein’s Monster or a Velveteen rabbit, the pangs of creator and created, and all the fragile, vigorous, shambolic longings of humanity. To read Ingersoll’s wildly inventive prose debut is to be transformed.
—Maw Shein Win, Storage Unit for the Spirit House
It’s quite a magic trick to read something totally original that also echoes something inside.
—Shannon Wheeler, New Yorker cartoonist, creator of Too Much Coffee Man
"Those who fear the novel is dead or dying can rest easy. Between the pages of this revelatory revenant—the art form revivified with heart, humor, and layered perception—is a bildungsroman of a book, literally. Think Italo Calvino. Think David Markson. Now remember Glenn Ingersoll."
—George Salis, author of Sea Above, Sun Below
So a book walks into a bar with an identity crisis…, and fractals through one hot, exercised imagination. It’s like Gertrude Stein’s hair setting itself on fire in a crowded theater. What fun! Long a fanatic for Ingersoll’s poetry so no surprise this epic is a stunner. Absurdly original and far out, this baby steams along toward its very sublime amen with muscle, pathos and love.
— Michael Martin, award winning poem-filmmaker and author of Extended Remark: Poems from a Moravian Parking Lot
It does no disservice to Glenn Ingersoll to call him the author of the exhilarating Autobiography of a Book, but doing so might be taken as an offense to the Book, which is, as we discover, self-authored, as is the case with so many great works of literature. “Life begins with an utterance. A word. Another word to grow on. A third to give the first two meaning. One more and we begin to have context. We are now in the midst of it. This is living.” Thus the Book begins. Already both its charmingly quirky personality and its erudite intellectual acumen are in play. The Book does not censor its flow of anxieties nor disguise its capacity to be amused at its failings even while remaining committed to its existence; it is imaginative enough to be willing to venture into (and experience) dark and even dangerous scenarios, and (of course) to linger in and fret over its intimate relationship with words and their organization into sentences. Book, after all, has no other existence. Having an existence, meanwhile, means it has context; it inheres in a world—its world—of experiences. It is thus that it accrues personality: “[R]egardless of whatever creation, work of art, or deed has come about, someone has lived. Are we someone? Are you someone? Try to be someone!” So writes Julia Kristeva in the preface to her biographical Hannah Arendt, but it’s something that the Book too might say. Listen well.
—Lyn Hejinian, author of My Life and The Cold of Poetry
Why does the smell of books captivate us so much—that particular combination of paper, ink, glue? Because it’s the scent of imagination and possibility, when, as this book tells us, “I am so new. I am just starting… I am such a promising young thing… Anything could happen.” Including the book in your hands addressing you directly—yes, you, the person reading this blurb! “Dear reader, I need you. When it comes down to it, I want to live. When I am read, I live.” The best part? As you read life into this book, it returns the favor. First it’s your child, then your lover, then you’re switching places, then—but I can’t, I won’t give away the wondrous secrets inside. You’ll never look at a book the same again.
—Hardy Griffin, founding editor of Novel Slices
Book is quite a character and a likable one. I now even think of Book as a friend.
— Alan Bern, author of Waterwalking in Berkeley
You are now reading a blurb endorsing the gloriously inspired Autobiography of a Book — as told to Glenn Ingersoll. This book wants to know you as intimately as only a book can. This book wants to live in your library with your collected books. Maybe in your biography section. Consider this non-fiction, as it is the true testimony of the book you now hold. It may not speak for every other book, but it offers an incredible journey deep into the pages of itself unlike anything you’ve read before.
—James Cagney, author of MARTIAN: The Saint of Loneliness, winner of the 2021 James Laughlin Award from Academy of American Poets.
At the core of its winding soliloquies, witty, surprising, in which it muses, complains, splits, burns, gods, the book asserts that you, its 'dear reader', give it life and that it in turn wants nothing more than to pulse its life back to you.
— Richard Silberg, author of Nine Horses and Associate Editor of Poetry Flash
"I love promising. I love imagining. I am ready to offer myself." So says the eponymous book of this book. In an age of high-falutin’ memoir and auto-fiction, Glenn Ingersoll's ingenious Autobiography of a Book pleases with its freshness and naivete, its openness to the world that it comes into. It is a book about being and speaking and wonder. It is a book about the making of a book. How do books exist for us — and we for them? How do we exist for ourselves? Autobiography of a Book teaches as it entertains, provokes and — quite literally — entrances.
—Katy Lederer, author of Pokerface: a girlhood among gamblers and The Heaven-Sent Leaf
If you've made it this far, thanks. -- Glenn Ingersoll
that being said, Lev, would you do a blurb for my first poetry book coming out this Chanukah Christmas season with a small local press, Human Error? Send me your email and Ill send you a download ( that is- if you want to do it.
I admit I do look at blurbs to see whose names I might recognize, and I've managed to avoid some huge mistakes by finding some by writers I wouldn't allow in my house (politically speaking). But I also admit I'm influenced by those names I admire. So I suppose blurbs have their place, but it's such a funny word--blurb--it's hard sometimes to take them seriously. 😏
Thanks again for a great piece, Lev. The 'famous author's' response was so Dorothy Parker! Not that it was, of course, or you would have named her.
I just went through this horrific experience, too. Fortunately, I had just written blurbs for two of the authors who I approached for blurbs. Have to add that I wasn't very impressed with either of them. They paled in comparison to the blurbs written by unpublished writers (who held other positions).
I have a funny blurb story. On my last book I asked a well-known author (I won't say who) if she would mind doing a blurb for me. She is a friend and said she would be happy--but could I write up something for her to give an idea of what I wanted/needed? I dashed off a few lines and sent them to her to review. She responded, saying "that's perfect. Go ahead and put my name on it." So--I wrote the blurb and she attached her name to it without hesitation or changing a single word or punctuation mark! That's show biz, kids.... :-)
This happens much more often than people outside of publishing realize. And then there are the authors who say, "I'll either write a blurb or read the book but I can't do both."
Those authors are selfish and wishywashy. Do it or dont. That is almost like saying you go into a good deli and give a halfassed order because you cant decide if you want a bagel with creamcheese and lox, or a bagel with ONLY only lox and without creamcheese. And now you can be crediably established as a bonafide lunatic unlless you have sworn statement from your therapist, minister, or pet rock
That’s how the sausage gets made!
Too bad about the famous author. It doesn't cost anything to be kind. But "blurb whores"--LOL!
There are so many of them!!!
I rounded up 14 blurbs for my forthcoming book -- and two of them appear on the back cover. They are good blurbs. But I'm urging my publisher to include the rest inside the book. She doesn't seem convinced.
It was really weird asking for blurbs. "Please tell the world that you think my book is great. Please."
All the blurbs are from people I know. The people I didn't know personally mostly didn't reply. One said yes, but she ended up not being able to. One other did give me nice blurbs -- a few to choose from.
Publishers aren't always smart. Why just two on the back cover?
Hi Lev,
I am posting for you the blurbs I've gotten for Autobiography of a Book, which is forthcoming from AC Books. I suppose this is presumptuous, but after being so presumptuous as to ask people to tell me they totally love the book -- and effervesce about it in public under their own names -- sharing the blurbs here seems a minor imposition. The first two blurbs are the ones that were chosen for the back cover -- as you can see, they are rather long. But they are erudite and chewy, and they both get the concept of Book as well as its realization.
What Book says is its life. Book talks itself into existence. Not until Book has talked and talked has Book acquired enough body to be called a book.
I sent out self-contained chapters and got them published in little magazines and ezines, while I continued to send around the full manuscript to book publishers. One of the ezine editors even nominated chapters for the Pushcart, which was a heartening upvote. (I asked him for a blurb when at last I placed the full ms -- and he gave me one.)
(You have no obligation to read the blurbs, and I won't be hurt if you don't.)
The blurbs:
In 1644, in Areopagitica, the Puritan poet, John Milton announced that “books are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of life in them.” In 2022, the American poet, Glenn Ingersoll has taken Milton’s notion––not to mention the later notion of “the death of the author”––one step further. What if a book awakened and began to speak, to write itself? Autobiography of a Book is an I-based production, but this “I” is not a human author: this “I” is an object, a thing made of paper and words, written words. If a human life begins with a breath, a book’s life “begins with an utterance. A word.” But the book is not “finished”: like a human, it must develop, it must explore infinite possibilities. “I am so new. I am just starting.” Ingersoll’s brilliant concept results in a book about almost everything, including pages “left intentionally blank.” It is, as the book itself tells us, “more idea than construct, more spirit than body.” It is also one of the most delightful and original reads of any season. Who needs an author when one has a book?
—Jack Foley, author of Visions & Affiliations: A California Literary Time Line and Eyes: Selected Poems
A fascinating journey! But take courage, whoever opens this book. What begins as a bizarre and charming conceit -- letting the book write itself -- morphs into a true-pitch recording of the subtext running underneath, well, everything. It’s uncanny. Even running underneath everything I do. Bringing into view all manner of creativity, any creativity, any motion, any act, and then calls into question their value, without ever stating that’s what it’s doing. Are these demons of my own device? Are they truly running underneath everything? Can you continue without dealing with the questions? I did write “courage,” and that is what I meant. —Clive Matson, author of Mainline to the Heart and Let the Crazy Child Write! finding your creative writing voice
Can a novel that anthropomorphizes language be a page-turner? Glenn Ingersoll’s Autobiography of a Book says, “Yes!” And this reader agrees.
—Eric Darton, author of Free City
Book is imbued with the longings of a body, the vulnerable reality of a Frankenstein’s Monster or a Velveteen rabbit, the pangs of creator and created, and all the fragile, vigorous, shambolic longings of humanity. To read Ingersoll’s wildly inventive prose debut is to be transformed.
—Maw Shein Win, Storage Unit for the Spirit House
It’s quite a magic trick to read something totally original that also echoes something inside.
—Shannon Wheeler, New Yorker cartoonist, creator of Too Much Coffee Man
"Those who fear the novel is dead or dying can rest easy. Between the pages of this revelatory revenant—the art form revivified with heart, humor, and layered perception—is a bildungsroman of a book, literally. Think Italo Calvino. Think David Markson. Now remember Glenn Ingersoll."
—George Salis, author of Sea Above, Sun Below
So a book walks into a bar with an identity crisis…, and fractals through one hot, exercised imagination. It’s like Gertrude Stein’s hair setting itself on fire in a crowded theater. What fun! Long a fanatic for Ingersoll’s poetry so no surprise this epic is a stunner. Absurdly original and far out, this baby steams along toward its very sublime amen with muscle, pathos and love.
— Michael Martin, award winning poem-filmmaker and author of Extended Remark: Poems from a Moravian Parking Lot
It does no disservice to Glenn Ingersoll to call him the author of the exhilarating Autobiography of a Book, but doing so might be taken as an offense to the Book, which is, as we discover, self-authored, as is the case with so many great works of literature. “Life begins with an utterance. A word. Another word to grow on. A third to give the first two meaning. One more and we begin to have context. We are now in the midst of it. This is living.” Thus the Book begins. Already both its charmingly quirky personality and its erudite intellectual acumen are in play. The Book does not censor its flow of anxieties nor disguise its capacity to be amused at its failings even while remaining committed to its existence; it is imaginative enough to be willing to venture into (and experience) dark and even dangerous scenarios, and (of course) to linger in and fret over its intimate relationship with words and their organization into sentences. Book, after all, has no other existence. Having an existence, meanwhile, means it has context; it inheres in a world—its world—of experiences. It is thus that it accrues personality: “[R]egardless of whatever creation, work of art, or deed has come about, someone has lived. Are we someone? Are you someone? Try to be someone!” So writes Julia Kristeva in the preface to her biographical Hannah Arendt, but it’s something that the Book too might say. Listen well.
—Lyn Hejinian, author of My Life and The Cold of Poetry
Why does the smell of books captivate us so much—that particular combination of paper, ink, glue? Because it’s the scent of imagination and possibility, when, as this book tells us, “I am so new. I am just starting… I am such a promising young thing… Anything could happen.” Including the book in your hands addressing you directly—yes, you, the person reading this blurb! “Dear reader, I need you. When it comes down to it, I want to live. When I am read, I live.” The best part? As you read life into this book, it returns the favor. First it’s your child, then your lover, then you’re switching places, then—but I can’t, I won’t give away the wondrous secrets inside. You’ll never look at a book the same again.
—Hardy Griffin, founding editor of Novel Slices
Book is quite a character and a likable one. I now even think of Book as a friend.
— Alan Bern, author of Waterwalking in Berkeley
You are now reading a blurb endorsing the gloriously inspired Autobiography of a Book — as told to Glenn Ingersoll. This book wants to know you as intimately as only a book can. This book wants to live in your library with your collected books. Maybe in your biography section. Consider this non-fiction, as it is the true testimony of the book you now hold. It may not speak for every other book, but it offers an incredible journey deep into the pages of itself unlike anything you’ve read before.
—James Cagney, author of MARTIAN: The Saint of Loneliness, winner of the 2021 James Laughlin Award from Academy of American Poets.
At the core of its winding soliloquies, witty, surprising, in which it muses, complains, splits, burns, gods, the book asserts that you, its 'dear reader', give it life and that it in turn wants nothing more than to pulse its life back to you.
— Richard Silberg, author of Nine Horses and Associate Editor of Poetry Flash
"I love promising. I love imagining. I am ready to offer myself." So says the eponymous book of this book. In an age of high-falutin’ memoir and auto-fiction, Glenn Ingersoll's ingenious Autobiography of a Book pleases with its freshness and naivete, its openness to the world that it comes into. It is a book about being and speaking and wonder. It is a book about the making of a book. How do books exist for us — and we for them? How do we exist for ourselves? Autobiography of a Book teaches as it entertains, provokes and — quite literally — entrances.
—Katy Lederer, author of Pokerface: a girlhood among gamblers and The Heaven-Sent Leaf
If you've made it this far, thanks. -- Glenn Ingersoll
Getting or giving a blurb ranks right up there with the not-beloved synopsis.
I like doing blurbs for authors if the book moved me, but I often don't have the time or focus, given my own work.
that being said, Lev, would you do a blurb for my first poetry book coming out this Chanukah Christmas season with a small local press, Human Error? Send me your email and Ill send you a download ( that is- if you want to do it.
Sorry, I don't blurb poetry. It's not my genre.
I admit I do look at blurbs to see whose names I might recognize, and I've managed to avoid some huge mistakes by finding some by writers I wouldn't allow in my house (politically speaking). But I also admit I'm influenced by those names I admire. So I suppose blurbs have their place, but it's such a funny word--blurb--it's hard sometimes to take them seriously. 😏
Thanks again for a great piece, Lev. The 'famous author's' response was so Dorothy Parker! Not that it was, of course, or you would have named her.
It was some still living and very magisterial in her presence.
I'm guessing Margaret Atwood.
Close. :-)
I just went through this horrific experience, too. Fortunately, I had just written blurbs for two of the authors who I approached for blurbs. Have to add that I wasn't very impressed with either of them. They paled in comparison to the blurbs written by unpublished writers (who held other positions).
See also: https://jopomojo.substack.com/p/blurbs