Of course, I imagine a blurb from someone well known could go a long way. Has anyone reached out to another author to try and get a blurb? Any success with it?
I did. I asked a well know poet to write a few lines for a collection of my poetry. He read them and obliged. I have yet to self-publish the book. I should add that I did know him, albeit, not well.
My agent asked a few of her other clients who are successful in my genre to blurb my first book. I don't think I'd be too comfortable asking someone myself, but that's my own comfort level. I don't think there's anything to prevent a bolder person from giving it a try.
I have done so with some of my novels, with some positive results and a lot of declines. One thing I found was that going through an author's agent, many authors on my list shared an agent, which made me be more selective, otherwise I risked looking like I was 'spamming' requests. The worst that can happen is the author says no.