The totemic power of the signed book

(and why I still haven't forgiven Tony Hart)

I know, I know, but it DOES actually say Jojo Moyes

This month, to misquote The Fast Show, I have mostly been signing tip-ins. Tip-ins are individual pages, to be placed at the front of a book, that an author signs, before they are returned to the printers and bound into a printed copy. I have signed more than 10,000 of these since the start of October, ready for publication in February, and I still have more than 1,000 to go.

There is an art to signing a tip in, I have discovered over the years. You must have a Sharpie but one that has not yet been blunted by overuse. I have got through 11 so far. A blunt Sharpie not only slows down your signature but also makes it look like you are a toddler signing with a Magic Marker.

You have to sign – and the printers’ instructions are always terrifyingly emphatic about this – in exactly the right place, in the centre of the page between the title and the name of the imprint, which may have already been printed on the page. That’s so the page can be trimmed to book size without cutting into the signature. The pages must then be placed the right way up back in their cardboard boxes and the boxes filled out with packing materials so that the completed pages don’t slide around in their boxes and crumple on their way home.

It is unexpectedly difficult to get 4,000 pages to line up neatly in a box (especially when you have a psychotic cat who believes all boxes are for diving into). It is also surprisingly hard to sign 10,000 pages. In my case if I sign more than 300 copies at speed at once, my brain stops communicating with my hand and my signature dissolves into something that looks like a drunk spider. To be honest, it becomes drunken spidery anyway, like saying the word ‘bread’ 100 times until it ceases to have any meaning. As readers of my previous newsletter will know, my US publishers recently contacted me to check the signatures  they had received were in fact the right way up.

I do my pages most evenings – while watching the kind of television that doesn’t require full focus. My choice this time round has been to watch old episodes of the US The Office (still genius). I have a tray on my lap and do 300 pages at the time and as I sign I swipe each page off to the sofa beside me ready to be neatly lined up and placed back in boxes.

And a weird thing happens, which is the act of signing becomes completely meaningless. And I ask myself: why would anyone want this? Especially with my terrible, barely legible signature? I remember looking at my Dad’s signature when I was growing up and he ran a company where he had to sign 100 things a day, and laughing at how terrible and illegible his signature was. Guess what? We held mine next to his, a couple of weeks ago, and mine is now ALMOST IDENTICAL

.The Tray Of Dead Sharpies

Why does anyone want a signed book anyway? Is that little scribble really imbued with a kind of totemic significance? We’ve all seen the news stories about first edition signed Harry Potter books that are worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. ABE books currently has copies of Winnie The Pooh signed by A.A.Milne for four thousand dollars. I get it: you are holding the page that your favourite author has held. They wrote this scribbly word! I can think of several now-dead authors whose signature would feel special to me (though I’m still not sure I would spend thousands on them).

For me it’s one of my few triggers for imposter syndrome. Why would anyone want MY signature? (I also wonder why anyone would want to watch me unboxing a load of my own books, but that’s a discussion for another day). And then I think about the signed editions I have acquired over the years and perhaps it makes a little more sense.

Back in the early days of my journalistic career I was sent to interview a sports journalist called Brough Scott, an old school gentleman who gave me more time than I merited and when I stood up to leave, pulled down a copy of his book and inscribed in the front of it: “To Jojo. Don’t let the buggers get you down” (I have no memory of why he chose this particular inscription). I remember hugging it to me as I left, not just because I admired him, but because it felt like a kind of validation from above. Brough Scott believed in me enough to write this!

I also remember queuing to get a copy of The Moor’s Last Sigh signed by Salman Rushdie, back when the fatwa was still fresh in everybody’s minds. A Daily Mail journalist was in front of me and when Rushdie discovered who he was, he sat back and said, politely but icily, “Thank you but I won’t talk to anyone from The Daily Mail.” And he moved on to me. I had never seen anyone set a boundary in the way he did, politely but emphatically. The Mail journalist spluttered a bit but had nowhere to go – and nothing to write given Rushdie’s politeness - and left. That exchange stayed with me, and gave my own signed copy greater significance for it.

Not all my signing experiences have been happy. As a child, I was a huge fan of the artist Tony Hart who had his own television show. He once did a signing near my mother’s workplace and I queued to get his signature with the other jostling children. When I got to the head of the queue, quivering with excitement, he looked at my autograph book and refused point-blank to sign as I hadn’t bought his book. I still bear a grudge to this day. I was eight! (Yes I am well aware he is dead, but STILL). I never watched Take Hart again. And I have never refused to sign a bit of paper as a result.

I must have signed tens of thousands of books over the last 20-odd years. (This is not showing off – I have also done events where I’ve sat alone at a table hoping against hope that someone would stop by.) In Brazil, when Me Before You was at its height, I once signed for almost four hours and the make-up artist who was with me, Ciona, video’d the length of the queue, blowing my mind when I watched it afterwards. I think if I’d known how many people were there I would have passed out.

But signing is not the same for everyone.  I know of some writers (I can’t tell tales but YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) who specifically refuse to look at people as they sign. I make a point of always looking a reader in the eye, trying to repeat their name and have at least a brief exchange with them.  If someone has stood in a queue, and meeting an author has some meaning for them surely looking them in the eye and having a brief chat is the least you can do? (yeah, Tony Hart) (Sorry, I did say I bore a grudge)

I’m also lucky in that I tend to have mostly nice cheery readers. They approach with a smile, or a few happy words, and actually give out as much energy as they take. This does make a difference – I have a friend who is a thriller writer whose signing queues are almost entirely slightly furtive men who sidle up and silently thrust a book at her, a good proportion of whom apparently look like they may have recently buried someone under their patio.

So signing in person is a very different experience from signing tip-ins. I actually love signing for readers. When you spend 90 per cent of your working life on your own in a room, it’s really nice to chat and to be reminded that there is a reason you do what you do, and that your books might head out into the world and gain a whole different significance in someone else’s life. It reminds me why I do what I do.

Tip ins – meh – maybe they’re a good excuse to stay in and watch comfort television. And be grateful that your publishers still feel confident that they will sell some of your books. Of course the most important thing about a signed copy is, as every author knows, it is essentially a sold copy – as the shop cannot send it back.

And on that note, I’ll get back to my final box of pages…

PS One of my favourite books is National Velvet by Enid Bagnold. On the back of writing this, I’ve just found a copy for sale where she has signed: “To Miss Busvine. From a querulous, bad-tempered but very grateful author to a saint, Enid Bagnold.” And now I really want to know that back story…