On the Acquisition of Autographs

Q. blamemisha (and many others) asks: Are those boxsets with autographed versions of tfios and looking for alaska completely sold out? … Buying your boxset from others on amazon for over $100 is a bit much!

A. They are sold out, but there will be some box sets with different configurations of signed books available at bookstores around the holidays in the US.

I also really dislike the idea of you buying a $250 box set from someone just because it has my signature when you could buy the exact same thing without my signature for $47.22. One of the central motivations for signing my name so many times in the past 16 months has been my desire to kill the market for my autograph by flooding it with supply, so I am annoyed when I see someone try to make a $200 profit off two small scratches I made on a page using a Sharpie.

Here are some options:

1. Wait until we meet somewhere down the line at a book signing, and I will sign your books then.

2. Try to find a signed box set at a bookstore during the holiday season.

3. Buy one of these signed posters for $15, desecrate the beautiful poster by cutting out my signature, then glue said signature into your book. This will run you about $63, which is still $17 less than the retail price of the box set. 

4. Decide that autographs are kind of overrated anyway, particularly when the guy in question has A. frankly a really underwhelming signature, and B. signed like 200,000 things, meaning that unsigned box sets are actually rarer and therefore cooler and more valuable than signed ones.