Printing bookplates has allowed me to feel a connection with some well-known authors, politicians and speakers. Okay, I don’t get to talk with them, but I have the fun of knowing that they will be signing bookplates we provide. Just last week we printed bookplates to be signed by one of the U.S. Supreme Court justices. I’m not allowed to say which one, and we never divulge customer information unless given permission, but they were to be placed in books given to attorneys at a conference.
Bookplate Tony Blair signed
Recently, Bookplate Ink printed bookplates that were to be signed by Tony Blair, former prime minister of Great Britain. We were contacted by the Arab-U.S. Relations Council, which was hosting an event in Washington, D.C., at which Mr. Blair was speaking. The bookplates were a simple text-only design, but printed on our cream vellum paper they were quite elegant.
Many authors offer a signed bookplate to readers on their website. One successful author and speaker who does this is Dan Pink. We have printed bookplates for his bestselling book Drive several times, which he makes available at www.danpink.com/bp.
You may have heard about President Obama’s summer reading list, which included Abraham Verghese’s best-selling book, Cutting for Stone. Verghese has ordered our design B252 and seems to be a wonderful, caring and intelligent man. Cutting for Stone was chosen as the selection for NPR’s monthly Book Club in March.
Design B252
Every once in a while, I manage to obtain a signed copy of a book from a customer. The most notable of these was Alan Greenspan’s book The Age of Turbulence. This is a rare occurrence and usually a gift from a company holding an event at which an author is speaking.
Many years ago, we printed bookplates for the late and beloved Tim Russert. I was told Russert asked to have the bookplates brought to his hotel room along with copies of his book Big Russ and Me, where he would get down to the business of signing his name hundreds of times. His family doesn’t know me, but when I see his son Luke on TV reporting the news, I feel proud, as if I watched him grow up in my neighborhood.