According to William Safire, the word blurbosphere, which is coined on the analogy of blogosphere, refers to "the throbbing universe of book promotion." Safire parsed this term in his language column in the New York Times on May 1, 2005, after it was used by Charles McGrath, the editor of the New York Times Book Review, in the following context: "In the blurbosphere, has there ever been a book that wasn't acclaimed?" In his analysis of the hype commonly used in the publishing world, Safire proceeds to explain that an acclaimed book is any book that has received at least one good review, a book that is widely acclaimed is any book that received "two or more, plus a cable TV plug," and a critically acclaimed book is any book that was "decently reviewed in a specialized publication but didn't sell."
The word blurbosphere first appeared in the blogosphere on October 1, 2003, in a posting by Jim Berhle entitled "My Final Blurb." Berhle, a Brooklyn-based poet, provocateur, and prolific blogger, wrote: "I've twice given blurbs to people who wanted blurbs of me, and was happy to do so. But I've decided to get out of the blurb business, or to someday write a book of poems that were just blurbs, blurbs for other books or books I made up and represented just with blurbs. So I am exiting the blurbosphere." He then provided readers with a template of a blurb in which they could fill in blanks in order to write their own blurbs recommending books of poetry in his name.
Submitted by: Shira Pasternak Be'eri
