The Long Pen Shortens the Distance
by Karen Holt, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 3/6/2006
Margaret Atwood at book fairs is inevitably surrounded by men with television cameras, but today at the London Book Fair, the crowd was not just here to fete the author but to see a demonstration of her brainchild: The Long Pen, billed as "the world's first long distance signing device."
The idea came to Atwood while on one of her extended book tours specifically, "crawling around a hotel room one night at four a.m. in Denver" with Salt Lake City and Boston still to go. "I wondered how much longer I could hoist my suitcase up to the overhead bin. I imagined one day I'd fall over and I'd realize I'd written one book too many."
Atwood's banter kept the press entertained while the pen was being set up and was not responding according to plan. She took questions from the audience, explaining that the pen was a real time, real pen and ink remote signing device. Using the long pen was the same as hand signing, a process that involves your brain, your arm, your hand and a pen. In this case, you are in one place with the pen and the nib is elsewhere.
Atwood's inspiration was the signing device used by deliverymen when you receive a package. But this is not a real signature, so she handed over the idea to the team that could make it happen. The company set up to accomplish this is Unotchit (you no touch it) under the direction of Matthew Gibson, son of her long time partner, Graeme Gibson. Atwood is the president. She sees it as a cost saving device for publishers and a way of authors to reach more fans and locations than is possible with the traditional book tour.
And now for the LongPen's first public appearance. Atwood goes down to the Bloomsbury booth and her face appears movie screen size. She holds a pen and has an etch a sketch type screen in front of her. The first fan, bookseller Melanie Roberts, owner of the M. Roberts bookstore in Slaithwaite, U.K., sits at a table facing Atwood's image and a small camera. The book, meanwhile sits on a table under the pen gizmo that looks like it could stamp studs into jeans.
Atwood and Roberts have a conversation about the autograph and Atwood takes pen in hand. Seconds after she finishes, the Long Pen starts to write and Roberts has a hand signed personal autographed book. "What chance would a local bookshop like mine have getting a big author signing for me?" Roberts said. Graeme Gibson explains that this is a legal signature and eventually the applications of the Long Pen could expand beyond book signings.|
|
