Geeky Christmas gift ideas: signed and special edition books

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Bookseller Waterstones emailed their affiliates (sites like Geek Native) to point out offers like Black Friday and Christmas.

What stood out for me, though, in a facepalm moment was the signed and special editions.

It’s pretty standard for authors to do tours of the UK. These generally involve arranged readings, meet-and-greet and signings at book shops. I’ve been to a few, and if you want a signed book, it means a queue. Generally worth it!

I imagine book shops could take advantage of the time to get the author to sign some more. However, I’m not sure that process would put signed books into Waterstones’ warehouse for internet orders. I speculate these signed books are from a different effort.

Special edition books

Special edition books weren’t the facepalm. I get that chains like Waterstones will get;

Dune – S.F. Masterworks hardback by Frank Herbert.
How to Kill Your Family from Bella Mackie.
The Leviathan (hardback) from Rosie Andrews.
House of Sky and Breath – Cresent City 2 (hardback) by Sarah J. Maas.

These are versions of the books that can’t be bought anywhere else.

Signed edition books

This was my facepalm. Hand on heart, it hadn’t occurred to me that buying author-signed books online would be something that a mainstream shop would coordinate. I assumed it would be a specialist and newbie-intimidating marketplaces.

Signed books include;

In the Shadow of Queens: Tales from the Tudor Court signed edition by Alison Weir.
The Every signed edition by Dave Eggers.
The Mightnight Lock signed edition by Jeffery Deaver.
Burntcoat signed edition by Sarah Hall.
Amari and the Great Game signed edition by BB Alston.
The Red of my Blood: A Death and Life Story signed exclusive edition by Clover Stroud.
The Twyford Code signed edition by Janice Hallett.

These lists are movable feasts, especially the signed editions, as numbers will be limited by nature.

I’ve put this post together with the subtitle “Christmas gift ideas”, kinda ignoring the Christmas page because it strikes me that it’s the presence of the signature that makes the book remarkable. It’s the unexpected Christmas power-up on an otherwise excellent but safe gift idea.

It also occurs to me that signed books make for suitable any occasion gifts. As a result, it’s a rare example of how an email to all affiliates was actually helpful!