Last week, I got a proper, finished copy of Angel Stations through in the post. It looks and feels even better than I'd expected. As of writing, there's just under two weeks to go before it's out on the shelves. I suspect I'll go and sign copies in at least some of the bookshops in town. To be honest, I'm not that big on signing books. Why spoil a perfectly good book by scribbling all over it? And if you're not a well-known author, what difference could it possibly make to your sales?
But, I might as well play follow-the-leader since everyone else seems to do it without compunction, whether famous or not-so-famous. If there's one advantage to it, it means you get those 'signed by the author' stickers on the front in the bigger shops, which means you might get an extra picosecond of attention paid to your book by casual browsers. This is a good thing, since book covers are generally designed to catch your eye, in the context of a bookshop where there are literally thousands of the things all trying just as hard to achieve the same effect. Half a second is all it takes to grab your attention just for that extra tiny instant it takes to make you walk over, pick the thing up, and at the very least contemplate buying it.
