Getting a blurb from a famous author

How would you feel if someone you didn't know and had never heard of asked you to do them a favour just because of the success that you've achieved in your particular area of expertise? Now think how you'd feel if you received such requests every other day; and consider what it's like sometimes getting rude responses when you gracefully refuse the requests.

Unless you have a connection with them, they're very unlikely to help you.

I'd always been under the impression that these came from requests made via the publisher rather than the author and that the publisher had procedures they used for doing that (i.e. asking them nicely ). So, I don't think it is anything you can do.

Some blurb quotes also come from ARC reviews and I think some of them come from two authors who meet at a conference and get to know each other and agree to a mutual blurbing (this is how at least one published friend of mine did it, anyway...). However, as Old Hack says above, it is incredibly impolite for an author to out and out ask a complete stranger to help with thier publicity. Either get to know them first as friends (with no ulterior motive) or leave it to the publisher to deal with it - it comes under their responsibility as publicists anyway.

Unless you're personal friends with the Famous Author, the getting of blurb-quotes is part of the editor's job. (Generally the blurbs are from someone else published by that same house.)

If you're with a publisher, I agree with those who have already posted. However, if you're self-publishing your book and you are looking for a blurb from another self-published author, I think it's easier to get a blurb. They may not be famous, but maybe they have a decent fan following. I wouldn't recommend this with huge authors in the self-publishing world like Konrath or Hocking because it's the same kind of thing--unless you know them personally, it's something you don't really do. So maybe you don't even care about my advice to get a "less famous" author's blurb, but here it is anyway. . .

I did this with my self-published novella with another author who had a similar book in a similar genre. She's not huge, but she has about 500 blog followers, and her books have been pretty well received. I just sent her a very polite e-mail asking if she could offer a blurb that I could use on my cover or in my description. I told her why I felt our books were similar and why readers of her books might enjoy mine. I pasted the book description, linked to a few spots around the web (the first chapter on my blog, the trailer, the Amazon listing, etc.), and told her if she was too busy or uninterested, I totally understood. Fortunately, she was interested, so I gifted her the book and about a month later she sent me something to use. I have no idea if it's had an effect on sales, but I'm still glad I did it.

So, hopefully that helps even if it wasn't exactly what you were looking for.