Few books now appear without enthusiastic recommendations from other authors, but does anyone really believe them?
'I even turned up on a self-help book I hadn't read' ... Anthony Horowitz. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian
How many books can one man recommend? I sometimes feel that my name is on the cover of more books than I've actually written myself, which is worrying. I've endorsed children's authors as diverse as Suzanne Collins, Meg Rosoff, Simon Mayo and the late, great Robert Cormier. I found the historian, Nicholas Rankin, to be "completely delightful", and the poet, Roger McGough, "wise, funny and sad". The thriller writer, Stephen Leather, delivered in my opinion, "a wicked read" although I notice I've been bumped off the front cover of the latest edition by James Herbert ("another great thriller with a devilish twist"), which I do find slightly hurtful. I even turned up on a self-help book I hadn't read – the publishers took my name and helped themselves.
Authors promoting authors on book jackets is so widespread now that few books appear without them, a phenomenon gleefully mocked by Private Eye's Backscratcher column, which is quick to point out where favours are being called in. There are three ways in which I find myself on other peoples' covers.
The first is perfectly legitimate. I write a positive review for a newspaper and the publishers quote from it. Frank Cottrell Boyce wrote kindly about me in this very newspaper about a month ago, and as it happened his piece coincided with a new edition of my paperbacks. His words are already plastered over the covers and I doubt my publishers asked if he minded. That said, I decided to read his last book, Cosmic, out of a sense of gratitude and I can say with hand on heart that Frank is one of the funniest and most engaging writers on the planet – and I'm willing to bet you'll read that again on a cover one day.
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Authors promoting authors on book jackets is so widespread now that few books appear without them, a phenomenon gleefully mocked by Private Eye's Backscratcher column, which is quick to point out where favours are being called in. There are three ways in which I find myself on other peoples' covers.
The first is perfectly legitimate. I write a positive review for a newspaper and the publishers quote from it. Frank Cottrell Boyce wrote kindly about me in this very newspaper about a month ago, and as it happened his piece coincided with a new edition of my paperbacks. His words are already plastered over the covers and I doubt my publishers asked if he minded. That said, I decided to read his last book, Cosmic, out of a sense of gratitude and I can say with hand on heart that Frank is one of the funniest and most engaging writers on the planet – and I'm willing to bet you'll read that again on a cover one day.
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