US bookbuyers seem to expect that a copy comes complete with author autograph and a while ago I blogged about Rushdie et al competing for the record of fastest book signer in the world. While it was amusing, there was a little voice in my head that said should an author really be spending precious writing time (hours and hours of it) on this, sitting in a warehouse wearing out the muscles in his/her precious writing hand?Am much tickled by the news in the Guardian that an American publisher is looking to recruit a team of part-time workers who can forge the signature of millionaire best-seller writer (no-one knows who) for a fee of US$25 for 200 books signed. (The original ad is reproduced in Gawker which discovered the scam.)
And of course the article slips in a mention of authors who have found clever ways around turning up to bookstores for signings - Atwood with her longpen and JT LeRoy :
herself a fake, employed a co-conspirator to sit in her place at public events.
Postscript :
John Walsh shares his thoughts about book signing in the Independent.
