Book: Aging Beyond Belief by Don Ardell

If you plan to age, prepare yourself — it's later than you think. The challenge of aging well should be taken seriously, but not grimly! Whatever your age, it's never too soon, or too late, to learn and apply the fine art of aging well, really well. Discover what aspects of aging can't be changed and improve the rest that can. Mold your own realities with REAL wellness, Ardell-style.

The 69 tips — one for each year of the author's life — are thought-provoking, challenging, eye-opening, manageable and fun to read. And all provide practical guidance for intelligently designing your own life-style evolution.
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by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.
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Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

Aging Beyond Belief: The Quest for the Perfect Blurb

Saturday August 4, 2007

"Rule one: if it sounds like baloney, it probably is baloney."
~Robert McCrum, "Blurbs Fail Me," The Observer

"Today, writers take it for granted that they must provide punchy hyperbole for one another's book jackets - the most prolific are known in the business as 'blurb whores.'"
~John Tierney, "An Ode to Fitz," The New York Times, June 22, 1997

"Blurbs are baloney. Anybody who reads a blurb is crazy."
~Kurt Vonnegut

A blurb is defined in Webster's as "a short publicity notice." A blurb, it is said, "can make the difference between a customer taking out his/her wallet to buy your book or putting the book back on the shelf." Penny Sansevieri, a publicist and founder of Author Marketing Experts, calls book blurbs "eye candy to the consumer."

Therefore, any author who has seen his or her work evolve from an idea to a few paragraphs to multiple chapters and, after many months or even years of labor, into galleys and, at last, the light of day between actual covers, wants great blurbs. Blurbs are best, most assume, if they are from incredibly famous or even infamous people. Sure it would be great to get the Pope or Muhammad Ali or Lance Armstrong to write a few glowing words about your book, especially if it were about Catholicism, boxing or biking, respectively, but how impossible would that be? Nearly total, at least for most folks. Still, if a collection of blurbs can be obtained from some luminaries, especially a few loved and respected, well, the book can't miss. Such a fortunate author can expect hoards of citizens everywhere to march on bookstores, lusting for his work. Even better, thousands will camp out on the streets in the rain, snow or cold the night before its official release. They will stand endlessly in long, unruly lines, jockeying to be among the first to secure copies of your superblurbed book. That's the power of a few good phrases from celebrities. In a phrase, such blurbs sell books.

How was I going to assemble blurbs like that? Well, I'll tell you how I did it for my new book, Aging Beyond Belief: 69 Tips for REAL Wellness in just a moment. First, let me present the blurbs for the back cover jacket of my book. Later, I'll reveal how I got them. I hope you find these blurbs so compelling you will get your tent and prepare for a campout in front at local bookstore.

"I have not started maturing yet but if and when I do age, I plan to follow almost all of Dr. Ardell's 69 tips, especially the eleventh."
~Paris Hilton

"If I had read these tips and considered Don's perspectives on REAL wellness, I don't think I would have kept Donald Rumsfeld as long as I did and I definitely would not have put up with Alberto Gonzalez for so long. And don't even ask about Uncle Dickey."
~George W. Bush

"I knew about and practiced all these tips and they worked for me long before they were discovered by this youngster, Don Ardell."
~George Burns

"Ask not what your doctor can do for your illnesses, ask what you can do for your health."
~JFK

"If I had read this book, I would have recommended it to all my friends, but I never did."
~Phyllis Diller

"In what most likely will be his final work, wellness pioneer Don Ardell unveils in spectacular fashion how politics, sex and religion often affect the way we age, and how we can change things to realize greater physical well-being while worrying less and having more fun."
~Anonymous

"A spellbinding, richly-woven narrative which plunges, twists and turns at a breathtaking pace, confirming the author as a master storyteller. This book will be read, reread and read again."
~Neal Hoskins but written about another book, not this one.

"If I were Don's publisher, I would offer a million-dollar advance. It's even better than my authorized biography of the notoriously reclusive tycoon Howard Hughes."
~Clifford Irving

"I want you to read this book."
~God

How did I do it? How did I get blurbs like this, from such famous people, at least two of whom are deceased? It wasn't too hard. I made them up. If it's true that "desperate times call for drastic measures," and even if it's not, might it not also be reasonable that great books deserve great blurbs, even if they have to be made up? Probably not.

Be well. Always look on the bright side of life.

Domain: purpose
Subdomain: humor

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