Are you sitting down? In what the trade publication Publishers Weekly reported as a “stunning” or “tour de force” development, the publisher of Simon & Schuster’s flagship imprint has announced that it will no longer require authors to provide promotional blurbs for their books.
gwg777If you’re still standing and breathing normally, chances are you’re not an author. Be grateful! All these years, you have been spared the indignity of going on bended knee, begging people — generally more eminent than you — to sprinkle holy water on your manuscript.
If you are an author — a blurbee, as it were — you’re probably uttering hosannas of thanks to the publisher of S&S, Sean Manning, for this benison. And if you’re a blurber, that is, on the receiving end of requests for unction, your hosannas may even be more fervent.
Asking for praise is an undignified business. It is inherently awkward, especially if the person you’re asking is an acquaintance,fef777 casino friend or, worse yet, someone who sells more books than you do (in my case, roughly 98 percent of the author-sphere).
The main witness to testify in support of the ban was a physician without any apparent qualifications in atmospheric science, who falsely claimed geoengineering was happening nationwide. Democrats derided the bill as ridiculous and tried to amend it with mentions of Yetis, Bigfoot and Sasquatch to prove their point.
I know this from experience. After six books and almost two decades of mendicancy, my knees had to be surgically unbent. They weren’t the only damaged part of me. My self-esteem was so low, my self-loathing so high that I avoided mirrors.
Dear Mr. Updike, I know you must hate getting letters like this, but I was wondering if you’d drop whatever you’re doing and spend the next two days reading my new book.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.ceia888