Writer/reader blogs and online groups are chockablock with pros and cons (mostly the former) of e-books and electronic reading devices. There's one question, though, that I haven't seen addressed: how do you get a signed copy of an e-book? Like many writers, I enjoy accumulating books signed by authors, whether personalized to me or not.
Recently, my friend Susan Schreyer brought out her first mystery novel, "Death by a Dark Horse" as an e-book. I knew it was an excellent, original work, a cozy in which the principal murder suspect is a horse, and I wanted to buy a copy. But not having a reader and not wanting one (a whole different blog post), the idea of sitting at my computer to read Susan's book, after a full day of sitting at my computer writing my own book, didn't appeal. "Besides," I asked Susan. "How am I supposed to get a signed copy?"
She had no answer to that, and there the issue lay for a short while. But last week, Susan told me she had just brought out a trade paperback version of "Dark Horse" via amazon. I sent in my order immediately, then brought the book to her for a signature. "Do you know - you bought the first copy of my book in paper," Susan said, and now I can proudly display her debut novel, signed to me and inscribed as Number One. Top that!
Which gives one answer to my initial question. I guess I also could have downloaded the book, burned the file to a CD, then gotten Susan to sign the disk. Doesn't quite seem the same, though. O tempora! O mores!
