As a Machine and Parts: a novella (12/2011)


Mitchell, a twenty-something Cougar Cub with Marsha, his midlife girlfriend, wakes each morning, living an ever-thinning line between human and machine. As his literal condition progresses he looses his capacity for human emotion, and potentially with it, Marsha.  As a Machine and Parts is a story of Mitchell’s struggle to discover which assembly line he belongs Read more

I Didn't Mean to be Kevin: a novel (1/2012)


Jackson Jacoby is a motherless twenty-two year old boy with only the support of his crazy ex-military Uncle Marve and a kindred motherless peer named Creg. Creg holds fast to the hope of one day reuniting with his mother while Jackson maintains that his own life is so much better off without all the baggage that comes along with being somebody’s Read more

Charactered Pieces: stories


With Charactered Pieces, Caleb J. Ross presents a varied world of familial discord, one where a dead fetus evokes more compassion than its mother (“Charactered Pieces”);  where two brothers offer the destruction of a family legacy as a birthday gift for their aging father (“My Family’s Rule”); where one brother’s love of Holocaust documentaries pushes his family through the aftermath of his assumed suicide (“The Read more

Stranger Will: a novel


In this novel of impending fatherhood, an idealistic teacher recruits a pliant protégé to join her group of Strangers – a devout collection of kindred minds who have dedicated their lives to cultivating a unique idea of perfection. But joining is easier than Read more

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» book collector

Author 401(k): sell your signed books for 401K

Posted on November 8, 2008 by Caleb J Ross Posted in Marketing | Leave a comment

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An Abebooks bookseller is trying to get a quarter of a million dollars for a collection of signed Barack Obama books. To put this into perspective, a signed copy of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s first book goes for 20K. L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought goes for $8.07 (but to be fair, this converts to 1 Bajillion Quagnars).

This begs a few questions: 1) what’s the point of a signed book, 2) what makes a signed book more desirable than an unsigned book, and 3) what’s so great about this particular signature?

I am a signed book nerd, and even I don’t know the answer to the first question. So, instead of waxing eloquent I’ll instead jump to question two. The short answer: an implied communion with the author.

Personally inscribed copy of Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son. I'll let you sniff it for a quarter.

Personally inscribed copy of Jesus Son by Denis Johnson. I'll let you sniff it for a quarter.

While the internet has changed this relationship considerably, there is still a sense of proximity with a signed book that an unsigned book just doesn’t provide. It is sort of the hipster’s creed: “I have an investment in our community that runs deeper than yours, and this signed cd/book/indie film/celebrity organ proves it.” So really, it comes down to bragging rights among an already incestuous community of like-minded nerds. Once part of such a cloistered group, it takes a bit more digging to unearth the leverage necessary to become king of the nerds. With books, that leverage is often the signature. Or better yet, the signed first edition, first printing of a short run university press collection of essays that most people didn’t know about until it was printed posthumously within a series of collected works. “So as you can see, I deserve that nerd crown you poser,” says the vitamin D deprived book hipster, or bookster since I’m hip enough to make up words like that.

Don’t confuse my last question (what’s so great about this particular signature?) as a condemnation of the man’s importance. I am just questioning how his signature could possibly be worth $250,000 to anyone. Let me step back and make the obvious argument that booksters such as myself struggle to avoid: the words within the covers are the same damn words, signed title page or not.