Blurb pet peeves

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

That is odd because there is an option at Amazon to delete a review you have posted.
So yes at Amazon.
Can you please point me to exactly where Amazon owns the review? It does not say that anywhere on the reviewing page nor is there a pop-up.

Yup, lemme go look. I'm pretty sure it's in the reviewing t&c, but ya never know, I could be hallucinating. (Don't think so, but...)

(Returns later, disheveled from digging...)

HERE we go. I hadda rummage around:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...&nodeId=508088

And the relevant sections are (although you, as always, retain the copyright, of course, as you wrote it):

All content included in or made available through any Amazon Service, such as text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, audio clips, digital downloads, data compilations, and software is the property of Amazon or its content suppliers and protected by United States and international copyright laws. The compilation of all content included in or made available through any Amazon Service is the exclusive property of Amazon and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. (in the "Copyright" section)

followed up by, in the REVIEWS, COMMENTS, COMMUNICATIONS, AND OTHER CONTENT section:

If you do post content or submit material, and unless we indicate otherwise, you grant Amazon a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, perform, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display such content throughout the world in any media. You grant Amazon and sublicensees the right to use the name that you submit in connection with such content, if they choose.

Sorry--I misremembered. It's a license, rather than outright ownership, which allows them free use of your review. At one point, I'm relatively certain that it was ownership, but after the DMCA, they probably changed it to a license, because--why not?

I'd have to rummage even further, to see if the license you grant Amazon, when you review a book, transfers to the publisher, as a sub-licensee of Amazon's, but given that Amazon has taken to displaying snippets from reviews all over the sales page, I'd guess that their in-house counsel would say that it does, certainly in conjunction with selling copies on Amazon, if naught else. I'd have to go look through all the T&C in the publishers' areas, both KDP and Createspace, but I suspect that a publisher definitely qualifies as a "sub-licensee" by almost any interpretation of the documents.

As I said--my guesses and speculations should be pretty clearly defined. The quotes are direct; the ruminations are mine alone.

Although, really, Cinsajoy, once you've published your review, why would you mind if the publisher in turn used it? Sure, if they were going to put it on their cover, I could see your complaint, as the review text itself is copyrighted, but on a blog or webpage or..?, what's the issue?

Hitch

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Hitch

My pet peeve is people using the word "blurb" when they mean "description." A blurb, traditionally, is not the damned description. It's a BLURB. A blurb is a comment or praise from some authority, whether it's Stephen King or the NYTimes' Book Review. Yes--before anyone jumps in--I know that the OED allows that "blurb" can be a short, eulogistic description by a publisher. Nonetheless, in the biz, historically, a blurb is not the description, (as in the description field on Amazon's website); it's the praise.

Offered solely FWIW.

@Cinsajoy:

You said:



A review from where, exactly? I ask because Amazon (and B&N, etc.) state pretty clearly that once you've written a review on their site, they own it, not you, so an author wouldn't be doing anything spectacularly wrong in using that content. Do you have a review site, is that the thing? Usually, at least, in trade publishing, a published review, is pretty much fair game.

If, in this thread, we are discussing descriptions, I have a list of stuff that will put me off a book in a New York second.

Hitch

I would bet you are correct that it is in the seller's T&C that reviews are owned by Amazon.
But the customer can change the review since there is an edit and delete button for the reviewer.
It would make sense that Amazon doesn't want the reviews used elsewhere.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I would bet you are correct that it is in the seller's T&C that reviews are owned by Amazon.
But the customer can change the review since there is an edit and delete button for the reviewer.
It would make sense that Amazon doesn't want the reviews used elsewhere.

Could be. The text that I posted, in my penultimate post, basically (now) says that you're licensing the reviews to Amazon, and their sub-licensees. And yes...you can tweak and edit them. It's a somewhat interesting question.

Hitch

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Could be. The text that I posted, in my penultimate post, basically (now) says that you're licensing the reviews to Amazon, and their sub-licensees. And yes...you can tweak and edit them. It's a somewhat interesting question.

Hitch

Well now,
If I put a review on Amazon, it should stay on Amazon. That is the only place I agreed for my words to be used.
If the author bugs me to join another site and post the review there, I get a bit testy.

The exception being if I have told the publisher/author that they can use my review as they like.

I have also removed some less than stellar reviews because I decided they were unfair to the author.

Otherwise I generally leave them unless it is an author behaving very badly.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Well now,
If I put a review on Amazon, it should stay on Amazon. That is the only place I agreed for my words to be used.
If the author bugs me to join another site and post the review there, I get a bit testy.

The exception being if I have told the publisher/author that they can use my review as they like.

I have also removed some less than stellar reviews because I decided they were unfair to the author.

Otherwise I generally leave them unless it is an author behaving very badly.

Well, my point is, you've posted the review on a public site, where anyone and their brother can see it. If the author posts a link to your review, from her webpage, is that somehow different than if she cites the review directly?

(FWIW, I don't remove less-than-stellar reviews. My attitude is that there are ENTIRELY too many fawning reviews for books that damn sure don't deserve it that a little cold water won't hurt. I've seen remarkably positive reviews for books that are quite appallingly bad. I don't think encouraging that level of "bad" is a good idea, myself. PLUS, there's entirely too much of this "I did the best I could" attitude. I just saw an entire thread of authors justifying that they didn't have the $$$ for an editor, and that they shouldn't be expected to be perfect, because they can't afford that. That whole mindset needs to be killed off, IMHO.)

Hitch

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Well, my point is, you've posted the review on a public site, where anyone and their brother can see it. If the author posts a link to your review, from her webpage, is that somehow different than if she cites the review directly?

(FWIW, I don't remove less-than-stellar reviews. My attitude is that there are ENTIRELY too many fawning reviews for books that damn sure don't deserve it that a little cold water won't hurt. I've seen remarkably positive reviews for books that are quite appallingly bad. I don't think encouraging that level of "bad" is a good idea, myself. PLUS, there's entirely too much of this "I did the best I could" attitude. I just saw an entire thread of authors justifying that they didn't have the $$$ for an editor, and that they shouldn't be expected to be perfect, because they can't afford that. That whole mindset needs to be killed off, IMHO.)

Hitch

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.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by Hitch

My pet peeve is people using the word "blurb" when they mean "description." A blurb, traditionally, is not the damned description. It's a BLURB. A blurb is a comment or praise from some authority, whether it's Stephen King or the NYTimes' Book Review. Yes--before anyone jumps in--I know that the OED allows that "blurb" can be a short, eulogistic description by a publisher. Nonetheless, in the biz, historically, a blurb is not the description, (as in the description field on Amazon's website); it's the praise.

Offered solely FWIW.

Hitch

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.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Hitch

My pet peeve is people using the word "blurb" when they mean "description." A blurb, traditionally, is not the damned description. It's a BLURB. A blurb is a comment or praise from some authority, whether it's Stephen King or the NYTimes' Book Review. Yes--before anyone jumps in--I know that the OED allows that "blurb" can be a short, eulogistic description by a publisher. Nonetheless, in the biz, historically, a blurb is not the description, (as in the description field on Amazon's website); it's the praise.

Offered solely FWIW.

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.

[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

[Cinisajoy]

Hey Hitch,
My personal opinion is if you can't afford an editor, get a job and save your pennies till you can afford one.
But I have also heard stories of I paid $ xxx and look what I got back.
Ok so usually those turned out to be well they say they normally charge XXX but just for you I will only charge XX. "No, I won't give you a sample of my work or tell you anyone else I has edited."

Or the absolute worst ones are "my writing is prefect, so I don't need extra eyes".

No I stand corrected,
The absolute positive worst worst are "the I don't notice errors so my readers won't either."
Well now that statement might be somewhat true because they won't have readers.

And yes, if one charges for something, I do expect it to be professionally done.

The one exception to that might be the crafter that was bullied into making some ornaments cheap for someone else to give away at Christmas. They looked horrible. Let's see she dropped a ho off of a ho ho ho door hanger and you couldn't tell what the crocheted stockings were. Hey she probably figured the bully was going to take the credit.
One person that got some of those for Christmas told off the bully and said that she needed to go give the woman that made them more money.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by darryl

<SNIP> the part I responded to earlier.

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.

Oh, brother--you don't want THIS list. The advent of Indy publishing has made descriptions--forget blurbs--pretty much a pet peeve of mine, no argument. Here's a short list of things that drive me bats**t, in no particular order:

• Speaking to me in the first person, breaking the "4th wall." That's a major NO-NO. If I read a description that addresses me directly, that rules that book out. "Are you afraid of finding out about love?"
• Worse, as part of that, telling me how much I'm going to LOVE the book. Don't tell me how I'm going to feel about it. That's irksome at best.
• Using adjectives to "sell" the book. e.g.,. "A heartwarming tale of ..." To me, that's a variant of the "telling me how I'll feel about it" peeve, above.
• Giving me a lengthy synopsis, instead of a tantalizing description. ("Meanwhile, back at Fred's all-night cafe, Mary had learned that...") ACK!
• Y'know, back in the day, we all had to polish our elevator pitches. We had to learn how to write synopses to give to potential agents. Now, apparently, writing the description is so hard that 95% of all books are ruled out by the sheer ineptitude of the description. Work harder on that skill, folks.
• Incoherency. (Speaks for itself).
• Exclamation marks.
• Asking me questions, or posing questions. "Will Jimmy learn to love Doris, before his Schnauzer runs away to find a happier home?" ACK.
• and last, but not least, SPOILERS. You know what publisher does this? The Harry Dresden books. God forbid you are looking ahead to buy a book--you find out all sorts of stuff. That is just downright irksome. I'm up to the latest on that series (binged on the last...4, I think, when my spouse was hospitalized this summer), but that's bloody annoying.

I know I have more, but off the top of my head, this covers the bulk of my dislikes and pet peeves, I think.

Hitch

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Hitch

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

How about we just stick with the original definition of the term, as coined in 1907, that a blurb is promotional material for a book, either used in adverts or printed on the back of the book or its dust jacket? As such it would generally include both a brief description of the book and praise for it.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by HarryT

How about we just stick with the original definition of the term, as coined in 1907, that a blurb is promotional material for a book, either used in adverts or printed on the back of the book or its dust jacket? As such it would generally include both a brief description of the book and praise for it.

Harry:

Which solves absolutely nothing. That leaves us with the same muddled mess as before. I'll defer to Burgess' original intent. This doesn't, however, mean that we have to have a damsel on every cover, does it?

FWIW, the Germans think the usage was coined some years later, if memory serves.

As imprecision in language is far more the norm than the opposite, I'll simply demur.

Hitch

[Cinisajoy]

Just read this.
Apparently book trade journals used to limit summaries of novels to 35 words.
Maybe if Amazon did that it would cut out the useless not actually about the story stuff.

That was published in "The Life of the Party" by Bennett Cerf in 1956.

I do believe that Mr. Cerf had no trouble finding a publisher but I wonder if he had an honest editor.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Hitch

(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." [...]

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

When there's a semicolon in a dictionary definition, it means that there are two related but somewhat different meanings. In other words, one meaning of "blurb" is the one you are choosing, and the other meaning is simply "descriptive or commendatory matter". So using "blurb" to mean "descriptive matter" is perfectly fine.

I don't see why this is difficult to deal with. Huge swathes of English words have multiple meanings.