{"id":1679,"date":"2010-07-25T11:41:56","date_gmt":"2010-07-25T15:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=1679"},"modified":"2010-07-25T11:41:56","modified_gmt":"2010-07-25T15:41:56","slug":"why-do-we-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=1679","title":{"rendered":"Why Do We Do It?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"With<\/a>
With friend and fellow author Tania Crosse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I did a book signing yesterday in Reading with my friend Tania Crosse – who writes fabulous historical novels.<\/p>\n

I really enjoyed the day – and loved meeting the people who came along.<\/p>\n

In between signing books, I started thinking…<\/p>\n

As authors, we do bookshop signings to promote our work. To put our books in front of people who might buy them. But it’s not just about the money. I don’t believe a story has really come to life until it’s been read by someone. The more people who read it – the more life that story has.<\/p>\n

But what about the readers… why do readers collect signed books?<\/p>\n

This morning I went digging through my own bookshelves, where I have many, many signed books. I think the first signed book I owned was The Lost Continent by Terry Pratchett. I bought that in 1998, which seems just a short time ago when I consider that I have books in my collection that I’ve owned since I was a small child.<\/p>\n

I didn’t go to Terry Pratchett’s signing. In fact, I don’t think I even knew he was in town. I found the signed copy on my next visit to the book shop. That started a bit of a ‘thing’… and I’ve been accumulating signed books ever since.<\/p>\n

Many are signed by writers who are also friends… and those personal messages are very special. But many others are signed by authors whom I have never met, and am unlikely ever to meet. Writers far above me in the authorial firmament. Writers from other countries. Writers who are no longer with us.<\/p>\n

As a reader I value those books because they give me some kind of extra connection to someone whose work I love. It is almost as if the authors were thinking of me when they wrote the book. Which, of course they were. Not me, specifically, but I believe all authors do think about their readers as they write.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yesterday I realized that I like signing books for the very same reason. I get to meet someone who is going to read my book, and by signing the book I feel some extra connection to the reader. I hope they like the book, because I’d like them to buy more of my work – but mostly I just hope they like the book.<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>
One of the best parts of being an author<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So thanks to everyone who came along… I hope you enjoy Girl Racers.<\/p>\n

It really was written just for you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I did a book signing yesterday in Reading with my friend Tania Crosse – who writes fabulous historical novels. I really enjoyed the day – and loved meeting the people who came…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7g6jm-r5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}