Are you awed by an autograph? Swayed by a signature? As you peruse the shelves and tables of a bookshop, is your eye drawn more readily to a cover if it bears one of those little stickers announcing that the copy in question has been signed by the author? Plenty of people’s eyes are, apparently.
Publishers always encourage their authors to get out there in the shops, pen in hand, offering to sign whichever copies of their latest work happen to be in stock. I did this with my first book, and felt a little silly walking up to the counter in Waterstones, carrying half a dozen copies of the novel lifted from a nearby table. But the assistant didn’t bat an eyelid. In fact she was very pleasant, asking me about the book and how it was going.
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