On My Way Out – Advice to Young Scholars IX:  Blurbs

I have, as is increasingly evident, reached the final phases of my academic and professional career, though it is a pretty long and winding way out…. Be that as it may, as I look back, I want to offer, for what it is worth, some do’s and don’ts on different topics for scholars in the early (and not so early) phases of their careers. This is the ninth instalment, and it is dedicated to the theme of blurbs found on back covers of law books.

We all know that blurbs that accompany new movies are worthless. A film review might say something like: ‘Mediocre movie that does not realize its potential, even though Jane Doe excels in her role.’ The blurb you read in the movie publicity will read: ‘Jane Doe excels in her role’ (NY Times).

What of blurbs that accompany novels? These may be one of two types: at times they may be found in the opening pages of a novel before you even get to the Table of Contents. Typically, these will be culled from serious book reviews and have substance – though I have often wondered what purpose they are meant to serve. Certainly not sales: you are already holding the book in your hands. My custom is to read them after I have finished the book, avoiding thus the risk of my own appreciation (or otherwise) being skewed by the opinions of others.

More regularly, and this is the second type: a very short blurb will be found on the back cover of the novel. It is invariably laudatory: the best thing since sliced bread. It is occasionally written by some celebratory author who you might even respect. Oftentimes, though, the author of the blurb is as anonymous as the author of the book being ‘blurbed’. Indeed, it is common in these cases for the ‘blurber’ to have alongside his or her name an indication of the anonymous book they authored. The blurb serves to give publicity to the ‘blurber’!  From the reader’s perspective it is an endearing case of the blind leading the blind.

Have you ever strolled into a bookstore (an endangered species) and decided to buy a book because of these blurbs? Even if it is written by someone you respect, it has scant value since the logic of the blurb industry is that it must always be laudatory. Do blurbs help sales? Typically, the blurbs migrate to Amazon and similar platforms, so I suppose the publishers might think that they do have an impact on sales; who am I challenge their wisdom and experience?

However, for quite a while now, you will also find blurbs on the back covers of law books. In this realm, I will need a lot of convincing by the publishers that they have any effect on sales. I do not believe that ever in my life have I bought a book (and as an old-fashioned unrepentant bibliophile, I still regularly buy books) based on these back-cover blurbs. Knowledge of the author, personal recommendations from colleagues, an interest in the subject and/or a serious book review in a learned journal are my prompts to order a book.

It might be, I am told by an industry insider, that the publisher hopes that these blurbs will influence the decision of a journal to review the book. My years as an Editor in Chief of EJIL and I•CON (including a stint as EJIL’s Book Review Editor) suggest otherwise. But if I am wrong and they do actually have an impact on book reviewing (or sales) it would be a sad statement on our discipline.

Why so?

How do these blurbs ‘happen’? If my experience is typical – and I believe it is – they originate in an email from a publisher (who got your name from the author) or directly from the author, asking you to write a blurb, usually accompanied by a PDF of the manuscript or, tellingly, by the Introduction to the book. Tellingly, because it is at times a subtle hint: you don’t even have to read the book.  Almost invariably, the request comes from a colleague or friend, maybe a former student (sometimes all of the above) who you genuinely like and respect. It is very difficult, even impossible to say No.

Like and respect as the case may be, and often is, my heart sinks a bit. For one, it means that the book ‘jumps the queue’ of my To Read pile of books. If I were to receive the book after publication, the author would always get a letter saying something like ‘looking forward to reading’, but typically, given the size of my To Read pile, it might be months. However, with a blurb deadline looming, I have to make space for it. Occasionally, it works out well. I recently was ‘forced’ in this way to read a book for a blurb – and was actually grateful. I learnt a lot from the book, even became wiser. I might never have read the book but for the blurb request.

But the real trouble with blurb writing is different. You might actually not like the book, think it is mediocre or deficient. You might like it, but as is often the case, have a more nuanced view: you may see the virtues and the vices. In a book review, even a positive book review, one can bring out these nuances. But in a blurb? The genre is clear: whether the book is excellent, okay, mediocre or weak, the blurb has to be brief and wholly positive. Have you ever read a blurb that said: ‘Quite a good book’? How, then, is this different from the useless movie blurbs?

A blurb is even useless as an ego boosting device of the ‘Look at all the “important” persons who think my book is wonderful’ type, since everyone knows how this works. And it is hard for me to imagine that anyone who writes a blurb can seriously believe it will somehow burnish their reputation.

So what is the bottom line? Blurbs for law books are useless.

A while ago I warned early career scholars of the danger of accepting invitations to contribute to edited books – which frequently are neither truly edited nor, justifiably, read. I advised discernment. More categorically, I inveighed against Festschriften, Libri Amicorum and the like in another Editorial and advised my colleagues reaching the age in which this nefarious temptation raises its ugly head, simply to say ‘Thank you but No Thank you. I don’t want one.’ Geriatrics of the World Unite!

When it comes to blurbs for law books, my advice to publishers is to abandon this silly practice, and since it is all but impossible to say No to a friend, my advice to authors is simple enough: Please don’t ask.