Sign here please

All authors sell their books themselves. Even John Grisham started out that way. My experience is that if you sell your book directly to someone, they often ask if you will sign it.

I will, of course. But it does seem a bit weird. I mean, it's very flattering but why on earth does someone want me to sign their copy? I guess if you bought a book from John Grisham back in the day and he signed it, it might be worth something. But he must have been to hundreds of book signings since then and signed thousands of copies, so it can't be worth a lot.

One thing, I suppose, is that it gives the reader a direct physical link to the writer, not mediated through print. Which is nice. But you get a direct link by commenting on any of these blog posts. I read all the comments people make and I reply to them if people ask for a response (and often if they don't). That gives a really direct link, but not many people use it.

So I genuinely don't understand it. Being British, I find it mildly embarrassing, but it's flattering too, so I'm happy to do it.

In the St Margarets magazine, it does say that you can buy signed copies through this blog. That's easy for me to do, because I live in St Margarets and can drop copies off locally. I'd love to sign them for anyone who wants. Someone did pay the postage so that I could mail them a signed copy but generally it's only really possible to sign for people who buy it directly from me in person. If you do, I'll sign it and, more practically, I'll sell it for £7.50, instead of the £9.10 Amazon asks for. (Why £9.10? I think it was a translation of a dollar price and it always drives me nuts but it's out of my hands, I'm afraid.)

If you want a signed copy and you live in St Margarets, please just comment on this blog or message 'James Brooke' on Facebook with your contact details.