Blurb
A blurb is a short promotional piece accompanying a piece of creative work. It may be written by the author or publisher or quote praise from others. Blurbs were originally printed on the back or rear dust jacket of a book. With the development of the mass-market paperback, they were placed on both covers by most publishers. Now they are also found on web portals and news websites. A blurb may introduce a newspaper or a book.
This article is about a short summary of a piece of work. For the print-on-demand publisher, see Blurb, Inc.Film[edit]
Movie blurbs are part of the promotional campaign for films, and usually consist of positive, colorful extracts from published reviews.
Movie blurbs have often been faulted for taking words out of context.[7][8][9][10] The New York Times reported that "the blurbing game is also evolving as newspaper film critics disappear and studios become more comfortable quoting Internet bloggers and movie Web sites in their ads, a practice that still leaves plenty of potential for filmgoers to be bamboozled. Luckily for consumers, there is a cavalry: blurb watchdog sites have sprung up and the number of Web sites that aggregate reviews by established critics is steadily climbing. ... Helping to keep studios in line these days are watchdog sites like eFilmCritic.com and The Blurbs, a Web column for Gelf magazine written by Carl Bialik of The Wall Street Journal."[11]
Slate wrote in an "Explainer" column: "How much latitude do movie studios have in writing blurbs? A fair amount. There's no official check on running a misleading movie blurb, aside from the usual laws against false advertising. Studios do have to submit advertising materials like newspaper ads and trailers to the Motion Picture Association of America for approval. But the MPAA reviews the ads for their tone and content, not for the accuracy of their citations. ... As a courtesy, studios will often run the new, condensed quote by the critic before sending it to print."[12]
Many examples exist of blurb used in marketing a film being traceable directly back to the film's marketing team.[13]
; Nicolas Barker (2004). "Blurb". ABC for Book Collectors (8th ed.). Oak Knoll Press. ISBN 1584561122.
