13th August, 2007
Flow
Patrick Rothfuss, you know, the author of the most excellent The Name of the Wind that I talked about a short while back, posted an amusing flowchart, detailing the complex decision tree he has to face each time he receives a copy of his book in the mail that someone would like to have signed. (Yes, I do loves me some run-on sentences, shush).
After having read his post, I got to thinking (always a dangerous thing, I know). First off, I didn’t even realize that authors would sign books you sent them in the first place. Outside of book tours and scheduled appearances at bookstores, conventions, etc., I guess I pretty much expected things to be off limits. Maybe most of them won’t, I don’t know, but this author will. And for the very reasonable “price” of including “something cool” in the package along with the book (along with ponying up the dough for return shipment). Trading something cool for something cool; that sounds more than fair to me.
He goes on to note that some folks with signed copies are selling them for a hundred dollars or more, each, on the internet. He does mention that on a couple of occasions (the cynical part of me suspects that these times are rare), the re-sellers were upfront with him and even offered to cut him in on the deal, but from sound of it, many of these re-sellers are swindling him as much as they are swindling the buyers. And here is what I don’t get: if you actually wanted a signed copy of his book because you were a fan, why on earth would you shell out a hundred bucks for some anonymous copy when you could easily send him your own copy? Especially when knowing that he actually signed it for you and probably also got a grin out of the little gift you included? Actually, maybe that’s the point of his post. Very clever, Mr. Bond Rothfuss.
Posted at 5:03 am | Comment (1)
