Once in a while, someone writes to ask if we would autograph his or her copy of Freakonomics. And we say: sure, thanks for asking. But the logistics aren’t very smooth. A person would have to mail the book to one of us, and include a stamped envelope addressed to the other one of us, and another stamped envelope back to the book’s owner. So here’s a better solution: the signed bookplate. A bookplate is a simple but nicely designed sticker that the two of us can sign and then simply mail to you, to be placed inside your book (or on your dashboard or forehead if you want), like one of those old “ex libris” stickers. We’ll even pay the $.37 postage. If you’d like a signed bookplate,
fill out this form. Thanks for asking.
Anybody Want an Autographed Copy of Freakonomics?
TAGS: bookplates
and 
. You can also watch it on 
you guys are too much fun!! thanks for being who you are and for humoring those of us who “hero worship” ya’all!
About 20 years ago I asked Milton Friedman to sign a copy of Capitalism and Freedom for me. He did so. Then he asked me if I’d like a signed copy of Free to Choose also. He had several boxes of the book sitting around (we were at his house), was looking to get rid of them, and would sell them to us for $10 each. Within minutes a line formed and at least two dozen of us walked away with signed copies. I bought 2 extras for friends.
He did say that he liked signing books because people tend not to resell autographed books and thus they didn’t end up competing new copies.
I would be interested in running an experiment to see how much the tags (without the books) would sell for on Ebay.
This is great! Thank you, Rachel, Levitt and Dubner for offering this.
I asked to do the same with one of Fareed Zakaria’s books – The Future of Freedom. I offered to FedEx my hardback to Fareed Zakaria with a corresponding return FedEx, but sadly he did not reply.
Oh well.
Great idea! Very smart of you! Thanks for offering. Just wrote to Rachel.
Connie
http://www.SugarShockBlog.com
But are they going to really sign it? I’ve heard that a lot of the autographs mailed to fans are fakes.
Or is this a way of getting addresses for a mailing list?
Or am I just too paranoid… Thanks for the offer.
Like they can’t just buy a mailing list for $100 rather than concocting an autograph scheme.
In case anyone was wondering, “signed edition” books are not signed by authors after they are bound. The author signs hundreds of blank sheets that are ‘tipped’ in during the binding. The now late-great Hunter Thompson actually wrote hundreds of individually obtuse notes on his.