As you’re writing your book, you’ll think of whom you can approach about supporting you when your book is published. You might want to call in favors about writing a blurb, or even having someone do a foreword to your work.
Don’t. Unless you can get someone with name recognition on a national level, you shouldn’t bother your friends with coming up with a few words to put on the cover of your book. Blurbs don’t sell books. And even a blurb from a former president or top corporate strategist whom everyone knows may only compel people to open the cover. In general, blurbs don’t sell books.
Neither do forewords. Do you read them? Probably not. So save your energy in trying to get the top guru in your field to spend a few hours throwing something together you can start your book with. People skip forewords. Just as they prefer to skip prologues in novels – no one wants to have to think about something related to a plot before anyone even knows who the characters are.
Just begin. And let your work speak for itself.
As for your network – use your network to help spread the word for you as you build your platform and especially as you’re about to launch your book. Your network can urge others to buy in a much more direct fashion – through their own mailing lists, their own colleagues, their own recommendations – and these are more powerful than whatever praise they heap upon you on the cover or inside pages of your book.
Your network will be grateful for your not asking for a blurb. And by asking for support as your book is released, you’ll be working with your network in a way that’s more dynamic, and that can be returned when those entrepreneurs themselves write books and you can use your own following to help support them.