To blurb or not to blurb: UK trade weighs in on author quotes in 2025
NEWSFEB 13, 2025BY HELOISE WOOD AND MATILDA BATTERSBY
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Simon & Schuster UK (S&S) has told The Bookseller it will continue to expect British authors to procure blurbs for their work, despite its American counterpart saying it will “no longer require authors to obtain blurbs for their books”, raising questions across the trade over the importance and value of the practice.
A “blurb” (also known as a “quote”) is an endorsement, often from another author, celebrity or public figure, which publishers include on the covers and inside pages of new books.
There are certain authors whose names appear alongside blurbs on the fronts of numerous books, such as the novelists Stephen King and Marian Keyes. The expectation to procure blurbs typically falls to the authors of books themselves, with publishers and editors asking writers “who they know” early in the publishing process. This can disadvantage less well-connected debut authors, leading to accusations of nepotism if authors who are known to be friends provide blurbs for one another.
The time it takes, both to secure blurbs, and to read and write them, seems to be the main reason behind S&S US’ decision to no longer make blurbs mandatory. The company’s publisher Sean Manning, wrote last month in Publishers Weekly: “I’ve decided that beginning in 2025, the Simon & Schuster flagship imprint will no longer require authors to obtain blurbs for their books. This only applies to Simon & Schuster’s flagship imprint, and this isn’t to say that we will outright refuse to include blurbs on our book covers and in promotional materials... but there will no longer be an excessive amount of time spent on blurb outreach. There will no longer be the fear that if we don’t secure the right blurbs or enough blurbs or even any blurbs, it will jeopardise a book’s chances for commercial and critical success.”
Manning pointed out in his piece that several of S&S’s “recent bestsellers have been blurb-less" – which begs the question – what is the value of blurbs, both to the industry, to authors and readers? There have been debates over the years – dubbed an “arms race” in the Atlantic in 2023 – but Manning’s comments have ignited fresh scrutiny.
Across the pond, S&S UK is more ambivalent. “We have no blanket policy at Simon & Schuster UK around procuring blurbs,” a spokesperson told The Bookseller. “It is up to each author and their publishing team to establish what is best for each book. We acknowledge the time and effort it can take acquiring endorsements (and indeed writing them), but also how useful they can be in some instances as signposts for readers. That said, our colleague Sean Manning echoes a sentiment that is no doubt felt by many across publishing.”
Abigail Bergstrom, founder of her eponymous agency and a novelist, told The Bookseller: “The process of getting blurbs can feel excruciating and I am immensely grateful to anyone who offers me one. But readers respond to the names they know, so you’re having to reach out cold to the most in-demand writers and ask them for their most precious resource: time. It’s a significant ask, and when it comes down to it, what’s in it for them?”
Blurbs can be seen as a game of ‘who you know’ and Bergstrom acknowledged that "the playing field is far from level". She said: “Endorsements often stem from personal connections rather than objective assessment, making the practice feel less about literary merit and more about mutual favour-trading. I think that’s an issue because it’s disintegrating reader trust; they’re growing sceptical of glowing praise from inside the industry."
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Daisy Buchanan © Sarah Kate Photography
She added: “It also can’t be easy for those established authors who are inundated and then hounded for a blurb. It’s uncomfortable on both sides. In a world, where we’re stretched so thin and constantly pressed for time, it’s hard to know what the solution is. But I think it sits in a more equitable and transparent approach – perhaps one that includes readers, booksellers, and librarians and goes beyond the confines of big names.”
Author and journalist Daisy Buchanan echoed a sense of both support and pressure from blurbs. “I’m an enthusiastic blurber, and I’m so grateful for the support I’ve had, and for the generous blurbs,” she told The Bookseller. “Writing and publishing can feel very lonely – it makes such a difference to feel supported by the author community, and to pay it forward and show as much support as I can. However, I’m definitely overwhelmed by the volume of requests that come in, and I think that speaks to the pressure that publishers are under. I feel very guilty that I can’t ‘keep up’ with the reading I’m asked to do. And no author enjoys asking for blurbs.
“At the moment, I think social media really adds to that feeling of pressure – I love continuing to support a book when it feels organic, and it usually does. But sometimes as an author I feel as though there’s a huge expectation that once I’ve blurbed I will make a big contribution to the marketing of a book using social media, and I can find this draining and overwhelming. Even when I set boundaries around it, the pressure drains the energy that I’d much rather use for writing.”
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Freya North
Despite having 30 years as a published novelist and 16 bestselling books, Freya North told The Bookseller she can still feel “incredibly anxious” waiting for blurbs to come in about her work, and although she’s a huge champion of other authors’ work, the time it takes to read and provide blurbs can be overwhelming. “Each time I bring out a new book, the publisher will say to me ‘Who do you know? Who do you know?’” she said.
Even with North’s experience and a good network of author connections, it can be a fraught process. “If [a blurb] comes back with some generic run of the mill wording, I get hurt because I think that they haven’t really read it. When publishers approach me to quote for them, if I am very busy, I will decline it, because I wouldn’t want to not read somebody else’s work properly. So, there are two types of pressure on authors: one is the pressure that we feel for our own work to go out and garner fantastic quotes; and the other pressure is feeling either obligated or even indebted to publishers.”
North asked her readers on Instagram and Facebook about blurbs and was “staggered” both by the huge volume of responses and feedback that they “don’t give a fig” for author blurbs. She said: “What I learned very quickly from almost 200 comments [in one day], is that readers don’t want to be preached at with quotes. They want to have immediate access to the cover copy... to make their judgment on the quality of the cover, on how appetising and enticing the book appears to be from the quality of the cover copy and they don’t want that hidden or compromised by a whole load of quotes that they don’t really care about and they don’t really trust.”
North said: “From now on I am not going to worry about [blurbs] so much, and I’m really excited about taking some of that anxiety off my shoulders... If I’ve enjoyed a book then I will bang on about it on my socials or even in my newsletter.”
For books in a particular genre or space, blurbs can be hugely valuable, according to historical non-fiction author, Candice Shy Hooper. “I think blurbs are especially important in the non-fiction space. I read a lot of history, and the quality of the blurb-ers is a good indication of the quality of the scholarship and of the writing,” she told The Bookseller. “As a junior author (by numbers of books, not years), I’m convinced that blurbs have helped steel my books.”
An agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, echoed this. “Blurbs are like titles, too many people discuss and agonise over these for way too long,” they told The Bookseller. “At the end of the day the book will speak for itself.”
A publicist at a big five publisher, who also wanted to remain nameless, suggested it can help with pitching and categorising the book. “I understand the backlash. It’s who you know. Mates doing each other a favour but for a PR it’s useful for pitching. Gives you something to go back out to journos with and politely say: ‘You won’t listen to me but X, Y, Z says it good so do listen to them.’ It also helps position the book in the market.”
None of the UK publishers contacted by The Bookseller have said they will follow S&S US’ lead in steering away from the blurbs.
