Dear O'Abby: How can I autograph e-books?

Dear O'Abby,

I'm a published author and one of the things I keep getting asked for by readers is autographed books.  Tis is fine for the ones I have available as paperbacks etc, but some of my titles are e-book only.  What's the easiest and least expensive way to create an autographed e-book?

Kind regards,

Unautographed

Dear Unautographed,

That's a good question! 

There's something special about going to a signing, meeting an author and then going home with a signed copy - possibly even personalised to you or a loved one who you're going to gift it to - clutched in your hot little hands.  But these days, many authors, like yourself, don't have physical copies to sign, yet fans still want that personalisation and connection with their favourite authors.

The easy way to do it would be to insert a generic message and signature into a published e-book file, but that, of course, means anyone who purchases that particular edition book gets a signed copy and it isn't personal to an individual reader.

There is a tool out there called Authorgraph that allows you to autograph e-books and personalise them for individual readers.  The autographs don't become a part of the e-book, but if you get more than one, they can be gathered together into a collection on your Kindle.  Authorgraph only works for Kindle books, so if your book isn't available in that format, you can't use it.  The upside is that you can specify the message you would like and the signature is drawn, rather than being printed in a script font so it's more like a real autograph.  Authorgraph is also free, so that is a bonus for readers.

And that really seems to be it, I'm afraid.  I guess that points to there being a market for this kind of thing...

Hopefully that is at least a bit helpful.

X O'Abby