Louise Willder, a copywriter at Penguin Books whose written around 5,000 blurbs over nearly three decades, chats with Trey Elling about BLURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM: AN A-Z OF LITERARY PERSUASION. Topics include:
- Defining “blurb” (0:29)
- The profession of “blurbing” (3:09)
- Adjectives begetting laziness (7:10)
- Subtitles (10:24)
- Why some authors despise blurbs (14:10)
- Do authors ever write their own blurbs? (17:14)
- Charles Dickens: trailblazing self-promoter (21:00)
- What makes a book ‘classic’ (27:35)
- Louise’s blurbing pet peeves (30:34)
- The greatness of cuss words (32:43)
- The greatness of…the ellipsis (36:18)
- Blurbing a book that sucks (39:03)
- Rules for blurbing self-help books (41:30)
- Blurbing the Bible (44:09)
- Blurbs in the US vs the UK (46:46)
