I've been lucky in my publishing career to get blurbs from wonderful, well-known authors I admire and respect. But I've also missed out a few crucial times.

Begging for blurbs is one of the more misery-producing aspects of being published. It can leave us desperate and depressed. It's humiliating to have to grovel for blurbs, rather than have your publisher secure them for you.

By Greg Zimmerman for BookRiot: For obvious reasons, established writers are usually very selective about which novels they’ll blurb. Perhaps, so...

As much as I might fantasize about Junot Díaz or Mary Karr anointing my memoir the breakout book of 2009, how could I possibly expect them to even take note of its existence?