First Sunday Q&A: Getting Endorsements and Reviews for Your Book
A strategy you can start years before your book is published with big results when it is
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Welcome to “First Sunday” Q&A, built on your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. I’ll share ideas, tips, and resources from my own experience. My intention is to make this a safe, generous place to exchange ideas and talk about the deepest writing and publishing issues on your mind. To share your question with me, simply message me here on Substack.
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Q: Exciting times! ’m finally getting close to the production stage for my first book. I know you’ve talked about how a writer can set up a network of potential contacts, quite far in advance of publication, to get endorsements and reviews. Please share more about the actual process and best timing—anything a first-time author might need to know. Thank you!
A: When I began publishing back in the 80s, I didn’t need to know much as an author. Back then, my publisher handled all requests for reviews and blurbs. It was a different era in publishing, for sure. And it wasn’t until my eleventh book that I began to understand how the author can help this process by planning ahead and setting up a network of contacts.
Reviews and blurbs are a given in publishing—it’s rare to see a book cover or inside “praise pages” without at least a couple of blurbs and excerpts of media or trade reviews.
I buy books based on recommendations. I believe that blurbs—especially from writers I admire—make me more inclined to read the new book myself. If this is true in general, blurbs and reviews definitely boost a book’s chances of success in the world. Because the goal, after all, is to widen your book’s reach to readers you may never meet, those outside your current circle of friends and family who would buy your book anyway.
But some publishing professionals are not as convinced about the blurb’s benefit in selling books. An August 2023 article in the Atlantic, “The Blurb Problem Keeps Getting Worse,” talks about the over-the-top praise of many blurbs, with books that fail to warrant them. Authors patting each other on the back, creating a kind of club for blurb exchanges.
So what’s a new author to do? Is it worthwhile to get blurbs/endorsements? And is it worth the extra work to go for reviews as well?
I’d say yes, and here’s why. And scroll down to the end for a sample blurb email that you can adapt and use, if you’re ready to request.