Stephan Zielinski: Dwa

The biographical blurbs on book covers have to come from somewhere. Now, since Bad Magic is my first book, nobody at Tor knew me from Adam—so they couldn’t very well write a blurb up themselves. Hence, they asked me to do it.

I had no clue what I was doing.

So I present to you:

THE AUTHOR’S TOP TEN REJECTED COVER BLURBS

(10) Stephan Zielinski lives in San Francisco, and is definitely in league with Satan. Please address all complaints regarding this to his publisher, who will forward them on so he can start carrying a concealed handgun legally.

(9) Stephan Zielinski lives in San Francisco, and therefore is a computer geek sexual pervert. He wrote this book primarily to get laid. Send photo.

(8) Stephan Zielinski lives in San Francisco at the time of this book’s publication, but has plans to flee to Paraguay once the San Diego Chamber of Commerce catches wind of this book. Write quickly.

(7) Stephan Zielinski is a well-balanced, wealthy, wise, drop-dead handsome fellow. (Hey, the rest of the book is fiction. What did you expect from the cover blurb?)

(6) Stephan Zielinski is the creepy guy peering over your shoulder as you stand in the bookstore contempating buying this book. DON’T LOOK—he startles easily.

(5) Stephan Zielinski is the pseudonym of a very famous author who insisted their next book come out under a different name, just to see if it was the text or the Big Name that was driving sales.

(4) When you are not reading Stephan Zielinski’s bio blurb, it is written in Polish.

(3) Stephan Zielinski lives in San Francisco with a large number of cats. Since you are a cat person yourself, you should buy eight copies. Unless you’re a dog person, in which case he owns rescue dogs.

(2) Stephan Zielinski is the reincarnation of a 12th century Saxon peasant wench who would have set the world ablaze with her prose had she not been born an illiterate with magnificent hooters.

. . . AND THE NUMBER ONE REJECTED BIO BLURB . . .

(1) Stop dithering and buy the [bleeping] book already!