What book blurbs really mean

Publishing professionals often speak in code, but our man on the inside is a cryptographer

LIKE MANY OTHER PROFESSions, the book trade is keen on jargon: lots of it, and the more the merrier. As with those other professions, it tends to be of two kinds: outward-facing — when publishers communicate with their customers — and inward-facing, when they communicate with other publishers or the people who write the products they sell. Its function — the function of all professional jargon, it might be said — is simultaneously to create an easily intelligible code for the benefit of insiders and (frankly) to mystify and impress those beyond the loop. Publishers’ outward-facing jargon can be conveniently observed in the blurbs printed on book jackets. These are full of code words which, you may be surprised to learn, usually have very little to do with the contents.…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, August - September 2023

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