Nat's Notes:
Adventures in Publishing

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Readers Room.com is excited to announce this new feature which will follow an author through the process of New York publishing, from a book sale to the book release. Many people wonder what happens after a book is sold to a large publisher. Natalie is wondering, too. Read along on the 15th of every month, as she explains the process--or at least gives it her best shot.

By Natalie R. Collins

BLURBS--In this, the third issue of my column, Nat's Notes, I have a lot to say about nothing much. As we head toward the toward the scheduled September publication date of Wives and Sisters, I'm spending a lot of time working on other things. I have not seen any galleys, edits, or received any further instruction to work on anything from my editor. I do not yet know whether or not my editor likes the proposal idea for my new book, so am unsure what direction to turn. I haven't seen a cover idea, or proofs, and suspect that comes further down the road, although I don't know for sure.

So what am I supposed to tell you in this column? Rather than ramble incessantly about nothing, I decided to focus on the custom of getting review blurbs from other published authors. This is standard operating procedure in the publishing world, and almost every new book goes out with at least two to three review blurbs on them from prominent writers. I got three wonderful blurbs for my book, including one from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner (www.lisagardner.com), who said: ""A dark, powerful debut novel. Natalie Collins pulls no emotional punches crafting this searing tale of one woman's search for justice." Gardner, the author of The Next Accident, The Survivors Club and The Killing Hour, and one of my very favorite authors, was so gracious about reading and giving me a quote for my book, that I was walking on air for a week afterward. Of course, with all this time on my hands to think, I find myself wondering about the nature of this custom of getting and giving blurbs. I wonder if anyone has ever really gotten a "bad" promotional blurb? We wouldn't know, of course, because no one would put it on the book, a Web site, or anywhere but a document shredder, but has anyone ever gotten a quote back that says, "This book sucks. Rent the movie." And where did the word "blurb" even come from?

It is said that the word was coined by American humorist Gelett Burgess, who said a blurb was a verb "to make a sound like a publisher." Hmmm. It is said that when Burgess addressed the American Booksellers Association in 1907, he added "a blurb is a check drawn on fame, and is seldom honored."

So how do established authors feel about giving blurbs? Well, you could visit the Web site of Annie Proulx, who makes herself irrevocably clear in an essay on her site, www.annieproulx.com/essay_march_2003.html. This is where I found the information on the coinage of the word, and is also why I got to feeling badly about asking any author for a blurb. However, I know that should I achieve any degree of fame in the publishing world, I, too, shall have my turn providing blurbs, and hopefully I can be as gracious about it as the lovely Lisa Gardner was.

While researching blurbs, I also found this little ditty. "Today, writers take it for granted that they must provide punchy hyperbole for one another's books jackets-the most prolific are known in the business as 'blurb whores.'" -John Tierney, "An Ode to Fitz," The New York Times, June 22, 1997.

As I share all of this with you, I'm still not even sure what my own position is on this. Will I become a blurb whore? Will I have an opinion on blurbs ten years down the road? If I say blurb one more time, will it sound any weirder than it does right now? One of the writers I have known for a few years is getting her own "first" book published in a time frame similar to mine. (For more on first books that aren't really first, see the "first" Nat's Notes). When Deborah LeBlanc (www.deborahleblanc.com), whose novel Family Inheritance is due soon from Dorchester, asked me to give her a blurb, I was, honestly, incredibly flattered. After all, I know Deb, know her work (she's a very good writer), and I'm not sure having my endorsement will do her any good at all, but hey, she asked! In the same vein, I admit to having said "no" to several authors who asked me to blurb their self-pubbed books-but not because they were self-published. Two of the best reads of the past two years, in my opinion only, of course, were published by imprints set up by their authors: Peggy Tibbett's Rumors of War (www.peggytibbetts.net), and John Blumenthal's What's Wrong with Dorfman? (www.whatswrongwithdorfman.com), which was subsequently picked up by St. Martin's Press.

So, what's the final word on blurbs? Did I tell you about the wonderful blurb I got from Lisa Gardner?

Do you have questions or comments about Natalie's adventure in publishing? She'd love to hear from you. Contact her at: ReadersRoom2@aol.com

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