Sign, Sign, everywhere a sign-…ing

So when you’re unpublished and indulging in your little fantasties, daydreaming about how your life is going to completely change once you sell that first book and it becomes a runaway bestseller…you dream of signings.  Dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of adoring fans, gazing at you raptly, begging for your signature.  Confidently, you smile, say “Of course!” and sign, much to their delight.

And this, my friends, is the difference between fantasy and reality.

Nearly every author I have ever met has nodded sympathetically when I recount going to signings at bookstores, only to sit for two hours under a sign that says “Author Christie Golden” and still have people assume I am a store employee.  “Where are the cookbooks?  Where is the bathroom?”  I point to the sign and say, “Sorry, not an employee…an author. ” Sad part?  They usually just go “Oh,” and find an employee.

So yeah, for most of the published population, signings just are not what you imagine they will be.

And even when they are, there’s something very real world-y about them.

Both Blizzard and Pocket Books are very excited about my forthcoming novel, ARTHAS: RISE OF THE LICH KING.  And hey, so am I.  It’s my second hardcover ever and I am very proud of the book.  I absolutely loved writing it.  Pocket is so excited they are going to package 5,000 copies as a boxed, special edition, featuring my signature.

This is great.  This is hugely exciting.

And then the boxes of the sheets arrived.  Three of them.  Wow.  Five thousand sheets of paper is, uh, a lot.  To sign in a very short time.    I’ve been hard at work for a few days now and am barely halfway through the first box, and my signature has gotten very…um…interesting?

No, I’m not complaining.  Really I’m not.  The fact that there is a special edition out there that’s “special” because it’s signed by me…even thirty-four books later, I still find this terribly cool.  And I don’t begrudge a single one of those five thousand (actually, 5,250, just in case I or someone else messes one up).  I try to think of who might be reading this, and how pleased they will be, and I send him or her good thoughts.

But next time, I think I’ll ask for just a little bit longer to sign that many. 

P.S.  Edit because I originally said “50000.”  Which…yeah.