The Maker’s Mark
I can’t remember who I signed the first book for but I’ll hazard a guess it was a woman. Not many men turn out for book signings.
For sure I remember where I was. At Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina. Thus began signings for thirty-six years and counting. With them have come pride, humiliation, difficulty, disappointment, and reward. And right off the bat, criminals as you’ll see.
Writers make books. Writers sign books. Consider their signature their mark. It’s said Cormac McCarthy, a maker of sublime books, refused to sign books. Not true. He signed some for friends, personalizing them to keep them from being a commodity for collectors. That doesn’t deter a breed of profiteers known as forgers.
Wrote Dennis, “I wish my answer could reach booksellers across the universe: there’s a 99.44 percent chance that this is a fake . . . The only books he ever signed were for friends, and those, of course, were novels he wrote, not books by others . . . Is there a remote possibility that many, many years ago, long before he became famous, a friend asked him to sign a novel written by someone else and he agreed to do it as a bit of a lark? Yes, but the chances of that happening are less than 0.01 percent.”
We lesser writers don’t worry about forgeries. We face other weighty issues. Strange spellings, for instance. It didn’t take me long to ask how people spell their name. Jane can be Jayne. Tom can be Thom. Kim can be Kym. Don’t trust your ear. Is it Mary or Merry? And then fabricated names impossible to pronounce entered the fray. Keep a scratch pad handy. Let them spell it for you.
I learned that cheap pens outperform a Montblanc. I learned too which page to sign and that economy trumps extravagance. Pat Conroy signed “For the love of —”, whatever his topic was.
Some readers request “signature only.” Generally they are not collectors. More likely your book will be a gift. They just don’t know who will get it.
Some readers make odd requests. Ron Rash told a memorable tale of a man who said, “I’ll buy your book, Serena, if you sign it exactly as I ask.”
“How would that be,” said Rash.
“It’s for my ex. Sign it, ‘To the only woman meaner than Serena.’”
Expect disappointment. At bookstore signings passersby ignore you. I’ve seen authors shout at them like hawkers in a county fair. Seems demeaning. I’d rather be ignored.
Another issue: the person who ties you up in a longwinded conversation as others wait for you to sign their books. Summon your best tact.
How’s your penmanship? Can people make sense of it? Even before I began school my mother taught me penmanship exercises. Rows and rows of looped circles, etc.
Ok, you’ve put the finishing touches on your novel, but getting a literary agent seems impossible (and that remains the case). Why not self-publish? It seems to be more respectable. Here, I advise you to consider where your book might end up. A couple I knew saw my book in a thrift shop. With glee they told me my hardcover novel was for sale for a quarter. Their words sliced an X into my writer’s spirit, but they did me a favor. I vowed to never self-publish again and I haven’t.
Finally, these words of Cormac McCarthy’s seem tailor-made for writers, “I was always attracted to people who enjoyed a perilous lifestyle.”
If you write full-time for a livelihood you enjoy a perilous lifestyle. I enjoy mine, especially book signings . . . as long as I spell the names correctly, and I try to remember that meeting readers is reward enough.
