Blurb Trolling

I once trolled the entire book blurb economy in the hardback copy of my novel Bell Hammers.

If you didn’t know, authors have a rather love-hate relationship with blurbs. A couple of years ago, Sophie Vershbow wrote a piece in the books section of Esquire entitled 'A Plague on the Industry': Book Publishing's Broken Blurb System. The title came from this quote by a literary agent from the Friedrich Agency:

“[Blurbs] are a PLAGUE on this industry” said Lucy Carson (emphasis her own), a literary agent at The Friedrich Agency who has worked with literary bigwigs like Pulitzer Prize-winner Elizabeth Strout. “Authors hate them (both asking for them and being asked), agents hate them, and publishers hate them.”

Here’s the thing: Sophie’s article goes on to show how much time editors at big five presses, big name authors, agents, and the rest who hate how terrible it’s gotten — who hate that there’s no “middle class” in blurbing. How authors lie. Lie for friends, lie for people they think need a hand up, lie so they won’t feel guilty having not read the book, lie because they want to stop being nagged by publishing professionals. It’s a story Chuck Wendig took up, summarizing his feelings something like this:

1. He’s grateful for every blurb he receives.

2. He’s honored to get asked to blurb a book.

3. He hates when an author has to do it directly because he knows how hard that is and the industry should have their backs.

4. They leave “a light on and a ladder out for other authors,” which Sophie echoed.

5. Blurbs are a source of guilty obligation no matter which way you cut it. Even if you put on “the NO VACANCY sign, that makes me feel bad, and honestly, the blurb requests come in anyway.”

6. Authors have no time to complete it.

7. Publishing is a crowded field compared to film.

What surprises me is that this sentiment has again been echoed over and over again elsewhere, including on Substack. I thought I’d throw my hat into the ring and show how I sort of… trolled my way out of the entire blurb economy. My goal was to point out, through subversion, what we actually want from blurbs and since it’s been five years since the hardback came out, I figure it’s time to make this bit of trivia known to the wider audience.

Here’s how I did it:

Bell Hammers came out in hardback three years prior to Sophie’s article. Two inspirations lead me to my choice on its… rather unorthodox blurb pages.

My first source of inspiration came from a very popular book I loved. It had — and this is not a lie — ten pages of blurbs before the title page. This — this! — was the magnum opus of blurbs. A novel in itself before the novel. A work of performance art. A blurban skyline. The sort of suplurb revurb that disturbs and perturbs the economy of porthurb blurbs with stark flavor.

Except these ten pages of blurbs weren’t performance art. They were sincere. Look, the book was good — great, even — but ten pages seemed to me to achieve a level of hubris, a level of gloating I abhorred. I’m all for post-irony sincerity, but… maybe let the talk about your book happen in normal conversations instead?

My second source of inspiration came from this movie poster:

That Guardian review of this film was a two-star review. And the marketing team had the chutzpah to put those two stars dead center in such a way that the context turned the hatred into praise. What’s more, it’s a British film that was roasted by a British paper. Still they had the gall to put those two stars front and center.

I loved their gall. It made me giddy. It still does. I’m honestly giggling right now as I type this thinking about that poster. And for a historical book of pranks like Bell Hammers, I wanted to pull off something similar. I wanted the very binding of its hardcover and blurbs to be… if not a prank… then at least a bit of performance art.

So here’s what I did:

1. I wanted ten pages of blurbs or more…

2. That grew less and less important or kosher until they descended into madness.

It starts off rather innocuously with the standard fare from author friends:

“BELL HAMMERS is written in a style not unworthy of John Kennedy Toole and William Faulkner – the vivid characterization of Southern ethnography commingled with stark, episodic spectacle breathes with the spirit of quintessential Americana. It is a text I would happily assign in an American Novel class and would expect it to yield satisfying discourse alongside works in the canon, whether beside the sardonic prose of Mark Twain or the energetically painful narratives of Toni Morrison.”

— Dr. Anthony Cirilla

“Loved BELL HAMMERS because Lancelot wrote about people who don’t get written about enough and he did it with humor, compassion, and heart.”

— Brian Slatterly,
author of Lost Everything and editor of The New Haven Review

“Schaubert’s words have an immediacy, a potency, an intimacy that grab the reader by the collar and say, ‘Listen, this is important!’ Probing the bones and gristle of humanity, Lancelot’s subjects challenge, but also offer insights into redemption if only we will stop and pay attention.”

— Erika Robuck, national bestselling author of Hemingway’s Girl

“I’m such a fan of Lancelot Schaubert’s work. His unique view and his life-wisdom enriches all he does. We’re lucky to count him among our contributors.”

— Therese Walsh, author of The Moon Sisters and Editorial Director of Writer Unboxed

Standard fare, as I said. And — just like Chuck — I’m honestly grateful for every single person who put their name out there for me. That’s why I put them up front: these are the sincere ones. These are the real voices speaking truth about my work. I have no reason to think they’d lie. Slatterly, for instance, actually bought an excerpt of Bell Hammers for The New Haven Review, though it has now gone to the farm upstate where old literary mags go, so that’s what Brian’s talking about. I’m grateful for them all, not simply because they’re nice things to say. Or because they liked my work.

I needed a base of sincerity from which to descend into eldritch madness…

Because here’s where things start getting weird:

“Much to admire in this story.”

— The New Yorker
fiction editor on a rejected excerpt

I think, I don’t know, but I actually think this is the same boilerplate line that the New Yorker sends to almost all of their novel excerpt and short story submissions. I’ve gotten it as a response several times.

It looks like this in my email inbox:

Now that’s pretty cool if it’s sincere, but the more “much to admire in this story” finds its way into my inbox attached to a rejection letter, the more I wondered how much is “much to admire” in each unique story I submit, you know what I’m saying? Like how much of my fiction do they read before they determine they’ve “admired” “much” of said story? And how many times do I get before that reduces down to the first sentence or less?

These form rejections reminded me of the two-star Guardian review. So I threw it into the front-of-book blurbs and onto some of the covers as a prelude. I figure if the New Yorker’s silent about it, then there’s a quote from a New Yorker rejection letter on the front of my book, which is hilarious to me in two directions at once. If they speak up about it, it’s free press and throws limelight on their throwaway line “much to admire” that I’m sure they’ve sent to thousands of writers they haven’t actually read and have no intent to publish. If nothing else, it could help change the boilerplate. I dare not dream they actually accept an order of magnitude more from the slush pile…

I have no ill will towards the New Yorker, for the record: my late father used to buy me an annual subscription. I read them often. They’re my local paper. I’ll keep submitting. They’re the very reason I know who Sherman Alexie is, with whom I’ve been lucky enough to interact with a few times on this platform. I just hope they change the boilerplate.

In other words, it’s a throwaway blurb from throwaway praise. Best case scenario, they sue me for it and I get to troll the boilerplate on a national stage. Now that would be delicious and I’d probably be able to say something — as I am saying now — like “Get a copy with that blurb troll on the cover while you can because it’ll legally have to change soon!” Which will sell enough copies to cover the legal fees that lead to the real legal fees.

Again, no ill will towards them, ultimately, but doesn’t it simultaneously highlight something bizarre in the form letter market as well as in the blurb market?

In a similar way, though not nearly so controversially, I had always wanted to get published in Glimmer Train. That same excerpt the New Yorker believed had as “much to admire” as every other story I’ve sent them was a finalist in Glimmer Train’s final fiction open ever. That lovely magazine closed. The sisters had a ton of compliments for the story, but in the end didn’t select it. So I quoted their praise because their praise of that excerpt is the closest I’ll ever come to getting in their magazine, now that it has shuttered:

“Wonderful… honestly a good story.”

— Glimmer Train, Finalist in their last ever fiction open

It’s really, really important — if you don’t know the blurb economy — that you understand this isn’t done. Neither of these. People who know, know. It’s a great talking piece when I’m hand selling books at conferences, conventions, and book fairs, but it isn’t done.

You’re supposed to get permission. And if you’re quoting a national outlet, they had better have reviewed you in it. The Publisher’s Weekly review of Bell Hammers is one example of such a review.

Immediately after both of these rejection blurbs comes the first blurb from my one of my best friends, Mark. Mark who produced that photonovel — that graphic novel of photos — Cold Brewed with me in my twenties. Mark’s blurb should have been the canary in the coal mine for folks whose hadn’t been paying attention to the first two odd ducks:

“Lance Schaubert is a dear friend, which makes me hesitant to write a blurb…. “of course you’ll make him sound good, you know him,” you might say. But the truth is, I’d recommend this novel even if I’d never heard of the man, with everything I possess. I’ve told Lance when his work isn’t great; now believe me when I tell you that this IS.

“This novel is true Americana; honest and even brutal in its depiction of the evils that have always haunted us, but pure and funny in its representation of the Midwest blue collar hero.

“Lance explores the quest for justice, faith, and goodness in a way that makes you feel like you’re listening to your own grandpa—the crazy one, the one whose stories your mom was afraid to let you hear.”

— Mark Neuenschwander, Award-Winning Photographer

You should be asking yourself why a photographer is blurbing my book. You should be asking yourself why one of my dear friends is blurbing my book. It’s as if I’d asked my mom to blurb my book.

From there, I started quoting more and more and more obscure blogs. Then we moved slowly towards the most obscure Goodreads reviews I could find for Bell Hammers.

Like this gem:

“Bell Hammers is a wonderfully written book that follows Remmy through life in southern Illinois. The writing is very good and reads a little like Mark Twain, especially the earlier sections. In some places, Bell Hammers reads like a series of anecdotes told at a family gathering—it was excellent.”

— Ryan, Kickball Champion

I’m reminded of Trevor Moore who said, when he died, that he wanted his obituary to begin, “Local sexpot Trevor Moore…” What an absurd thing to want, but that’s exactly what they did when he did. Would that I could be remembered so specifically as “local kickball champion.” Perhaps when I die, make sure the obit says, “Local fae orphan and seed wart cultivation specimen Lancelot Schaubert…” or something terribly gross. “Local recovering alien abduction probeaholic…” Or “Local once-gorgeous specimen of the fruit of the vine that Father Time alone hath shriveled to the teensiest white raisin before gobbling on down, Lancelot Schaubert…”

Who knows?

Whatever you all land upon, if it gets one morning news reader to spit their coffee out and ruin their computer, that’s a solid last act of Congress for an obit. As I say sincerely to literary agents and editors: thanks in advance.

Also while we’re at it: bury me in a field in an unmarked grave, preferably without a coffin, but if you absolutely must, a couple of boards to keep out the badgers and groundhogs will suffice. Maggots are fine. They’ll get in anyways, like Chuck Wendig’s blurb requests. But for the love of all that’s good and holy make the groundhogs work for it.

While we’re here, I’ve always said I wanted my tombstone to be a giant round stone, cracked down the middle in a Y as wide as an open zipper. On the left half of the Y in the crack, I want the word “TO” and on the right half of the Y in the crack, I want the word “BE.” It’s not just a Shakespeare reference, it’s a split infinitive.

That’s both a grammar and a metaphysics joke, for those keeping score. Make sure the tombstone is nowhere near where you bury me with those groundhog proof two-by-fours and plywood, otherwise it won’t be unmarked. That’s right: I want the tombstone in a random place in the world where I’m not buried to properly confuse folks. Perhaps in Nome, Alaska or Madagascar. Somewhere hard to get where none of the locals have any clue or care for who I am, but are willing to sell “a little bit of land” as Betty Smith said. Don’t use particle board, the groundhogs will eat through that stuff, even if Ikea starts selling particle board coffins in the future. Lord knows they try their best to furnish our coffins in the sky.

Anyways, we’re way afield. Kickball champions:

See you’re only supposed to put quality news outlets in the front-of-the-book blurbs. Remember when I said my first inspiration came from the bestselling book that had ten pages of blurbs?

At this point, the blurb trolling’s up to eleven pages. Gloves off, I was determined to take this further than it ever had been taken:

“In the tradition of “Predator”, Plato’s “symposium” and “the Hardy Boys: Secret of the Old Mill”, Lance Schaubert has written a gold dream of existential steampunk romance. Again and again, I found myself delighted with the unforgettable prose, especially when it comes to the exploring the philosophy of decapitation. If you enjoy Louis L’Amour and Tolstoy, you’ll find this epic western saga a delight for the brain, the heart, and of course the tingly bits.”

— Mark Neuenschwander
Award-Winning Photographer

“Mark, you already did a blurb. You can’t do another blurb. Especially that blurb.”

— Lancelot Schaubert
Author of Bell Hammers, this novel

“Hi honey, so proud of you!!! ❤️❤️❤️ can I do a blurb???”

— Lance’s mom
A retired nurse

“No, mom, this is… see what you started Mark?”

— Lancelot Schaubert
Author of Bell Hammers, this novel

“Mark Neuenschwander’s work is a tour de force: he is the voice of his generation.”

— C. Lance Williams,
author of the Axiom Gold Medal winning book Small Town, Big Money

“Colby?! Mark takes photographs. How can he be the voice? And why are you blurbing Mark in—”

— Lancelot Schaubert
Author of Bell Hammers, this novel

“I’ve pranked 57 people since being inspired by the characters within and am now banned from many fine establishments including this novel.”

— Mark Neuenschwander
Award-Winning Photographer

“I’m shutting this down. Right now. We have a novel to start and there’s far more at stake here than my ego or your… your… blurb trolling of the aforementioned.”

— Lancelot Schaubert
Author of Bell Hammers, this novel

Will I get in trouble for this?

Probably someday. Maybe soon. Maybe even after posting this on Substack. I hope everyone thinks it’s as funny as I do, but if we’ve learned anything in recent decades, it’s that the people who need a sense of humor about themselves often don’t have one.

The New Yorker probably won’t publish me, not that they ever would have. But in the end, I think these tee up the tone of Bell Hammers better than anything nice any famous author could have said about it. More than praise, I long for people to get a feel for the novel in the blurbs.

And that is the only point.

PS — While we’re here, have you tried this sample chapter of Bell Hammers?

Have you checked out Cold Brewed, the graphic novel told in photographs?

And what about Overmorrow, of which Goodreads is currently giving away 100 copies?