Still Not a Believer

Despite Bookninja’s report that over 700 people lined up to get books signed by the LongPen at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, I still refuse to believe this thing is going to catch on.

For those unfamiliar few, the LongPen is a huge machine that allows readers in one place to “communicate” with an author through video-conference technology, and more importantly, get their book “signed” by a big-ass pen.

Or, as the LongPen people put it:

The LongPen™ is a pen, like any other pen, except it operates over the Internet using electricity and fiber optics. But from your perspective, it still works via your brain, eyes, arm, and hand, like any other pen. It’s just that the nib and ink are at a different location from you.

For the autograph session itself, you [the author] sit in a chair with an electronic writing tablet on the table in front. This tablet shows what you are signing at the event location. There is also a vertical screen at face level that shows the fan at the other end. That person sees you too. You have direct eye contact and can talk together.

According to fans, this is a more intimate experience than a traditional signing, as you are looking directly into the face of the fan, as opposed to briefly looking up from your chair when signing in person. The video conferencing also makes it easier for the fan to be expressive about your work, as the technological distance makes them less nervous.

More intimate? Really? I really love intimate encounters mediated by technology . . .

The book, or CD, or other object that you will autograph is placed under the pen at the other end. It is captured on camera, so you see it on the electronic tablet in front of you. You pick up the magnetic pen and sign it. You treat the tablet just like a piece of paper – you can rest your hand on it. Then you push “Send” and the pen inscribes the object, in real ink, at the other end. It writes everything exactly as you have written it at your end.

What’s most inane is that the LongPen is now marketing itself as “green,” and includes a graph of metric tonnes of carbon emissions saved by “pioneering” authors participating in the project. I can’t even type a snarky comment about how lame this is.

I have a million bones to pick with this—especially with the overly aggressive LongPen sales folks who pester people at BEA—but all I want to do for now is revise my statement that I “refuse to believe this will catch on,” to “I sincerely hope this idea dies a quick death.”