I truly want to help emerging authors, and I do, as often and in as many ways as I can. But the reality of my life is that I write a book a year. On top of that, I promote. I Facebook. I Tweet. I blog occasionally. I have a life, at least sometimes.

And the truth is I get asked to write blurbs (quotes written by authors for upcoming books by other authors) a lot. Sometimes as many as five or six requests per week. No matter how much I’d like to, I can’t possibly read more than a small fraction of all those books and still meet my own deadlines. So like every other author I know, I have to pick and choose.

Probably the first thing I look at is whether the request comes from a place of heart, or whether the person asking is just hammering out blurb requests to every author she has ever heard of. Is my name spelled correctly? Dear Clair Cooke is probably not going to do it.

Did the blurb requester Tweet the request or take the time to write a carefully constructed email? (Personally, I think Facebooked or Tweeted requests for blurbs are the height of rudeness. I mean, come on, at least go to my website and track down my contact info.) Did the author (or her editor/agent) approach me directly or through my editor/agent, or did she ask someone in my Zumba class or another writer to hit me up? (I don’t care who you know. I only care what you write and how it relates to what I write.)

And here’s the big one for me: Have you ever actually read anything I’ve written? If not, then why in the name of all that’s good in the literary world would you be asking me to put my name on your book? And no, watching the Must Love Dogs movie eleven times doesn’t count. The truth is that I can tell who’s just pretending to have read my books because they almost always say something like, “I’m a big fan of your work, especially Must Love Dogs.” People who’ve really read my books tend to mention at least one of the seven novels I’ve written since.

Why does it matter? Because we’re writers. Our hearts and souls are in the books we’ve written. So if you want to ask me for a favor for your book, I personally think it’s only fair for you to have read my books. And preferably to have bought at least one. Maybe even in hardcover. Do I have the right to feel this way? Well, sure I do, since you’re the one asking me for something.

I’d also like you to connect the dots for me. Why would my readers like your book? Because if they see my name on it, they just might be more likely to buy it, and I love my readers and don’t want them to be disappointed. Once a long time ago, I let someone bully me into writing a quote for her book. In all honesty, I did it so she’d stop bugging me. Six months later I got an angry email from a bookseller saying that she’d ordered multiple copies of the book because my quote was on the front cover of the advance reading copy. And that when she’d finally gotten around to reading it, it was just awful, and what had I been thinking? Well, obviously I hadn’t been, and the bookseller was right to call me on it. Never again. If I blurb your book, my reputation goes on that cover along with my name. That’s a big deal to me.

Don’t tell me that your writing is a lot like mine, or that you’re hysterically funny, even funnier than I am, or what a huge hit your boyfriend thinks your book is going to be. That’s all great (well, except for the fact that your writing should be like yours, not mine) but it’s not going to make me blurb your book.

Even if you write me a beautiful letter telling me how much you love my writing and why, what made you think of me for a quote, how incredibly grateful you’d be if I would consider taking time out of my busy life to write something for you instead of my own next chapter, I can’t promise you I’ll get to it.

But I will absolutely try my hardest.

Check out my writing page at http://ClaireCook.com.

Stay tuned for Wallflower in Bloom, coming June 5 from Touchstone!

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