[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

No, these are just ones that were strictly opinions. The ones that point out actual errors are left up.
Truth be told, I don't really care if they put the review on their website but don't ask me to join a website just to post a review. And dang sure don't bug me about it. One did just that.

Hey Hitch,
If that thread is where I think it is, don't tell the whiners to get help. You might find yourself post moderated.
And dang sure don't tell them this is a business act professional.

I already tell them that. I try to be decent about it, but I admit, after 7 years of this, it makes me cranky. I absolutely, positively don't understand that mindset--"oh, well, I'm an Indy author, and I can't afford to pay an editor, so...it's as good as it needs to be." Can you IMAGINE what would happen if we returned a book to a client, that had a bunch of mistakes in it, and said "oh, gosh, well, Dave is a novice bookmaker. He didn't have the money to pay to take courses to learn how to make eBooks, and we didn't have the time to train him. You understand, right? It's as good as he can make it." HA! HA HA HA! They'd be all over our asses like stink on you-know-what. Why is their commercial product somehow exempt from standards of professionalism?

Originally Posted by darryl

An interesting point. There certainly seems to be some confusion both in this thread and generally. I totally accept what you say about the distinction between a blurb and a description in the industry. But a quick search reveals a variety of definitions, many of which, (including the OED which you mentioned), do encompass a description. This certainly does not mean that you are wrong, but it does mean there is much confusion. I myself have been guilty of using the term "blurb" to encompass what appears on the back cover of many paperbacks, usually but not always both a description and testimonials. In fact, one of my pet hates is the omission of a description in favour only of testimonials. Nevertheless, in the future I intend to be more precise where possible and perhaps use "testimonial(s)" and "description" in future.

Clearly many posters to this thread have understood the term as including a description. I would be interested in your list of your pet peeves with descriptions.

Well, this is, precisely, the entire point about precision in language--so that this very type of confusion doesn't happen. If we all simply stuck with blurb = blurb, and description meant description, this would be a lot simpler. As noted, even in this THREAD, we see a lot of conflicting "peeves," because people are not discussing the same thing. As we used to say in the legal biz, Quod Et Demonstrandum, or "QED."

Originally Posted by gmw

I made the key word of your complaint bold: "historically". Dictionaries pick up a definition after the common use is demonstrated, so if it's in the OED (etc.) it's time to stop getting peeved and start getting used to it.

Yeah, sure, I'll lose out. That's a given. However, I'd like to point out that the problem isn't actually in the dictionaries' definition; it's in the interpretation of what the dictionaries actually mean. (Back to that pesky, "precision in language" argument.)

(For clarity, what the OED says, precisely, is: "A publisher's brief, usu. eulogistic, description of a book, printed on its jacket or in advertisements; descriptive or commendatory matter.")

What the OED, et al, all say is more or less along the lines of "a eulogistic description of a book." Historically--and today--being "blurbed" (love it when we make a verb out of a noun..) means that a fellow writer or expert in the field you've written about, etc., praises your book (eulogizes) and talks about how much they loved it. Frequently, that praise includes a description of the action of the book. E.g., "When Bob meets Sally, your hair will stand on end and your life's meaning will become clear to you. When Sally meets Ally, though, your heart will sing and your soul will be fulfilled. When Bob marries Ally, the end is nigh. You don't want to miss the roller-coaster ride of the summer in Bob and Ally." (Sorry, but, y'know...). In that, as dreadful as it is, you have praise, opinion, and description/plot elements. Most blurbs DO.

If you read MOST commercial blurbs, fully half have some type of description in them. (I'd also note that the skill of writing good blurbs [would that be, "giving good blurb?"] is also going right down the toilet.)

To me, the difference is not specifically whether or not a blurb contains a description of the action or story or...?, but whether or not the content we're discussing praises the book (blurb), generally written by a third party, or is simply a description intended to entice the reader into the book (description).

My feeling is that a blurb is praise; a description is not, other than making the description sound as good as one can.

Otherwise, as noted--you end up with this exact scenario. A bunch of confused people, not knowing what is being discussed. Is this not the entire point of language? To convey ideas, theories, concepts? Rather than muddle them?

Hitch