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.
i think this is unethical and i am sure no 'serious' literary novelist would hire people to fake their signatures.
ReplyDeletewhy don't they make a personalized stamp of their signatures like chinese artists/painters and hire people to stamp this instead. it'll look nice too.
my guess is that millionaire author is probably a chic lit writer.
pong
Or they can have a printed autograph included in one of the front pages.
ReplyDeleteagree with you about the stamp, pong.
ReplyDeletei think folks should go to events and readings if they want their books signed. work for it lah!
but why do you assume it has to be a chic lit (i.e. female) author. a commenter at the gawker suggests (w. some convincing reasons) james patterson.
i think i'm going to get into hot water again, but i think people who read chic lit (i.e women) don't particularly care if they find out that the autograph is a fake. i mean what kind of people read chic lit anyway? mostly beautiful and not so beautiful loveable creatures but essentially airheads...
ReplyDeletebut for men who read 'serious' lit fics , i think they'll get terribly mad and won't take this too kindly and i think 'serious' writers' will never think of doing such a silly thing...
pong
i won't put you in hot water .. but male airheads abound. himbos.
ReplyDelete