I am considering buying a brand new, autographed book for my personal collection. I have some suspicion that the signature may not be authentic, and the seller did not obtain it in person. The seller tells me the book was signed “for the publisher” and “before publication.” The publisher is a major one, and the book was recently published. The book is not super expensive; the autograph just does not look right to me, and it’s not a person whose signature can be found online.
Does anyone know if publishers actually do this anymore? I have seen new, autographed copies for sale in bookstores, but they are usually sold for a premium price, and the book I’m looking at is not priced at more than a new, unsigned copy.
Just wondering if anyone knows exactly how this works. I imagine it’s part of a publishing contract, but the “before publication” part leaves me a bit puzzled.
Yes, it is still done sometimes, but I don’t know how often.
In some cases, including one I sold a few years ago, it actually had a different ISBN from the regular copy; since I picked it up used, no idea if there was a price premium when it was released. (book was from the 2010s, so fairly recent).
I’ve also heard a group that wrote a book together talking about the signed copy; they never held the book, but rather had 1000 sheets of paper to sign, which were then bound into the volume.
But unless you can find some info from the publisher, I don’t know of any way to verify any of it, especially if you can’t find a sample signature.
Interesting. The signature I’m looking at is, in fact, on a blank flyleaf. Signing blank paper certainly would be more practical for an author. I have heard Ken Jennings talk about his publisher at least once shipping an enormous quantity of books to his home for him to sign.
If it does not look right - pass on it. If you have reason to doubt its authenticity, so will some authenticators.
Yes some authors have signed books for publishers, I have not seen a signed edition with a separate ISBN for many years, When there were such, the issue price was somewhere around 50% more than the trade edition.
Commonly, some signed trade editions were given away by the publisher. And the authors may very well have done a shlock job because these were copies which they would not receive royalties for and their hands cramped. Seems like the Ken Jennings story.
I have handled books with author signatures that were on tipped in pages, and others that were produced with author signatures that also came in special editions with holograms. Not common, but not unusual for author signatures not to take place in person at a bookstore signing event.