Actually I take back what I said about people being in it for the money.
He signed something related to Van Helsing? And itās worth actual money?
What a fascinating world we live in.
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Another thing Iāve seen done a few times that could work at conventions,too, is for someone to sponsor the signing. Like a band signing I was at recently was sponsored by Monster Energy drink. Iāve seen them sponsored by liquor brands and beer brands,too, and a radio station a couple of times, and even a casino once. The people waiting in line are exposed to a HEAVY dose of the sponsorās advertising, and the sponsor get to be associated with something ācoolā and typically gets to give away a few signing passes to people they hand pick or give away during promotions,too. And the band gets paid by the sponsor to do their time in the signing tent. For less than rich bands, it probably is a big help. Second-tier bands are probably glad to have it, both from the money from the sponsor and the additional merchandise sales generated by being able to get it autographed. And merchandise tends to be a great money maker at shows for artists, their share of the profits tends to be good on that stuff.
Iāve two signed books, one by Doug Coupland, one by Tad Williams. Both bought without me knowing they were signed.
I canāt imagine queueing or paying for a signature, even of those whose work I admire. Then again, Iām totally socially incompetent. Iāve gotten in trouble with my wife for not saying hello to Cory the two times we went to one of his readings. I stood next to him for 5 mins listening to a band one of those times, too. 
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Bob Ducsay and Stephen Sommers stood over him with stakes while he signed 100 photos. The kids all thought it was a gag.
Itās worth actual money, but actually, really not much. Especially if someone paid an entrance fee to get it.
I donĀ“t see that much similarity between an author giving a speech and charging the organiser for his effort and a bunch of actors sitting on their asses, writing autography and charging individual fans a small fortune for it, especially if theyĀ“re already filthy rich anyway.
I also admit that I have a problem with celebrity culture in general.
I certainly wouldnāt want to spend my days flying around the country to sit on my ass in crowded convention centers and sign things unless someone made it worth my time.
If an actor is rich then making it worth their time means big bucks. If they arenāt rich then charging as much as they can get away with becomes a financial necessity.
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Yeah, thatās largely true. Iāve been working in movies and TV shows for over twenty years, and I generally work with and alongside actual celebrities, and take it from me: theyāre just people with unusually high-profile jobs. Some of them are dickish, some of them are incredibly warm and down-to-earth, all of them have good days and bad days. And surprisingly few of them are wealthy enough to never have to work another day in their lives.
I started this line of work when I was twenty-one. Before that, my brother (whoās a successful writer/director) would occasionally introduce me to people, or sometimes get something autographed for me. Not because I asked or anything, just because he thought Iād like it. And yeah, itās pretty cool that he got William Stout to autograph a copy of his The Dinosaurs, complete with a hand-drawn coelophysis on the frontispiece, just for me. Iāll always treasure that book, and the moment Stout took to draw that little dinosaur for a fellow dinosaur-lover heād never met.
I also have autographed books from Stephen King and Clive Barker, a couple of Star Wars 8x10s and trading cards signed by Mark Hamill and Peter Mayhew back in '77, and a laserdisc box set of The Day The Earth Stood Still signed by Robert Wise, but I didnāt seek any of those out. Again, my brother got them for me.
I was never particularly interested in autographs, but since I started working with halfway-famous writers and directors, I really have no interest in celebrity memorabilia. But I guess thatās sort of familiarity breeding contempt. I suspect that the technicians responsible for cleaning and overhauling the Space Shuttleās Waste Collection System eventually got used to the idea that, glamorous as it may seem to us to be working on any part of a working NASA vessel, even a space toilet is still just a toilet.
My wifeās late father amassed a pretty impressive autograph collection. When he was a kid, his father managed the Ice Capades (or something like that) in Los Angeles in the late 40s, and when celebrities would attend, my father-in-law would buttonhole them to sign his little autograph book. A whole bunch of golden-age A-listers are in that book now, from Bogart to Monroe, none of whom are still around now. Thatās a nifty little family keepsake now, but I canāt imagine wanting to go to the trouble of collecting all those autographs at the time, even during an era when the fandom public must have been a lot moreā¦ well, manageable.
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The similarity would be using a given price point as a barrier to entry, thereby lowering oneās workload and limiting the number of times you have to someone ānoā.
Regardless of what you think of their profession, people usual do things for a reason. Rarely is that reason as simple or childish as ātheyāre greedyā. Sly Stallone doesnāt need your $200, nor do you need his auto graph. To insure that you really, really want that autograph, and to limit the number of times he has to give heās put a price on it in the context of a con. It wouldnāt surprise me at all if you contacted the publisists of these actors theyād be happy to send you a frebie for the price of a stamp and envelope.
There are 2 blogs already linked in this thread from actors giving their accounts of the whereās and why does of coins. If after reading those accounts you still find yourself unable to garner an understanding of where theyāre coming from, personal problems with celebrities aside, Iām not sure thereās much more I could say to help you.
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I can never bring myself to pay money to meet someone. Celebrities deserve to make a living but I would rather have a completely random but meaningful encounter (like meeting the Mighty Boosh after a Jarvis Cocker gig in LA) rather than standing in line and plunking down cash so I can be just another entry on a ledger.
That said, however, I saw Carrie Fisher sitting at a table at SDCC maybe eight years ago and I regret not stopping and giving her however much money she was asking for to sign a photograph. I donāt need the photograph but a few moments chatting with her would be priceless. Some people transcend celebrity and she is one of them.
I wonder if thereās a fee for negociating a fee for something that isnāt already on the menu.
But Cory will still sign a book for 3.50 and a Hershey bar, right?
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If celebs are so concerned about people turning around and reselling the autographs and personalization decreases the secondhand value, perhaps they should try some incentive pricingā¦
$60 for a personalized autograph, $85 for just the signature.
I like getting signatures. I have several from over the years. I even had a chance for a 1 on 1 interview with Shatner - but something else came up and I couldnāt do it (DRAT!) - did get a free autograph though.
I donāt mind paying. These people usually get a small fee from the promoters, and they make their bread and butter signing stuff. Itās rather boring and your hand gets all cramped. And while most people are cool - there are a lot of jackasses and dorks you have to deal with too. Remember too that many people who get autographs turn around and try to resell that object on eBay or wherever.
I was out of work and really bummed that I had no money for this years con in KC. George Takaii, Adam Baldwin, and Will Wheaten where 3 of the people I would have liked to have had their signatures. I almost bought one from the guy who played Admiral Motti - but he wanted about 10 bucks too much - then the guy dies a week later (DOH!)
Now MOST comic creators wont charge for a signature. Neal Adams is the one exception that has come to our Con, because heās Neal "ucking Adams. I paid - because itās Neal fucking Adams. I had him sign my Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76 (which I later found out was worth WAY more than I realized.)
I was so bummed because Howard Chaykin was there and I didnāt know he was coming. I spent two hours and managed to find I think it was The Shadow #3. I had a ton of books he could have signed at home. I really would have liked to buy a sketch - but no moneyā¦
Now I have never been to a mega-con - but I have gone to small or medium sized ones in the mid-west. Depending on the person and the con, you can find time when people have no, or very few people in line, and you can actually have a minute or two to chat. While the wait can still be long, I would seek out some of these smaller cons if you are interested in signatures and the like, because there is less people there, meaning less wait time for you and less likely they will leave before you make it to the front.
Hot Tip - in my limited experience meeting āfamous/importantā people, if you want to have a meaningful conversation, find something they are currently interested and active in NOW, not what they are famous for. They are much more interested in talking about a hobby or activity they are actually doing now, and not some role they played 20 years ago. For example, Neal Adams has this bat-shit insane theory (I still love you, Neal!) that the earth has grown, and as it grew the continents drifted apart to their present day form. He has a really neat animation of this and several videos about it on his site somewhere. I spent close to 10 minutes talking to him about it, and probably could have spent longer if I hadnāt started to feel bad for the other people in line.
[quote=āDonald_Petersen, post:48, topic:12127ā]
And yeah, itās pretty cool that he got William Stout to autograph a copy of his [The Dinosaurs][1], complete with a hand-drawn coelophysis on the frontispiece, just for me. Iāll always treasure that book, and the moment Stout took to draw that little dinosaur for a fellow dinosaur-lover heād never met.[/quote]
It is fairly common if you shelled out the money for a hard cover book, a comic artist will do a doodle. My friend had a book of The Shadow by MW Kaluta, and he doodled him in on the title page. (I LOVED meeting MW Kaluta - awesome guy. I had no money that day either, but he did a large pencil sketch of The Shadow for only $20! - WTF did I put that, anyway?) I have a doodle of an Alien by Dave Dorman, and Mark Texeira did a doodle of Wolverine on a poster I had.
Watch āThat Guyā¦Who Was in That Thingā documentary, with the character actors we all recognize.
I figured when they said how it works that they might make a middle class income if they get a lot of work - and they work is no way steady unless they land a TV series. I wonder how they can afford to have houses and families IN LA!
They get to keep about half of the gross after they pay agents, publicists, managers, etc and then pay the income taxes on the 100% gross.
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Iāll have to check that out. Thanks for the recommendation.
I think itās kind of funny how big our disconnected of how hollywood/creative industries operate and how we think they operate actually is. Itās like we have no idea of reality actually operates, only this image of how we think it operatesā¦ or something. Imagine I said something Foucauldian hereā¦
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Last autograph I got was by Finnish comics artist called Timo Kokkila who happened to walk past me while I was buying his comic book PerƤsmiehen poika (Son of Phartman) at The 29th Helsinki Comics Festival. I also got a huge drawing and a autograph from Hunt Emerson had to stand in line and buy his new comic adaption of Danteās Inferno but I was going to buy it anyway so I really didnāt care. Oh and the entrance was free too.
Or just refuse to sign anything. A multi-millionaire celeb hardly needs even more money. It just makes them look greedy.
Iāve seen some celebs do it for money with the disclaimer that the moneyās going to a charity, and that does seem to be a nice enough compromise.
But while weāre talking about things-I-do-not-get, autograph selling or buying. I mean, getting autographs I completely understand, itās a momento of actually meeting them, but buying them for large amounts of money just seems weird.
I mean, Iāve got a few authorās autographs on SF books where I havenāt met the authorā¦ they were cases where āsigned by the authorā editions were sold in the bookstore, for the same price as the regular ones, or a couple cases where I won a giveaway, but I canāt see myself buying a book just to get one. Maybe if they were already long deceased and I was a huge fan, but otherwiseā¦ shrug. I guess itās speculation-value for a lot of people though.
Although speaking of deceased authors and autographs, I actually lucked out big once, I was buying some short story collections in a used bookstore, about a $1 each, then later opened one and noticed that it was signed by the editor: Judith Merill, one of the early influential female SF authors and editors.
I doubt itās worth much, but it still gave me a special thrill, so maybe I do understand the feeling a little.
