If you ask an author to sign a book, you have to tell him/her what to write

Surfing the Luminiferous Ether » Blog Archive » Advice for people seeking signatures in books

Fri, 04 May 2007 07:42:31 GMT

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re: If you ask an author to sign a book, you have to tell him/her what to write

Dewi Morgan — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 00:00:49 GMT

Yep - I'm with Andrew, and the others who use humour to make the same point. Sure, a fan can ask for a name for the dedication ("for Trudy") but anything more is putting words into your mouth ("for my good friend Trudy" if they're a stranger, "thank you for buying" if you are not thankful).

They can't ask you to misrepresent yourself. They can *suggest*, but as Andrew points out, even that dilutes it. The very idea of suggesting to an author what to write in their book is anathema, unless you actually ASK them to edit it...

If someone signed a book and put an in-joke quip that you suggested, that's them recording your humour for you. They may as well get their secretary to do it and get you to sign it.

Most authors just ask "who should I make it out to?" Some don't even do that (it makes for trouble if you get the name wrong). From that they either write boilerplate (a thanks for buying, one of a short list of jokes relevant to the book they sign, or just "For [recipient]. [author]"), or they ad-lib.

re: If you ask an author to sign a book, you have to tell him/her what to write

Andrew — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 23:30:42 GMT

I don't think you have quite grasped the nature of the implicit contract between author and book owner when it comes to book signings. By signing the book you are personalizing that book for the owner, if you require the owner to tell you what to write you have quite considerably diluted that personalization.

re: If you ask an author to sign a book, you have to tell him/her what to write

Gwyn — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:24:37 GMT

To Gwyn,

I made it all up,

Raymond

re: If you ask an author to sign a book, you have to tell him/her what to write

A. Nonymous — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 18:28:15 GMT

"Mr. Nonymous,

I concede that you are the champian speller.

Raymond"

Sign is just like that ;)

re: If you ask an author to sign a book, you have to tell him/her what to write

Martin Plante — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 17:57:21 GMT

I won't ask you to sign a book, but I'm tagging you for the silly but amusing Blog-Tagging game[1]. I'm probably not the first to tag you, but it seems you didn't get into the circle yet.

[1] http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/006087.html

re: If you ask an author to sign a book, you have to tell him/her what to write

DavidE — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 17:45:47 GMT

The default should probably be "Thanks for buying this book on ebay".

re: If you ask an author to sign a book, you have to tell him/her what to write

required — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 16:09:23 GMT

"Pay Mr. Required the sum of 1 million dollars.

R. Chen"

re: If you ask an author to sign a book, you have to tell him/her what to write

Dave — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 14:45:50 GMT

Exception: If the author is Martha Stewart.

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/03/02/542116.aspx

re: If you ask an author to sign a book, you have to tell him/her what to write

David Larsen — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 10:18:11 GMT

I've seen dozens, perhaps hundreds, of authors sign books while managing a couple very large book stores. Usually the author just signs his name, unless the person handing him the book speaks up in time, haha. Biggest signings: Tom Landry & Anne Rice (on different occasions).