This was suggested by a conversation with an overseas reader: mailing whole books about to get signatures or trying to get signed books by one means or another can be a hassle and very, very expensive, besides risky to your books. If you’d like a nice little signed bookplate for one of your collection, Jane and I have worked out a means: I have some nice 2×3″ commercial bookplates, and I’m offering them on Closed Circle, signed or signed/personalized, @ 2.00 each, which means I pay postage, fill out the envelope, and mail them to you. I haven’t quite got the button functional yet, but it’ll be in our new Dead Tree Books section, where we’re selling off some extra copies of this and that. The collector-purists will want things the old way, but this will at least give you an option. The picture on the tastefully beige bookplate is a koi, which I thought just personified Us. The number I have is 40, but if it proves popular, I can certainly get more bookplates.
Ooooooooo. Does the happy book collector dance.
DO WANT.
Please do notify us as soon as you have the Dead Tree Collection up and running. I’m beginning to get tired of chasing all over creation for my Cherryh and Fancher fix, since I don’t have an e-reader; this would be a nice solution.
$2 is very reasonable, with postage almost $0.50 per letter.
Yes, I’m interested too. A bookplate’s a fantastic idea; cheaper and less hassle for you and us. — And ooh, I get a signed book that way.
Also happy to see you (all) will be offering pb and hb books. That, too, is a bargain: the authors we love will get direct payment and we get the books from a one-stop, reliable source.
Mind, we don’t have many copies. I think the books may already be live-button on CC. I’m not sure about the bookplates yet. And of course I can directly sign the books as you wish.
[Silly, but because I have admin on that site, I don’t always know what’s live and what’s waiting to go live.]
Cool! I’ll definitely be in for a bookplate when you’re ready & live. I’m outside the US though, so if one could respectfully request an appropriately priced ‘International Postage’ option when ordering on CC…
Reserve me a bookplate! been wanting your signature for a while now.
Really clever, attractive idea!
… and my cat Froggie says “hi”: he’s on my lap as I type. It’s coldish outside and we try not to turn the heat on from April forwards, so I am living with cats on my lap right now, resting his chin on my wrist and purring like mad at the pleasurable body warmth combined with bouncy chin auto-strokes. Make’s typing a bit of a challenge.
Currently (Saturday noon) the Gate of Ivrel trio appears twice, once before and once after the paragraph about signatures. Said paragraph mentions the bookplates, but they don’t appear to have a purchase button.
Note: Could you set up a separate email account and username, in order to test out what ordinary visitors see? Or just logout and login?
Or use a different browser. Then you don’t have issues with browser cache, etc. If you usually use I.E., open a new window in Firefox or Chrome. You wouldn’t even have to create a separate account — you’d see what anyone sees who isn’t logged in.
good ideas
Good idea about the bookplatesbut..”The collector-purists will want things the old way”..I think you just called me old! How many books do you think you have signed? I have at least 50 and I’ve seen you sign thousands
Lol, Bret, my friend, you are incapable of being old! I’ll always sign a book—and there have been thousands. I once did a signing in the mysterious Amazon warehouse, back when they were getting started, and there were about 700 copies at once sitting, in one hour, the whole Amazon order. My hand about needed ice after that one!