Fancy having your name on a gravestone in Neil Gaiman's next novel? Or meeting your end at the hands of a zombie in Stephen King's latest? Or being immortalised as one of Sunny Baudelaire's "utterances"? Here's your chance. As part of a charity venture, 16 authors, from John Grisham to Dave Eggers, are offering readers the opportunity to have their name appear in their forthcoming books.Fans will be able to bid on eBay in an auction designed to raise funds for the American charity The First Amendment Project, with the highest bidder for each author buying the guarantee of seeing their name immortalised in print.
Each author has stated on eBay precisely what it is he or she is offering, and the information and provisos stipulated by the writers provide one of the most intriguing aspects of the scheme.Stephen King warns that his new novel, Cell, is "like cheap whiskey - very nasty and extremely satisfying". Potential bidders are told that the character to be given their name "can be male or female, but a buyer who wants to die must in this case be female".
With other authors, there is no guarantee that your name will be bestowed on a character with whom you would be happy to be associated. Peter Straub suggests that potential bidders "should be advised that the fictional person who winds up bearing his or her name may be of dubious moral character"; Rick Moody, on the other hand, points out that "since I don't know who the characters are yet, I can't promise that it's a 'good character' or a 'bad character,' but since I generally have no 'bad characters,' it will probably be someone reasonably sympathetic."
Link: AuctionCause eBay Store About My Store.
Link: Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Authors auction chance to name characters.
Comments