My editor has asked me to help her to obtain endorsements for my book. An endorsement, in case you're not familiar with the term, is publisher-speak for those tacky blurbs by other authors that litter the back covers of most books.

When I asked my mentor, Lewis Buzbee, for some ideas about who I should approach, he had an interesting anecdote about the origin of the word "blurb."

One more note about blurbs. Two actually. Do you know where the term blurb comes from? In the early decades of the twentieth century, publishers used to wrap a paper jacket with endorsements around new titles. These jackets invariably included a buxom young blonde. Gelette Burgess, an American humorist of the time, he who wrote "I never saw a purple cow..." was so chagrinned by this that he designed his own jacket, with buxom blonde, and he called her Miss Blinda Blurb. The name stuck. You see, it's always been a heinous business, asking for blurbs. You just gotta do it.

This business of whoring myself isn't one of my favorite aspects of being an author...