Puffery

Pick up a paperback book and on the cover you may see flattering quotes from famous authors or other notables. Some examples:

At the top of A.J. Finn's The Woman in the Window you find the words "Astounding. Thrilling. Amazing!" beside the name of Gillian Flynn. If you are a Gillian Flynn fan, those three encouraging words may have prompted you to buy this paperback.

Over Lisa Genova's named on the cover of Songs of Willow Frost by Jamie Ford one finds this: "If you liked Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, you're going to love Songs of Willow Frost ... tender, powerful, and deeply satisfying."

And at the top of Marilynne Robinson's book of essays What Are We Doing Here? we find a quote from Charles Baxter: "Robinson's thinking is all in the service of humanity's survival, spiritually and environmentally."

Impressive stuff, right?

Such favorable words may help sell books, and I confess they have sometimes prompted me to purchase a book, but we readers should probably not take them too seriously.

Prominent authors are constantly being sent review copies of soon-to-be-published books along with a request from the publisher's marketing team for a kind word. And a kind word, not an honest review, is what the publisher wants, although the famous author's name may be actually more desired than whatever the favorable words happen to be.

Most writers hate this, I have been told. They have their own books to write. Why would they want to take the time to read somebody else's book, especially when that somebody may be a competitor? Thus just a few select words, such as Flynn's astounding, thrilling and amazing, can fill the bill quickly. 

In Blurb Your Enthusiasm, Louise Wilder reveals another secret. Some writers actually ask someone else to compose the puffery that will eventually go over their name on a book cover. That way they don't have to bother even opening the book in question. Wilder even says, "I confess that, yes, occasionally I have made up review quotes for a couple of high-profile authors in this manner (although luckily they did find the time to sign off on the finished piece of praise."

So rather than the familiar "Don't judge a book by its cover," the better advice might be: Don't buy a book because of praise from other writers on the cover. It's probably hogwash.