With consumers now accustomed to experiencing music and movies on Lilliputian devices, they're also increasingly reading on Kindles, Nooks and iPads. By 2015, sales of e-books in the United States are expected to triple to nearly $3 billion, according to Forrester Research.
But the sea change has created a dilemma: What, then, do authors autograph at book signings?
Some readers have resorted to asking authors to sign the backs of their iPads and the cases of their Kindles. But the growing demand for more elegant solutions has software and marketing companies scrambling to propel book signing into the digital age.
Author T.J. Waters and information technology executive Robert Barrett are in the vanguard. At the BookExpo America in New York in May, they plan to debut Autography.
Here's how an Autography e-book "signing" will work: A reader poses with the author for a photograph, which can be taken with an iPad camera or an external camera. The image immediately appears on the author's iPad. (If it's shot with an external camera, it's sent to the iPad via Bluetooth.) Then the author uses a stylus to scrawl a digital message below the photo. When finished, the author taps a button on the iPad that sends the fan an e-mail with a link to the image, which can then be downloaded into the e-book.
Wait time? About 21/2 minutes. Bragging potential? Endless: Readers can post the personalized photo on Facebook and Twitter.
Rachel Chou of Open Road Integrated Media, a publishing and marketing company that organizes e-signings, said that within the year consumers should expect to see advances in digital signing, including e-books that are sold with blank pages for that purpose. Some devices already have their own solutions, such as Sony's Reader, which enables authors to use a stylus to sign a page on its screen.
