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Great to hear from you, Cat! I'm in awe of your down-to-earth honesty, but have a teeny question: do you provide your MS to people you ask for proposal blurbs?

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Hey Ramona, nice to hear from you, too! Yes, when I asked folks for pre-publication blurbs, I gave them my book proposal and sample pages, and they were blurbing on that basis. And then, once the book was coming out, I sent galleys and folks blurbed having read that.

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“With all due respect to righteous takedowns of “hustle culture,” the writing business is a hustle. Most businesses are! Show me one that isn’t!” <-- so true!!!

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Right?? I get the criticisms for sure - it's not great to give people the message that they're not working hard enough, when in reality they're likely working multiple poorly paid jobs. At the same time, it's going too far if it's discouraging people when they're working toward some big, hard-to-reach goal.

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Right. Everyone who ever achieved their dreams worked really hard to get there. (With very few exceptions!)

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The good thing about “dating” as a teenager is that there is a set time period of when it’s over.

Then you simply get to live with the awkwardness for the rest of your life. It’s a gift, really.

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You're right, Christopher. The great thing about being a teenager is how, eventually, you're not one anymore. It's a relief when the old moments of agony become funny, or at least a whole lot funnier than they once seemed. It is a gift for sure.

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Great advice! Blurbs work, full stop. I heard about a new author the other day, went to the bookstore to check out his debut effort, flipped the book over, saw a blurb from Paul Beatty, as was like: I'm buying this book. And I did.

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Amran, is this a secret blurb for Paul Beatty?? The number of people who've pressed The Sellout on me just keeps growing. Is that one you've read?

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Haha, perhaps it is, though it shouldn't be a secret. The Sellout is perhaps the funniest book I've ever read, definitely top three. A must read. I just picked up White Boy Shuffle too.

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The New York Times

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DPQuinn | New Jersey

The review is shocking both because of the 2.5 Million dollars Harvard took to admit Jared juxtaposed by the loss of 44 Billion dollars in yesterday's Times by the Founder of We Work. How can they both attract so much money ? It took me decades to raise and spend $250,000 on over a dozen Off-Broadway productions, and years to pay back my student loans. I was never on salary but won Awards. With the rise and re-rise of djt, I shudder about the future when access buys everything and the little guy is tossed out,

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/17/books/review-breaking-history-jared-kushner.html#commentsContainer&permid=119910568:119910568

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