As an author, having blurbs—those little endorsement quotes—on your book cover can really help drive sales. To be effective, blurbs should be truthful, convincing, and compelling, and ideally attributable to a recognizable, noteworthy, and otherwise unbiased name.
For example, this would be an epic book blurb:
“Immediately after reading Jenna’s latest masterpiece, I invented a new color, taught myself to speak dolphin, and reengineered the concept of time so I could go back and not post last week’s crude, embarrassing tweet. I didn’t just buy this book; I memorized it.” — Elon Musk
Now imagine you’re perusing the New Releases at Barnes & Noble (do those even exist anymore?) and you spot this on a cover:
“This is the best book ever written. Everyone should buy it.” — The Author
At the risk of insulting anyone’s intelligence here, the latter would be laughably ineffective because of course the author is going to say that. It would sort of be like Bill Gates, for random example, encouraging you to take a worthless, possibly lethal vaccine that he just so happens to make a boatload of dough off of, or Quentin Tarantino joining the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the sole purpose of nominating himself for Best Director. Just a wee conflict of interest, wouldn’t you say?
If conflicts of interest had a mascot, it would be pharmaceutical advertising. Media outlets, desperate for those massive ad spends, are about as likely to run a negative (albeit 100% accurate) segment about their Pharma paymasters as a feral cat is to give cuddling lessons. Instead, all day long, viewers are bombarded with flashy commercials pimping the “miracle” drug du jour that at best is inferior or ineffective and at worst, could be lethal. And if they turn out to be either of those things, do you think any major network is going to chop off the hand that feeds it?
Hellbound and Down 