On Flnding Other Writers to Blurb Your Book

 

One of the critical tasks in preparing a new book for publication is finding appropriate writers to blurb your book. I have written on this subject before but this post fine tunes the process.

 

After the new author determines who would be ideal to provide a short written comment, the question is what if I don’t know this person who is expert on my style of writing or my subject matter (or whatever your criteria is for selecting this person)? Assuming you can find a way to reach out to this writer who you don’t know personally, I suggest that your approach might be something like this.

 

Dear X,

 

While I don’t know you personally, I have been following your work for years. Recently Publisher X has selected my full-length poetry manuscript for publication in 2021.

 

Would you consider writing a blurb for my forthcoming book titled X?

 

Enclosed are 12 poems taken from the manuscript that best represent the work as a whole. If you like what you read and want to see more, I would be happy to send the entire manuscript. I need the blurb by X date.

 

Thank you so much for your kind consideration. I will understand if you prefer not to write a blurb for me.

 

All best wishes,

Your name

 

It’s possible that a blurb writer has everything needed to write something based on those 12 poems. The most important part of your request is making sure you have given a reasonable time frame. 3-4 weeks is not an unreasonable ask. If the person queried asks for more  time and you have that option, go for it. Three blurbs are usually enough. Good luck!

 

Book Publication!

The crowning award in the writer’s life is book publication. I am thrilled to say my manuscript how we hold on has been accepted for publication by Broadstone Books of Frankfort, Kentucky.This is the manuscript that contains my poems about Jamaica as well as family poems, including a mini-series on my great grandfather who died in the 1918 pandemic known as the Spanish Flu.

 

Broadstone is a press that people who read poetry will be hearing more about because they are increasing the number of books they will publish over the next several years. The publisher, Larry Moore, is an editor of the old school in that he cares deeply about excellence. Therefore he makes suggestions for how to improve a manuscript. The publication date has not yet been set but will occur in 2021.

 

Some of Broadstones authors are: Susana Case, Richard Carr,  Judith Kerman,  Lynn McGee, and Mervyn Taylor. I am proud to join the Broadstone family and can recommend this community of fine authors. I encourage you to buy their books directly from the publisher, They are also distributed by Small Press Distribution.

 

 

Book Reviews—Their value and who reads them?

 

Since just before the Covid19 pandemic shut down in the United States, I have written 12 book reviews. It’s an aspect of publishing I rarely talk about and one that requires great concentration. It is also not clear who reads my reviews or what value they are to the author, despite the clamor to get reviews written. Each one presents its own challenges. It seems not to matter whether it is chapbook or a children’s book—the reviews all take a lot of time to develop and complete. Of the dozen reviews published between March and early September, the hardest to write were the translations.

 

Here is the list with their links.

 

09-01-20  Feminists Are Passing from Our Lives by Leslie McGrath (poetry) 

 

08-17-20  Dead Letter Office by Marko Pogačar, translated from Croatian by Andrea Jurjević

 (poetry)

 

08-01-20  Discovery by Don Krieger (poetry) 

 

07-29-20  Women of the Big Sky by Liliana Ancalao in Mapuzungun and Spanish, translated

                   from Spanish by Seth Michelson (poetry)

07-01-20  A Little Called Pauline by Gertrude Stein with art by Bianca Stone (children’s book) 

 

06-20-20  Transformer by Kathleen Winter (poetry)

 

06-09-20  Binary Planet by Henry Crawford (poetry)

 

06-01-20  Dead Shark on the N Train by Susana Case (poetry)

 

05-02-20  The High Shelf by Nadia Colburn (poetry)

 

04-29-20  They Became Stars by Liz Marlow (poetry chapbook)

 

04-17-20  Spinster for Hire by Julia Story (poetry)

 

03-01-20  A Survivor Named Trauma by Myra Sklarew (memoir, history, poetry)

Image by Pixabay

Written in Arlington is an anthology edited by Katherine E. Young that will be published in September 2020 that the Steiny Road Poet is part of due to her work with Arlington Public Schools and the Moving Words project which she won and later ran for multiple years.

Kate asked poets in the anthology to create videos to promote the anthology. So after fumbling around trying to use her smart phone, Steiny used Zoom to record herself reading "you can tell 'em I'll be there." Visit https://youtu.be/FgI5lG6PM70 to see the video.

Thanks to Henry Crawford for his suggestion to use Zoom and for the opening screen to the video. Henry is also part of this anthology.

Anthology Bonanza

The latest pending acceptances have been for anthologies. I just received Heron Clan VII which is a beautifully produced book with eye-catching art on the cover. So far I like these poems: Charlotte Mandel’s “Ancient Love,” a poem written in terza rima about the bones of two people found in tight embrace and Doug Stouber’s “Black Waters of Tarpon” a rather complicated language-y poem addressing guitar, music, Florida, mental institution. Kudos to all involved in producing such a book in just under five months’ time—must be a record.

I also had my Sherman Alexie style sonnet “the bell sonnet” accepted for publication in This Is What America Looks Like: the Washington Writers’ Publishing House Anthology (Washington, DC, early 2021).