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How Do We Utilize Blurbs at Ooligan Press?

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So, you received an email from us asking you to read the manuscript for an upcoming Ooligan Press title and provide a “blurb,” what does that mean?

A blurb is a short message or quote–about one to three sentences long–about how much you enjoyed a particular book. A blurb will briefly summarize what the book is about and why someone should read it or why it stands out from other books on a shelf. For readers, a blurb gives a second opinion about the book and highlights some of the key selling points. Sometimes, a reader will choose to read or purchase a book because of a blurb that stands out to them or they trust the recommendation of a certain author or expert. If a person has read every book from a certain author and that author recommends our book, their blurb will indicate to a reader that they might enjoy our book as well. Similarly, if a person sees the name of a leader or activist that they trust and respect next to their blurb for our book, it will communicate that our book will also offer valuable information or a trustworthy perspective.

When seeking out individuals to provide blurbs, we will often ask authors who have written books in the same genre or with similar content or themes. For nonfiction books, we might ask experts in the particular field of study or prominent members of a related community. As a part of this process, we will ask our authors about their connections or to identify other authors, experts, and professionals in their field of study that they admire.

Some blurbs that we receive will end up on the front or back cover of our book. However, this will depend on many factors, including but not limited to the length of the blurb, the length of the other front or back cover copy, how much space the book cover design allocates for a blurb, how many blurbs we receive, and the print deadline.

We greatly appreciate every blurb we receive and recognize the time it took for someone to read through our book and write a thoughtful, engaging blurb. However, we are not able to fit every blurb we receive on the cover of the book. Sometimes, blurbs will be included in the first few pages of a book. Every blurb we receive is included on the various web pages where you can purchase one of our books. Additionally, blurbs are included in other promotional materials for a book such as the social media posts about the project or the press kit. The press kit is the information that we share with the media to let them know about our upcoming book release. Regardless of where a blurb ends up, we greatly appreciate the time and energy that it took for someone to read and blurb our book.

When we reach out to ask an author, writer, or other professional for a blurb, we typically give them over a month to read the book and respond with a few sentences to recommend the book. If you are interested in providing a blurb but are not able to meet the set deadline—let us know! As I mentioned above, we utilize blurbs in many ways and can still use blurbs in our promotional materials after the print deadline has passed.

If you have any further questions about how blurbs are utilized at Ooligan Press, please feel free to reach out to the marketing manager via email at marketing@ooliganpress.pdx.edu.

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A Guide to Marketing at Ooligan for Prospective Authors (Part Two) 

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Welcome back current or prospective Ooligan authors! In my last blog post, I talked about the marketing plan and its components in order to give you a better understanding of the first steps in our marketing process. In this post, I am going to define a few terms that you might hear when we talk about the next steps in the marketing process. Hopefully this will give you a better understanding of what we are doing to promote your book and get it in the hands of readers. [Note: Book marketing is a complex process and one that is too extensive to cover in one blog post. If you have more questions specific to marketing at Ooligan, please email marketing@ooliganpress.pdx.edu.]

Branding Brief—The branding brief defines what we want the “brand” to be for your book. At Ooligan Press, each book we publish has a unique brand—meaning each book has a unique aesthetic which communicates its message and makes it different from other books. The branding brief document is where we summarize how we want to brand a certain book. This document informs the actions of the marketing, design, and social media departments moving forward to make sure our branding is consistent.

Tipsheet—A tipsheet is a two-page informational guide to your book that we will share with our sales representatives and on various book sites as a way to give a quick overview of the book and why someone would want to read it. The content on the tipsheet is taken entirely from the marketing plan—so you will have read and approved everything. This is an industry-facing document that will not be seen by the general public and readers.

Contact List—The contact list is a list of media contacts that we may reach out to for marketing and publicity purposes. The publicity department will add people that we may reach out to and ask to promote our book either with a review, a press release, or some other kind of promotion. This might include newspapers, magazines, blogs, Instagram influencers, BookTokers, local news channels, and many more. The marketing department oversees the section dedicated to finding authors to write blurbs for the book. While you don’t need to know the details of the contact list, rest assured that we are putting in the work to make sure that people know about and are talking about your book.

Blurb—A blurb is a short, typically about one to three sentences, message in praise of your book. The majority of books on your bookshelf will have blurbs on their front or back covers and they are often included on various web pages where you can purchase the book. Blurbs are often included in other promotional materials such as press releases or social media posts. We will seek out authors who have written books similar in content or style to your own or experts in fields of study related to the content of your book. When it comes to blurbs and the contact list, it is extremely helpful for us to know about your connections. Do you have friends or acquaintances who are authors that could contribute? Do you belong to any professional organizations that might be interested in promoting your book in some capacity? Do you volunteer with any organization that we could partner with? At Ooligan Press, we also want to get to know you and work closely with you in this process so that we are building a strategy that leverages your connections.

If the above information has been overwhelming to you, that’s okay! You don’t need to have a full understanding of any of the above terms or processes, but hopefully you can look back upon this article if you ever run across one of these terms and have questions. Either way, at Ooligan Press we are here for you and here to make sure every aspect of the marketing process runs smoothly.