As paper, if we are to believe the hype, and we shouldn't, gives way to pixel more and more, and paper books are replaced by e-books, how are bestselling authors going to give those time-honored fanboy memories called "autographs"?
It's a question that quite a few writers, publishers and e-bookstore owners have been grappling with as the Screen Age replaces Mr Paper.
As U.S. publishing observer Edward Nawotka notes: "E-books, for all their utility, currently lack one particular feature: the ability to get them signed by an author."
Nawotka says that strategies are currently emerging that offer options to fans who want their e books ''personalized'' by famous authors -- and for bookstores and websites e-hosting e-author e-events.
One option is to arrange to have e-authors at "signing" events pose with fans who buy their ebooks and then upload the photos to the person's phone or blog.
It's possible, but not certain, that with a posed photo, "signatures" will become less and less important, according to industry observers. Says one savvy PR person for an e-book firm: "A photo could be a good 'take away' for the reader, and for us, since it can be sent out on social media and it becomes part of our event photos."
So the book tour is not dead. It's just turning over a new leaf, er, page.
In addiition to the author posing with his or her admiring reader, it will also be possible to ''personalize'' the already-personal photo by ''signing it'' using advanced screen-writing technology.
Enter Tom Waters, stage right. He has, according to Nawotka, come up with a brainchild of a brainstormed idea and he calls it "autography".
Say again?
"It's a computer application that allows writers using a stylus to sign a blank page which is then delivered via e-mail and can then be inserted behind the title page of almost any e-book," according to Nawotka. "Autography has initially been developed as a iPad app which works with the iBookstore, although Waters says the final service will be device and format agnostic."
Waters said he developed the software with an old college friend after thinking about how many people now own Kindles and nooks and can download books directly and might want an ebook signed someday by the author. His friend just happened to be an IT contractor with NASA and the rest is history, er, autogrpahy.
The ramifications of all this are enormous, of course. Publishers of e-books -- and online bookstore amazons like Amazon and Barnes & Noble -- could use these new ways of "signing" books not only for public appearances and book tours, but also to store information about who is reading what and why.
Then again, it might become a huge privacy issue as well.
So get your signed copies of books on paper while you can. The e-book train has already left the station, with Kindle serving as the friendly conductor, and there aint no turning back now.
Question is: will electronically-signed e-books go up in value on the resale market after an author dies? Brave new world, indeed.
I'd say old fashioned ink on hardback copy will remain a stable.
Link to autography website, amazing stuff!
http://garciamedia.com/blog/articles/moscow_creating_the_ipad_app_plus_review_of_the_washington_post_app
Dr Garcia notes:
It was a first for William Powers, bestselling author of ''Hamlet’s BlackBerry''. He was in Chicago, another stop on his national book tour to promote Hamlet’s BlackBerry. Suddenly, a young woman, Leigh Graves Wolf, approached him asking him to sign her iPad. William was a little hesitant at first because it was an indelible marker, but she said she really wanted him to do it. She has a nice comment about the book in her own words just beneath the photo.
Here is what she wrote: “If you haven’t read Hamlet’s Blackberry yet - do so now!“
When I asked Powers about how it felt signing an ipad, he said:
''What’s really interesting isn’t me or the book, it’s the idea of the iPad as something an author can sign. If anyone doubts tablets are approaching the status of books, this is all they need to know. But I think they still have a ways to go!''
I read this on the prominent media designer Mario Garcia's blog, and
it's a great story.
When American author William Powers -- HAMLET'S
BLACKBERRY, published in the US in 2010 -- was in
Chicago earlier this
year on a book tour, a fan approached him at a book
signing event and asked if he could sign her .......white iPad case! The
woman gave him an indelible black marker to sign with, according to
Mario Garcia's blog post on all this .....(see link below).....
but Powers was a bit hesitant since he didn't want to mark up and ruin her
beautiful iPad.
But she said she really really
wanted him to sign it, with the indelible ink marker, so he did. Might
have been the first author signing ever of an iPad case! I love it.
Powers’ reaction to the incident is interesting to me. He told the ''Mario
blog":
''What’s really interesting isn’t me or the book,
it’s the idea of the iPad as something an author can sign. If anyone
doubts tablets are approaching the status of books, this is all they
need to know."
But he added also: "But I think they still have a ways to go!"
LINK to PHOTO and blog:
http://garciamedia.com/blog/articles/moscow_creating_the_ipad_app_plus_review_of_the_washington_post_app
Authors can give away signed sample chapters to introduce themselves to new readers who later purchase the full volume at their convenience. The now full copy ebook retains the author’s salutation (replacing the sample chapters) without the need for Digital Rights Management (DRM) software.
Autography provides a permanent archive of these salutations. In the event a consumer’s eReader device is lost, stolen, or switched with another brand the autograph is quickly retrieved and replaced at no cost. …
Howard told me:
I may be missing something here … but what is it with this ?
If I go to the trouble of getting an author to sign a book, or acquire a signed book, the essence of the ‘specialness’ is the fact that the author sat at that book and wrote his/her name on the actual paper that I am now looking at and have in my possession. It is a deeply personal and emotional connection.. (how deep obviously depends on how I feel about that author of course )
The signature discussed above seems to be a simple ‘scan’ of a signature …? am I missing something ? What on earth would I want a scan of the author’s sig ?
It leaves me complete cold, sorry.
Bloke 2 tells me: "I think the original Palm eBooks had a signing option. You could sign on the Palm (in the gesture area). Not sure that this ever got any actual signatures or whether it was just a software feature. Maybe things are different now. I think, though, that the value of a signed book is the idea that it may someday be valuable in resale…which isn’t really an issue for eBooks."
Peter said:
OK autography, this sounds like a silly implementation of an unnecessary idea. Here’s a better way to do e-book signatures:
For e-readers with a touchscreen (Ipad, Nookcolor, Sony and original nook if possible)- just make an app that allows authors to sign the reader’s actual e-reader on the fly.
For other e-readers: make a touchpad that sideloads in the signature in on the fly.
That would be cool. Make that.
Also, here’s a tip – if you’re making a book-signing service, try not repeatedly insulting bookstores on your website. Like it or not, that’s where people WANT these events to take place.