Latest news with #SeanManning
Yahoo
12-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Travis Kelce gushes over Taylor Swift in GQ story: 'We're just two people that are in love'
Less than seven hours after Taylor Swift announced the title of her 12th album, Travis Kelce is gracing the cover of GQ magazine with a cover story diving into football, his next career move and life dating a superstar. The Kansas City Chiefs tight end opened up about the blinding spotlight of being Swift's "plus one" and how he's navigating the pressure, in the more than 6,000 worded article written by Simon and Schuster publisher Sean Manning. "When there is not a camera on us, we're just two people that are in love," Kelce said. "It can be perceived as something else because of how much it is talked about and how much we are tracked whenever we do go out, but I would say that it's as normal of. … It happened very organically even though from a media standpoint it was being tracked. It still happened very organically." announces new album: What to know about 'The Life of a Showgirl' Kelce said one of the most refreshing parts of dating Swift has been realizing how similar their worlds are. "I hadn't experienced somebody in the same shoes as me, having a partner who understands the scrutiny, understands the ups and downs of being in front of millions," he said. "That was very relatable, seeing how exhausted she would get after shows. She may not think of herself as an athlete. She will never tell anyone that she is an athlete. But I've seen what she goes through. I've seen the amount of work that she puts on her body, and it's mind-blowing." Taylor Swift is 'electric,' Travis Kelce says in GQ Kelce and Swift have dated since the summer of 2023, which Swift revealed began "when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell," she said in her Time magazine Person of the Year article. "We started hanging out right after that. So we actually had a significant amount of time that no one knew, which I'm grateful for, because we got to get to know each other," Swift said in Time. "By the time I went to that first game," the Chiefs versus Bears game in September 2023, where she watched from a suite, "we were a couple. I think some people think that they saw our first date at that game? We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date." Kelce followed her to 14 concert stops along the Eras Tour, and she changed the "Karma" lyrics every night he attended to, "Karma is the guy on the Chiefs coming straight home to me." In the GQ article, Kelce called the show "electric" and said he's amazed by the singer-songwriter's stamina. 'Karma is the guy on the Chiefs': Taylor Swift sings about Travis Kelce on Eras Tour "To go out on a stage, on a computer, essentially, for three hours," he says. "The (Eras Tour) floor is literally – I've seen underneath that thing. It is a football-field-sized computer. You take that into Singapore, where it is scorching hot, and all of a sudden you're feeling the fumes from the computer and you're feeling the fumes from the sun and you're doing a show for three hours with a lot of energy, bringing it every single song. That is arguably more exhausting than how much I put in on a Sunday, and she's doing it three, four, five days in a row." Taylor Swift's 12th era involves Travis Kelce Swift included her boyfriend and his brother in announcing her newest project, "The Life of a Showgirl." At 12:12 a.m. ET on Aug. 12, a "New Heights" podcast teaser video showed Swift and Kelce next to each other as she revealed to Jason Kelce the album cover. Kelce has become the conduit of news for Swift. In addition to changing the lyrics, she invited him on stage during her showgirl portion of the show to carry her into "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart." She also did a last-minute surprise at Tight End University, an event he cohosts, performing "Shake It Off." Although he doesn't say when his last season will be with the NFL, Kelce told GQ, "Nowadays, I just want to be respected and loved by the people that I'm surrounded by in my work. "I want to leave it better than where it was when I started," he said, before invoking Swift. "And I see her having those same values." Don't miss any Taylor Swift news; sign up for the free, weekly newsletter This Swift Beat. Follow Bryan West, the USA TODAY Network's Taylor Swift reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Travis Kelce on Taylor Swift in GQ: 'We're just two people in love'
Observer
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Observer
Do blurbs matter in book sales?
'Absolutely riveting' and 'compelling.' 'A must-read' and 'a tour de force.' Blurbs, those haiku-length endorsements on every book jacket, are a ubiquitous part of the literary scene, boldly declaring that the book you're about to delve into is 'life-changing.' Or 'mesmerising.' Or 'captivating.' Or 'unputdownable.' Authors love to hate them. Debut writers struggle to gather them. Established writers struggle to fulfill requests from friends, authors who share the same publisher or agent, and promising newcomers who deserve a leg up. The famously fractious publishing community seems to agree on this point: Blurb collection is a time-consuming, dispiriting and occasionally mortifying process, one that takes time away from the actual writing and editing of books. But until last week, the quid-pro-quo cycle felt inescapable, an essential part of rolling out a book and giving it a fighting chance in a crowded marketplace. Then, on Thursday, Sean Manning, the publisher of Simon & Schuster, announced in an essay in Publishers Weekly that authors under contract with the house's flagship imprint would no longer be expected to solicit feedback from fellow writers. 'Trying to get blurbs is not a good use of anyone's time,' Manning wrote. He commended 'the collegiality of authors,' but pointed out that 'favor trading creates an incestuous and unmeritocratic literary ecosystem that often rewards connections over talent.' The news spread through the industry like the juiciest gossip, prompting a range of reactions. 'I do agree that the blurb ecosystem is a scourge,' novelist Jami Attenberg wrote in an email, referring to Manning's essay. 'So many of my author friends complain about the time we spend on it!' Do blurbs really help sell books? The truth is, no one can say for sure. 'I don't know if blurbs have ever worked,' Manning said. 'There's no metric to tell.' Victoria Ford, the owner of Comma, a bookstore in Minneapolis, said, 'My initial reaction was that blurbs don't matter at all.' She'd rather read a thorough summary on the back of a book, or a lively description on the flyleaf, than rely on a few beats from an established author who might have a personal relationship with the author in question. As for her customers, Ford went on: 'I have not noticed readers paying a lot of attention to blurbs, with a few exceptions. I've definitely sold books because a customer was browsing and saw a book Ann Patchett had blurbed. Readers trust her.' How do writers feel about asking for them? In one word, conflicted. Asking is awkward, but the right blurb might make a difference, signaling to readers that they should pay attention to this book, among so many others. In preparation for the publication 'Master Slave Husband Wife,' Ilyon Woo wrote personal letters to nine writers whose work she admired, asking them to read her book and offer an endorsement. The blurbers who responded, she said, were 'fairy godwriters.' 'When I was writing, I was in the deep, dark basement of my mind,' she said. 'And the blurbs were the first signs of life outside the book.' 'Master Slave Husband Wife' went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for biography. Of course there were a few requests that didn't bear fruit; that goes with the territory. And, for the record, 'blurb' moonlights as a verb, as in 'to blurb or not to blurb.' It's a complicated question for all involved. And how do they feel about giving blurbs? When Attenberg's novel 'The Middlesteins' came out in 2012, Jonathan Franzen praised the 'artistry of her storytelling' — a cover-worthy blurb that was 'helpful for the life of my book not just here but abroad, too,' Attenberg wrote. She has tried to pay it forward over the past decade, but recently had to declare a blurb hiatus while working on a new novel. 'We all want to be helpful, but also we are busy,' she wrote. 'It's a real tussle. My long-term solution has been to cap how many books I blurb a year to a dozen.' Hannah said that she also tries to repay kindnesses when it comes to blurbing, but that 'in the past few years, it's become difficult to keep up.' Do readers care? Here's a sad truth, given how much effort goes into blurbs: They might not be that important to the average reader. On a Sunday, 18 out of 20 readers asked in an informal survey at Indigo, a bookstore in Short Hills, New Jersey, had no idea what a blurb is. When asked whether she selects books based on adulatory praise on the jacket, Jaclyn Tepedino, 29, said: 'Me, personally, I do not. I'm looking at the summary.' Sylvia Costlow, 86, said that praise from David Baldacci or Daniel Silva would catch her eye; otherwise, she forms her own opinions. — The New York Times
Euronews
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Euronews
Simong & Schuster bans blurbs: Will book blurbs become a thing of the past?
Will blurbs on book covers become a thing of the past? US publishing house Simon & Schuster is going to give it a try. Executive editor Sean Manning has laid out plans for the publisher to stop requiring authors find writer's to quote on the cover of their new releases. In a blogpost on Publishers Weekly, Manning questioned the point of blurbs: 'In no other artistic industry is this common. How often does a blurb from a filmmaker appear on another filmmaker's movie poster? A blurb from a musician on another musician's album cover? A blurb from a game designer on another designer's game box?' While Simon & Schuster has never mandated that authors find quotes from other authors to fill out their book covers, the practice has become essentially standardised. Manning notes that the book business has always argued this makes their industry special and that author endorsements show the collegiality of literature. But Manning disagrees: 'I believe the insistence on blurbs has become incredibly damaging to what should be our industry's ultimate goal: producing books of the highest possible quality.' Instead of spending the time hunting for other authors who can read their work and provide a pithy comment endorsing it, writers should be busy focusing on writing, he argues. Even worse than wasting authors' time, the practice also encourages 'an incestuous and unmeritocratic literary ecosystem' that benefits connections over talent. As of 2025, Simon & Schuster no longer require authors to obtain blurbs for their books. It doesn't mean you'll never see a blurb on a future release from them. If a writer reads a copy of a new book and feels moved to give their endorsement, that's allowed. This will now be at the author's discretion, meaning early-career authors won't be forced to skim their nascent literary connections for endorsements. It's a practice that's not entirely unique to Simon & Schuster. While they often feature inside the cover, Fitzcarraldo Editions' brand revolves entirely around the quality imbued by their publication, with their simple homogenous blue covers serving as the only recommendation needed. Similarly, outside of English-language bookselling, other nations pack far less extra words on the covers of their books. Compare the German-language or French-language covers to English books and you'll find comparatively sparse fronts, allowing the author and title to take main focus over claims about bestseller lists and individual endorsements. Fitzcarraldo Editions was undoubtedly inspired in part by French publisher Les Editions de Minuit, which specialised in literary fiction. Their plain covers use the reputation of their publisher and the author themselves as their key selling point. In English, it also used to be more common. Manning notes that the first printings of modern classics "Psycho", "Catch-22" and "All the President's Men" didn't carry any blurbs to sell themselves. It hasn't stopped them entering the canon as key texts of the 20th century. Blurbs have a more divisive history than you'd imagine. Although the practice of connecting works to other great writers has long been practiced in the forms of epigraphs, Julian Novitz, senior lecturer at the Swinburne University of Technology suggests the first blurb came in 1856. For the second edition of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass", Whitman put a quote from a letter to him by philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson on the spine: 'I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career / R W Emerson.' 'Emerson was apparently less than thrilled to discover he had unknowingly written the world's first cover blurb,' Novitz writes in The Conversation. As Louise Willder points out in "Blurb Your Enthusiasm: An A-Z of Literary Persuasion", the word blurb was 'coined in 1907 to pillory the practice of adorning book jackets with extravagant descriptions of the text contained therein.' Novitz notes George Orwell's 1936 denunciation of blurbs: 'In his view, the predominance of blurbs made it harder for readers to discern genuine quality and could eventually lead to exhaustion or disillusionment. 'When all novels are thrust upon you as words of genius,' [Orwell] wrote, 'it is quite natural to assume that all of them are tripe'.'
The Guardian
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Simon & Schuster imprint will no longer ask authors to obtain blurbs for their books
When you buy a new book, you can usually expect to see praise from other authors emblazoned on its cover. A writer slightly more famous than the author of the book you're buying might have called it 'whip-smart', 'illuminating' or 'a tour de force', for example – presumably so that fans of the more famous writer will take a punt on the less famous one. But soon we may not see so many of these author blurbs – Sean Manning, publisher of Simon & Schuster's flagship imprint in the US, has written an essay for Publishers Weekly explaining that as of this year he will 'no longer require authors to obtain blurbs for their books'. 'While there has never been a formal mandatory policy in the eight years I've been with the Simon & Schuster imprint, it has been tacitly expected that authors – with the help of their agents and editors – do everything in their power to obtain blurbs to use on their book cover and in promotional material. I have always found this so weird,' Manning wrote in his essay. 'The argument has always been that this is what makes the book business so special: the collegiality of authors and their willingness to support one another. I disagree. I believe the insistence on blurbs has become incredibly damaging to what should be our industry's ultimate goal: producing books of the highest possible quality.' Authors feeling obliged to write blurbs for their friends can create 'an incestuous and unmeritocratic literary ecosystem that often rewards connections over talent', he added. 'Thank God,' was the reaction of British writer Jo Hamya. 'Honestly, it's just an insular and repetitive format.' Irish novelist Naoise Dolan also welcomed the move. 'Pragmatically speaking, I do give blurbs and am very grateful to receive them because as an individual author, you want to be supportive (and supported) within the industry as it currently stands. But I would be delighted if they were done away with,' she said. 'There are famous authors who give blurbs to complete strangers; I'll never forget Hilary Mantel doing so for my first book. But by and large, blurbs reflect who's friends with whom. It's natural, and not at all a bad thing, for writers to find companionship with people whose work they admire. But I think we would all breathe easier in these intellectual friendships if our publishers didn't constantly make us pester one another for glorified marketing copy.' Yet twice Booker prize-nominated author William Boyd thinks Simon & Schuster might be 'shooting itself in the foot'. 'I once asked an editor of mine what was the benefit of blurbs and he said that blurbs weren't so much aimed at the casual browser but at the bookseller. Booksellers are inclined to order more books if the book in question has been well-blurbed, apparently,' he said. 'Any little help one can give to a fellow author is worthwhile, I reckon.' Manning did state that 'if a writer reads a book because they want to (not because they feel beholden) and comes away so moved by it that they can't resist offering an endorsement, we will be all too happy to put it to use'. And at the moment, Manning's policy only applies to books published by that flagship US imprint, not all books published by Simon & Schuster globally. Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion A spokesperson from Simon & Schuster UK said the publisher has 'no blanket policy' regarding blurbs. 'It is up to each author and their publishing team to establish what is best for each book.' 'We acknowledge the time and effort it can take acquiring endorsements (and indeed writing them), but also how useful they can be in some instances as signposts for readers,' the spokesperson went on to say. 'That said, our colleague Sean Manning echoes a sentiment that is no doubt felt by many across publishing.' Illuminating.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Simon & Schuster imprint will no longer ask authors to obtain blurbs for their books
When you buy a new book, you can usually expect to see praise from other authors emblazoned on its cover. A writer slightly more famous than the author of the book you're buying might have called it 'whip-smart', 'illuminating' or 'a tour de force', for example – presumably so that fans of the more famous writer will take a punt on the less famous one. But soon we may not see so many of these author blurbs – Sean Manning, publisher of Simon & Schuster's flagship imprint in the US, has written an essay for Publishers Weekly explaining that as of this year he will 'no longer require authors to obtain blurbs for their books'. 'While there has never been a formal mandatory policy in the eight years I've been with the Simon & Schuster imprint, it has been tacitly expected that authors – with the help of their agents and editors – do everything in their power to obtain blurbs to use on their book cover and in promotional material. I have always found this so weird,' Manning wrote in his essay. 'The argument has always been that this is what makes the book business so special: the collegiality of authors and their willingness to support one another. I disagree. I believe the insistence on blurbs has become incredibly damaging to what should be our industry's ultimate goal: producing books of the highest possible quality.' Authors feeling obliged to write blurbs for their friends can create 'an incestuous and unmeritocratic literary ecosystem that often rewards connections over talent', he added. 'Thank God,' was the reaction of British writer Jo Hamya. 'Honestly, it's just an insular and repetitive format.' Irish novelist Naoise Dolan also welcomed the move. 'Pragmatically speaking, I do give blurbs and am very grateful to receive them because as an individual author, you want to be supportive (and supported) within the industry as it currently stands. But I would be delighted if they were done away with,' she said. 'There are famous authors who give blurbs to complete strangers; I'll never forget Hilary Mantel doing so for my first book. But by and large, blurbs reflect who's friends with whom. It's natural, and not at all a bad thing, for writers to find companionship with people whose work they admire. But I think we would all breathe easier in these intellectual friendships if our publishers didn't constantly make us pester one another for glorified marketing copy.' Yet twice Booker prize-nominated author William Boyd thinks Simon & Schuster might be 'shooting itself in the foot'. 'I once asked an editor of mine what was the benefit of blurbs and he said that blurbs weren't so much aimed at the casual browser but at the bookseller. Booksellers are inclined to order more books if the book in question has been well-blurbed, apparently,' he said. 'Any little help one can give to a fellow author is worthwhile, I reckon.' Manning did state that 'if a writer reads a book because they want to (not because they feel beholden) and comes away so moved by it that they can't resist offering an endorsement, we will be all too happy to put it to use'. And at the moment, Manning's policy only applies to books published by that flagship US imprint, not all books published by Simon & Schuster globally. A spokesperson from Simon & Schuster UK said the publisher has 'no blanket policy' regarding blurbs. 'It is up to each author and their publishing team to establish what is best for each book.' 'We acknowledge the time and effort it can take acquiring endorsements (and indeed writing them), but also how useful they can be in some instances as signposts for readers,' the spokesperson went on to say. 'That said, our colleague Sean Manning echoes a sentiment that is no doubt felt by many across publishing.' Illuminating.
