All this talk about
the Nobelists got me thinking about a small puzzle in book
publishing.
Book blurbs are
those small endorsements of a book that appear on the jacket or in ads. They
seem to be a way to sell the book to prospective purchasers by signaling that
the book is worth more (or at least as much) as its cost. But how could blurbs
do that? They are mostly written by friends of the author. If potential
customers know that, they will quickly realize that the blurbers have strong
reasons to lie to them about the book. After all, if a blurber says her friend's
book is mediocre, she will pay a heavy price in interpersonal relations. If she
lies to the potential customer, she pays no price because so far as I can see
there are no reputational costs in writing false blurbs for books. Even if a
potential purchaser does not know that almost all blurbs are written by the
author's friends, he would still have strong reasons to doubt the value of the
blurb since it comes from the publisher who also has strong reasons to favor the
interests of the author over the interests of potential
purchasers.
So a blurb doesn't
signal "this is a good book" but rather "the author is my friend." That is
hardly reason to buy the book unless the purchaser also is the author's friend.
So blurbs ought not enhance book sales. Yet they continue to exist. I take that
to mean either the publishers or potential customers are deluded about the
nature or effects of blurbs. Another possibility is that blurbs may serve some
function besides selling books.
So, why do book
blurbs exist?
John
Samples
Cato
Institute
