From the Autography website:
Autography LLC is a media technology firm in St Petersburg, Florida with a patent-pending method for inserting an autograph or other salutation into an ebook. This personalization can take place at the time of purchase or any time afterwards, including after secondary (used) sales.
Authors can give away signed sample chapters to introduce themselves to new readers who later purchase the full volume at their convenience. The now full copy ebook retains the author’s salutation (replacing the sample chapters) without the need for Digital Rights Management (DRM) software.
Autography provides a permanent archive of these salutations. In the event a consumer’s eReader device is lost, stolen, or switched with another brand the autograph is quickly retrieved and replaced at no cost. …
In addition to ebooks we provide similar personalization services for Japanese Manga & comic books, graphic novels, athletic cards, and music/movie/video game cover art enjoyed on smartphones, eReaders, tablet PC’s and other consumer electronics.
Thanks to Dan Bloom for the link.
I suppose this server-based system is one way to handle the autographed e-book problem. I chose a different one. In my November contest (now half over) the winner receives an autographed thumb drive with multiple books in multiple formats. This way is great for contests, but not the “autograph every book you put out” market. My contest is at http://bit.ly/HenryMeltonContest
I may be missing something here … but what is it with this ?
If I go to the trouble of getting an author to sign a book, or acquire a signed book, the essence of the ‘specialness’ is the fact that the author sat at that book and wrote his/her name on the actual paper that I am now looking at and have in my possession. It is a deeply personal and emotional connection.. (how deep obviously depends on how I feel about that author of course 🙂 )
The signature discussed above seems to be a simple ‘scan’ of a signature …? am I missing something ? What on earth would I want a scan of the author’s sig ?
It leaves me complete cold, sorry.
PS: Is anyone else finding the Captcha function really really irritating ? I have to refresh it four or five times every time. There are several other much easier to use alternatives and I wish they would be looked at 🙁
I think the original Palm eBooks had a signing option. You could sign on the Palm (in the gesture area). Not sure that this ever got any actual signatures or whether it was just a software feature. Maybe things are different now. I think, though, that the value of a signed book is the idea that it may someday be valuable in resale…which isn’t really an issue for eBooks.
Right, it was an easter egg. I believe it’s still in the PalmOS version; you just write “AU” in the text entry field on the title screen of a DRM-locked book and a paint window comes up that will let you scribble an autograph. Then the autograph is appended to the file on your device, and you make sure to back it up safely next time you sync.
The idea was that it would be used for author signings at conventions and the like, and they actually did organize a couple such “signings”as I recall. But e-books never quite took off the way that the Peanut Press people wanted them to, the feature didn’t end up being widely used, and it never made the jump to subsequent versions of the eReader app.
OK autography, this sounds like a silly implementation of an unnecessary idea. Here’s a better way to do e-book signatures:
For e-readers with a touchscreen (Ipad, Nookcolor, Sony and original nook if possible)- just make an app that allows authors to sign the reader’s actual e-reader on the fly.
For other e-readers: make a touchpad that sideloads in the signature in on the fly.
That would be cool. Make that.
Also, here’s a tip – if you’re making a book-signing service, try not repeatedly insulting bookstores on your website. Like it or not, that’s where people WANT these events to take place.