Publishing and the Problem of Over-blurbing

Never judge a book by its cover, right?  Well, we do it all the time.  We buy books at SBL because of who wrote it and/or the title of the book and sometimes how attractive the cover design is.  There is another factor: blurbs -that is, who has endorsed the book on the back.  An endorsement from Bruce Longenecker goes a long way in some circles.  In other circles, it is Joseph Fitzmyer.  And on and on.  The problem is, some scholars seem to blurb dozens of books a year – ‘…this is a must-have book…’; ‘…every scholar will need to engage with this book…’; ‘…the face of scholarship will never be the same…’.  Uh-huh, right….

This problem of over-blurbing makes it hard for buyers to get a sense for what is really good!  What can we do?  Well, technically, we can just complain.  But, if I could make some small changes, here is what they might be.  First, all tenured scholars would have limits – you can endorse (in a blurb) only five new books a year.  That’s it.  Make it good.  Or, the second option, blurbs can only come from book reviews.  I know I can’t control how publishers do business, but the problem of over-blurbing is a real concern because when you see X-scholar’s name endorsing 50 books a year, it looses its appeal!

At the same time, I do like blurbs, because it helps you feel like the purchase is more secure, that someone you trust has signed off on it and said ‘its worth buying, you won’t be let down’.  I just want a little more control, that’s all.