Review Blurbs

Full thoughts of oddness here.

So, random thought for today, but have you ever considered how differently review-blurbs are treated for books than they are for any other medium?

You might never have thought of this one, but let me give you an example. I just finished yesterday Wrath of Empire by Brian McClellan, which is a great book. I enjoyed it quite a bit and lost some sleep to finishing it. But there was something I couldn’t help but notice. Displayed on the cover is a blurb from Brandon Sanderson that says “Just plain awesome.” in large, bold letters. Brandon’s name is also large and bold. But under that, in much, much smaller print?

“On Promise of Blood.” Which is the first book this author wrote, which came out in 2013.

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Comments

[Oroboro]

I remember noticing that same blurb. I guess I should check out McClellan's second series.

I suspect it comes from the fact that books don't have the same scale of review infrastructure that movies/games do. They want to get blurbs from names people recognize, so they go to other big name authors instead.

And I suspect Brandon Sanderson doesn't have time to read more than the first book in the series.

[Viking ZX]

4990095
It's not the question of review critics versus authors (and there is a massive industry of book critics out there, especially for publishers), but rather that books can reuse the same review over and over and over again, while every other industry doesn't. You don't see movies and games with review quotes from six years ago on the cover. But for books? That's normal, even though a quick Google of "Wrath of Empire, review" brings up plenty of reviews from the substantial book review industry, including places like Publisher's Weekly. EDIT: And that review came out two months before the book did.

Books could use review blurbs from existing reviews, but they don't. They use old ones from other books. That's the curiosity.