Famous Author Bookplates

Only in recent years have authors used title-specific bookplates, usually supplied by their publishers. A useful place to find the kinds of bookplates previously used by well-known authors is on eBay where they are offered for sale.

A perusal of eBay offerings is revealing for the generic bookplates used by famous authors. One of the most common is a black-and-white bookplate with an open book in the lower left-hand corner. This bookplate, such as the one signed by Gore Vidal above, has been used by literally dozens of authors, probably because it is inexpensive. Among the authors using this bookplate are John Updike, Tom Clancy, Art Buchwald, and Harold Pinter.

Other common bookplates are either blank, or with single-line or leafed, classical borders. Some authors resort to their printed ex libris plate, which they sign, as Archur C. Clarke did in the bookplate above.

It is difficult to determine whether these authors purchase the bookplates themselves or if they are supplied by their publishers. I suspect the latter is the case, and that the publishers obtain them from a common New York source at the cheapest rate.

A bookplate with an image from the cover of the book being promoted, such as the Freakonomics bookplate, would appear to be a more desirable one for the book buyer, but publishers may question the expense of producing it if the book is not a bestseller.

Authors who are publicizing their own books have the option of producing their own bookplates inexpensively, as I’ve suggested earlier.

Jack McLaughlin
booksigningbybookplate@gmail.com

Bookplate Definitions

There is sometimes confusion about the term “bookplate”. This is because there are really two kinds of bookplates: the ex libris, ownership bookplate, and the author-signature bookplate.

The ex libris (“from the library of”) has a long tradition, dating to the fifteenth century. It has the owner’s name either printed or written on it. Ex libris bookplates are considered by many to be miniature works of art, and are collected worldwide. Wikipedia has an excellent history and discussion of them at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookplates.

The difference between the two kinds of bookplate is noted at Empty Mirror Books.com: http://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/collecting/bookplates.html. Booksellers often make a distinction between a book that is actually signed by the author and a bookplate-signed copy. A used book with a bookplate signature is not worth as much as one that is signed, because, apparently, book owners like to feel that the author actually touched the book.

Some collectors and booksellers sometimes consider an authorial bookplate to be a defacement of the book, and believe that it detracts from the value of the volume. Novelist Larry McMurtry, who is a noted antiquarian bookman, discusses this in his book about bookselling, Books: A Memoir (2008). Most authors who offer signed bookplates, however, are little concerned with the future value of their used books. They care more about selling the copies they’ve just written.

There is also some concern among authors who offer signed bookplates that potential readers may not know exactly what a bookplate is. They are sometimes referred to as book labels, as McMurtry does. Dubner and Levitt, in their Freakonomics signed bookplate offer, refer to them as “stickers”.

Best-selling authors can usually have the bookplates printed and supplied by their publishers, as the Freakonomics authors did. When Ken Burns and Geoffrey Ward published The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945, a book based on Burns’s popular TV series, Knopf printed 5,000 bookplates to be signed by the authors. Some of these books with bookplates signed by either Ward or Burns now appear on used booksellers lists. (Unlike Dubner and Levitt, who both signed their bookplates, Ward and Burns apparently signed individually.)

Random House notes on its website that its bookplates are created on special occasions by “renowned designer” Carole Lowenstein. She has been designing covers for Random House for many years, and was recently promoted to “Senior Director, Interior Design”.

Authors of books that are not bestsellers, however, are usually on their own in creating bookplates, and this site exists to encourage and aid them.

Jack McLaughlin
booksigningbybookplate@gmail.com

FREAKONOMICS Bookplate Success Story

Perhaps the most successful bookplate book signing promotion in publishing history is the one employed by the authors of Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. This best-selling, non-fiction collection of economic solutions to non-economic problems has sold more than three million copies world-wide.

I asked Dubner by e-mail about the free bookplate offer that he and Levitt have employed for more than three years since the publication of their book. How many bookplates have they sent out so far, for example?

“No idea, really. We’ve changed interface and methodology a few times along the way so we don’t have a cumulative count. Best guesstimate would be between 20,000 and 30,000,” Dubner replied.

This is a staggering number, and I doubt whether it has ever been duplicated. If it has, I’d like to know who has done it.

I inquired whether the authors or the publisher paid to produce and mail the bookplates.

“The publisher supplies the bookplates, envelopes and mailing costs. We collect the addresses (readers request them via a form on our website,) collate and sort the addresses, and print the address labels. Then there’s the act of signing. I usually sign a thousand or so and then we ship them off to Levitt, who signs them and ships them back to us. Then my assistant takes them to the publisher, puts them in envelopes, and mails them. So the costs and time are split between us and the publisher.”

How successful has the signed bookplate offer been?

“Sure, successful, but impossible to quantify in any meaningful way. But, while the numbers are elusive, the warm feeling is pretty substantial.”

The free bookplate offer is still being made on the Freakonomics website, so I wondered how many requests are still being made weekly.

“I think we only get about 100 requests per week these days, although if we call attention to it on the blog, that number can increase tenfold or more.”

And, notably, “Xmas is a big time.” This appears to indicate that bookplates are definitely an incentive to purchase the book for gift-giving.

The experience of the authors of this best-selling blockbuster should be encouraging to any author who wants to increase sales through signed bookplates. Few authors will duplicate anything close to the numbers that Dubner mentions, but he leaves no doubt that bookplates are a worthwhile marketing tool.

I’m still interested in hearing from other authors’ experiences with bookplates.

Jack McLaughlin

Creating a Bookplate

Before offering a free bookplate, you obviously have to create one. There are bookplates for sale, but they’re rather expensive, particularly if you have them personalized. With an ink jet printer it’s relatively easy to make your own.

Those with artistic abilities, or friends who have them, may want to draw or paint a bookplate. Computer-generated images can be used from your own photographs, but there are also images in the public domain that can be modified. My book cover was generated with Photo Shop Elements, using a public domain image, a Currier and Ives print I obtained online from the Library of Congress. I modified the book cover into a bookplate by simply removing the lower part of the cover (the part with my name on it), leaving the book title and the print image intact. This left enough space for a short inscription and my signature. You can see what it looks like above.

To print the bookplate, I used Picasa 3 which allows you to print four 3-1/2 X 5” bookplates on a single 8-1/2 X 11” sheet of peel-off, adhesive-backed mailing label stock. Any photo software will allow you to print multiple copies of an image on a single sheet. (Cutting the bookplates evenly is a lot easier of you have a paper cutter.)

The single-sheet mailing label stock is available from Office Depot in a box of 25 for just over $12.00. That means that you can print 100 bookplates for little more than twelve cents each, plus the cost of ink for your printer. Add forty-two cents postage and the price of an envelope, and the total cost of mailing the bookplate can be in the neighborhood of sixty cents..

That amount, in my opinion, is little enough for the author to assume if it means a book sale.

Jack McLaughlin

Signed Books That Have Been Purchased Online

Few would deny that the sale of books is greatly enhanced by the author’s signature on the title page. Unless the author is present at a book signing, however, or signs copies of the book in quantity at a book store, a signed copy of the author’s book is difficult to come by. It has been impossible for those who buy books from online booksellers.

There is a way, however, for authors to get signed copies of books into the hands of readers and purchasers—the adhesive-backed, signed bookplate (shown here). A bookplate with the author’s signature and a short inscription can easily be mailed to an online book purchaser, to be affixed to the book at home. This makes it possible for personalized, online book signings, and opens up opportunities for signed book as gifts.

The book, of course, does not have to be purchased online. It can be acquired at a retail store and the author’s bookplate sent by mail and affixed by the owner.

For the online book-signing to work, the author must be willing to foot the cost of producing the bookplate and mailing it to the book’s owner. I know from experience that requiring a book-buyer to send a self-addressed, stamped envelope for the bookplate does not produce sales. I attempted this with my long-in-print, Jefferson And Monticello, the Biography of a Builder. It failed on Amazon.com, because book buyers are obviously unwilling to go to the effort and expense of sending an SASE to the author. (This may not be the case with a celebrity author.)

For my latest book, Williamsburg, Virginia on the Eve of Revolution, a historical novel, I have created the above bookplate from the book jacket, and am offering it free to those who visit my website http://www.williamsburgthenovel.com This is a new project and I’m not sure how successful it will be, but it offers a different kind of sales approach for authors attempting to market their works.

I created this site as a forum for those authors who are interested in producing bookplates for their works and in getting them out to their readers. I invite authors to e-mail their own bookplates, and their experiences in producing and publicizing them. I’ll add them to the site as I receive them. Send e-mail comments and bookplates to: booksigningsbybookplate@gmail.com In subsequent posts, I’ll comment on my own experiences in producing a book plate, and on the various challenges faced in selling books by online signings.

Jack McLaughlin