It seems that most book covers nowadays sport a blurb or two from well-known authors, but do you know who the first authors were to introduce the world to the blurb?

I didn’t think so. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman (the former blurbing about the latter), according to this piece by NPR. The article touches on the origins of the blurb and its efficacy in persuasiveness. It’s certainly worth reading it in its entirety. Personally, no one has ever told me that they picked up a book because of the blurb on the cover, but the fact that booksellers appear to be taking them into account says something.

In fact, that blurbs have greater traction with publishing professionals behind the scenes rather than consumers in bookstores speaks to their continued pervasiveness. Because the truth is that it’s increasingly difficult to make a book stand out to the general reader, and if there’s even a chance that a blurb might cause a consumer to take a closer look, you take it. Same goes for generating any buzz you can pre-publication and arming your sales teams with as much firepower as possible.

What do our readers think? As a reader, do you take blurbs into account? How important are they to you as a writer?