When we broached the idea of replacing physical book conferences with virtual ones (See A Book Conference You Can Attend in Your Bathrobe), a number of readers observed that there was one big problem: how do you autograph virtual books?

A team of enterprising businessmen, T. J. Waters and Robert Barrett, know how, and they’ve launched a service for publishers and authors called Autography.

Waters’ entrepreneurial tale is a fascinating one “I wrote an ebook entitled Prior To The Snap as a companion guide to my Wiley-published business book Hyperformance.” he explained in a recent email to me. “The eBook became wildly popular with troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Next thing I knew I was invited to join a USO tour going overseas. I asked a grad school friend (and high end IT geek) about developing a method to autograph the ebook like I would a hard cover book. The rest, as they say, is history, though still very much in the making.”

We visited his website (www.autography.us.com) and though the service is still, as Waters says, “in the making,” in theory at least he seems to have thought of every question that might be raised by author, publisher or customer. For example:

• “Our vision is live streaming video over the Internet coupled with autographed eBooks. We can even let the author create a scheduled of which cities he’ll be ‘visiting’ during his ‘tour’. We are now having our software upgraded so that readers can export the signature page (with a thumbnail of the book’s cover) out to their social media (Facebook, etc) to further promote the book/author to their friends.”
• “Personalization can take place at the time of purchase or any time afterwards, including after secondary (used) sales.”
• “Authors can give away signed sample chapters to introduce themselves to new readers who later purchase the full volume at their convenience. The now full copy ebook retains the author’s salutation (replacing the sample chapters) without the need for Digital Rights Management (DRM) software.”

Waters points out that “Autography’s patent-pending technology doesn’t just cover eBooks. We’re redefinining the digital media experience for a wide range of entertainment. Digital comic books, movie and music cover art, video games, and athlete or celebrity promotional cards are quickly and easily personalized for consumers.”

For further information contact the company’s representative Bob Diforio at bob@d4eo.com

With Autography the road to Virtual has taken another big step. Look for more and more applications in the coming years.

Richard Curtis