For anyone who doesn’t know what that means, it’s when a collector (or more likely a book dealer) asks an author to sign a book and add a handwritten line from the text – sometimes the first, sometimes something they’ve picked out. Obviously, it can take a while, and other people at a signing can get a bit fractious… not to mention that the bookseller in whose shop the signing is taking place may feel a little abused… partly because someone else is conducting business in their shop, but partly because a lined and signed edition will sell for comfortably twice the price of an ordinary one – much more if the book becomes sought after.

Obviously, therefore, someone showing up at a signing with a sack of books for you to line and sign is an uncomfortable situation, and one which can go in a variety of bad directions. I’ve already started to ask anyone who’s doing this to wait until the end: people who are buying for themselves should get some consideration. Ideally, a book dealer would contact your agent or your publisher with a request, and the whole thing could become a separate occasion… but that doesn’t seem to happen.

But look, all that aside: the crass reality is that this is money we’re talking about. Someone buys ten copies of a book for, say twelve quid a pop, then shows up at a signing and doubles their value in the space of ten minutes. If they’re prepared to hang onto them and they’ve bought wisely, that could go up even more. A few of those a week and you’re doing rather well. I don’t know whether there are a few of those per week, but you see the point. And this is, as it were, found money. I don’t get any of it, the publisher doesn’t get any of it, the dealer hasn’t really done anything to get it.

So my question is: is it unreasonable to ask for a charity donation of a pound per book or similar? Because it seems to me that I should be able to impose some sort of duty on what is essentially a goodwill gesture I’m being asked to make. I don’t want the money – but at the same time it sticks in my throat to be giving away a one hundred percent profit and not be able to do anything positive about it… At the same time, of course, a small fee like this might serve as a break on what you might call bookflation: if too many of these lined & signed copies exist, they become more and more worthless.

The other thing I considered (briefly) was just saying that I’d line & sign for individual collectors, but not for someone who was dealing. Trouble is, it’s a bit like the discussion of drug possession ‘with intent to supply’: how can you say with any certainty what the dealing threshold is? Collectors are a very particular bunch, and I can absolutely see them wanting a copy of every edition available with different lines written in by the author, and duplicates, and… so on.

But apparently, lining & signing is a relatively new thing, so the conventions remain to be established… we get to decide what’s fair play.

Please avoid using too many bad words in your comments… *grin*