Meryl's Notes Blog

Instead of standing in line to get an author to autograph your book, you can ask for an autograph without going anywhere. Author Margaret Atwood invented a tool for virtual autographs called LongPen. Some believe that it will end the personal contact between authors and readers. I don’t. MoneySense article on LongPen.

Many of us don’t go to signing events because it’s too crowded. But if we contact the author for an autograph for LongPen, we’d make contact that we would not otherwise have because we don’t attend the author events. Readers who live in small towns don’t want to make the long trek to see favorite authors. They, too, get to connect with the author.

Some authors don’t have the ability to travel and this gives them a chance to connect with readers.

From the sponsor: The goal of rhinoplasty is to improve the look-and-feel for the nose. I know a couple of authors who use book plates. They sign it and send it to their readers. The readers peel the backing off and stick the plate inside the book. More cost effective than LongPen.

This got me remember the authors I’ve met. I’ve met plenty who wrote technical and Web books. Other than those, I’ve met Elie Wiesel in 8th grade when he spoke to students in my middle school (he also talked at my college graduation), Richard Lederer, and Dan Jenkins. I’m sure I’ve met others, but can’t recall at the moment.

My mom went to a breakfast with the author event every year for a long time. It had high caliber authors like Mary Higgins Clark and… blankity blank. Give me a break, I was just a kid when she went, but I thought it was cool. The Plano Book Festival is this weekend, but I’m not going to attend. Austin also has a large Texas Book Festival every year in October. This one sounds exciting.

It’s hard for me to attend author lectures as I tired easily at such events. So I prefer to connect with the author one-on-one, which isn’t easy to do.