Louise began her career at Penguin Books in the early ’90s with a brief and slightly terrifying spell as a publicity assistant, when she soon realised that the only part of it she enjoyed was writing press releases. After a year, she landed a job in a team that was dedicated solely to writing blurbs, which were considered a serious responsibility. The ‘Blurbs Department’, as it was known, was an introvert’s paradise: a room containing just five people, cut off from the rest of the world, lined with shelf upon shelf of books. It was there Louise learned how to condense the contents of a book into a few words and make every one of them count.
Over her 25-year career, Louise has produced blurbs for over 5,000 books, trying to convince readers that they need them in their lives – as well as storing up tales of the foibles of the publishing world!
