'This is the best book I've read since the last book I wrote a blurb for'

Gushing quotes from respected authors are a fixture of book covers. But can a few kind words from the right author really sway the book-buying public? And what do the blurbers get out of it, asks FIONA McCANN

'THIS IS an occasionally infuriating and completely wonderful book. I read it in one sitting, delighted by its ferocity." These are the words of Booker Prize winner Anne Enright, emblazoned across Greg Baxter's memoir A Preparation for Death, which is published by Penguin this week.

It's just as well she read it so quickly, as it wasn't the only book Enright had to get through, as evidenced by her appearance on the cover of Frances Kay's debut, Micka,also arriving in bookshops in the next few days.

“Micka feels like a book that wrote itself,” says Enright’s front cover blurb. “Frances Kay is an accomplished story teller who has found her darkest tale.”

On the flipside, writer Carlo Gébler’s blurb attests to the fact that, perhaps under similar pressures, he had read Kay’s work “at a single sitting.” So what does the praise of established authors like Enright or Gébler do for the sales of debut writers such as Baxter and Kay?

“The blurb is as part of the cover as the image,” says Cormac Kinsella of book marketing company Repforce Ireland. “You have to communicate to the potential buyer that this is a book that they’d like. Choosing the blurb is as important as choosing the image.”

A blurb on a fresh new work can give a potential reader browsing through covers one of the few indications of whether the book is to their taste. If it’s an author whose work they have previously enjoyed, they might give particular credence to such recommendations, which is exactly what the publisher has in mind when sending out a new author’s work to writers with established names.

“There are hundreds – thousands – of new books published every year, and what a publisher is trying to do is lift their book up above the parapet, so that people can see it,” says Michael McLoughlin of Penguin Ireland. “The other aspect of it is to place the book from the point of view of genre – whether it’s literary or more commercial.”

IN OTHER WORDS, if you see John Banville extolling a book’s virtues you’re unlikely to believe it falls into the category of commercial fiction, any more than when you see Patricia Scanlon’s endorsement are you likely to figure you have your hands on a 21st-century Proust.

If you're really clever about it, however, you might actually straddle both worlds, as Maile Meloy managed recently with her second short story collection, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It. Meloy secured blurbs from both Bridget Jonescreator Helen Fielding and from American maestro Richard Ford.

While the result might have confused some readers eager to place her into one or other category, Kinsella sees it as a smart step by her publisher, Canongate. “It was a really clever move, because it’s two totally different markets,” he says.

Here in Ireland, a smaller pool of established writers can see the same names appear time and again on new publications, their ubiquity on book covers becoming inversely proportional to the effect and ultimate influence of their blurbs. Still, a crime novelist will tend to seek kind words from John Connolly or Declan Hughes, while in commercial fiction, a few choice phrases from Maeve Binchy or Cathy Kelly are the order of the day. When it comes to literary fiction, Colm Tóibín, Anne Enright and Joseph O’Connor are the stalwarts sought out for their seal of approval.

The process usually works with a request emanating from the publisher, although sometimes the writers will take it upon themselves to send a book to a personal acquaintance or admired author in the hope of dazzling with their prose.

Yet given the small pool of blurbers involved, and the considerably larger number of those seeking their help, replies can be a long time coming.

“After he won the US National Book Award, Colum McCann got 30 books in the post the following week,” says Kinsella.

Even if a writer wades through such a deluge to read your book, he or she might not offer the kind of quotation you were hoping for, or worse still might offer a glowing response but decline to have it published on the book cover, for reasons not always given.

“The unspoken deal is that if you’re sending something to someone ahead of publication – you’re hoping to get a quote, but for the most part it doesn’t happen,” says McLoughlin.

OCCASIONALLY, AS in the cases of Baxter and Kay, gold is struck and the magic words instantly get pride of place on the book’s cover.

So, what’s in it for the blurbers in such instances, sentenced to wade through first novels and then required to opine on their worth without, the publishers assure, any monetary recompense for their pains?

“Writers are always interested in reading new writers,” says McLoughlin. “They are always curious to see what’s coming up next. It’s like going to see a movie many months before it comes out, where everyone else sees only the preview. You’ve got bragging rights for a while.”

Can it also be a case of scratching the back of a writer who you hope will scratch yours in turn? The circular nature of some book blurbs – writer A receives a favourable blurb from writer B, then appears full of praise on the cover of writer B’s new work when its publication date comes around – could make some suspicious of the motivation of the authors in question, but Kinsella sees it in a different light.

“People feel that the writers’ community can be terribly cosy,” he acknowledges, “but the spirit is to support each other, more than anything else.”

In the end, the value of a book blurb, for all that it is coveted, is a hard thing to gauge in hard financial terms.

“If we knew how to sway readers, we’d all be millionaires,” says McLoughlin. “A blurb can only help – but how much it helps, who knows?”

Be gentle One author's quest for a few kind words

"And what exactly would you like me to say," came the reply from one academic whom I had asked to say nice things about my first book, Wasted, published last year.

"How about you start with my charity efforts and work backwards," I offered.

My book was about to get a second reprint, and the publisher was willing to allocate a space on the front and back for someone to say nice things. I had a short time to get a decent quote or two, which ruled out approaches to Bono and Obama.

Asking for a quote is a real litmus test in gauging how your book was received. Most readers will not tell you what they really thought of it. Some probably won't have made it past the acknowledgements. So, by asking somone very directly for their response, you're leaving yourself open to blunt rejection.

The other factor to take into account is which blurb writers are box office and will shift a few copies, and which won't. To this end: Ryan Tubridy? Yes. Rosanna Davison? Probably not.

Who you want nice words from to repair your bruised ego is not necessarly who your publisher will want on the cover. I tended to approach people I knew had an affinity with the topic and with whom I had discused the book.

Historian Diarmaid Ferriter provided a wonderful quote, with words such as "humane", "courageous", "insightful" and "original". A well-known broadcaster committed, but then time worked against us. A neighbour who tells me the book – about mine and Ireland's relationship with alcohol – ruined his usual Christmas Day binge, heard of my dilemma, and insisted on providing a quote of his own. It read simply: "Beware – this book could turn you off drink for life."

The quote never made it to print.