Running a few Sharpies dry

Sitting down this afternoon to sign a bunch of bookplates for hardcovers of AFTERSHOCKS. I am signing these instead of the actual books because the alternative would be to ship me the hardcovers. Those come about 25 to a box, and I have to do 1,800 signatures, so they’d have to send 72 boxes of books to sign, about two pallets.

For those of you who wonder how you sign your name 1,800 times, I can tell you that it’s a little repetitive, and best done while watching Netflix or listening to a book on Audible. Also, you don’t sign the whole stack at once. You split it into smaller stacks that look manageable, and then take breaks in between stacks.

Also, I will tell you that after signing a few hundred bookplates in a row, I understand why famous people often modify their autograph into a quick and easy simplified sort of squiggle. I am not famous and I don’t have to sign any autographs outside of SF conventions and infrequent random requests, but if I had to sign my name hundreds of times in the course of a regular week, I’d have a super simple autograph too.

Some people know that I use fountain pens, but I don’t do bookplates in fountain pen ink. That’s because they usually don’t hold that sort of ink very well, which results in a smeared signature. This stack of bookplates will eat up at least two full fine-point Sharpies.