A Wet Find

Greetings all:

I spent a rainy weekend in Lake George NY and saw that a neighboring
town was having a library sale.

Who could resist?

Meanwhile, although the stock was nominally protected by a tent, the
rain was getting in through various cracks and crevices. and
everything was getting wet. You'd think librarians would do a better
job. I hope they did with the stock inside.

Anyway, one item caught my eye--an ARC of 'The Kite Runner', marked at
$3. Seemed worth the price. There's only one on line, listed at $175,
perhaps optimistically.

However it was a bit wet. I dried it out as best I could, and the
pages seem OK. However there is a stain on the inside of the front
wrapper. I wonder if there is a way to get rid of the stain? A quick
immersion up to the text block? Chemical intervention?

I already have a signed first of the work, and am not really interest
in ARCs, so I'd like to restore this as best as possible and move it
along.

Denton

William M. Klimon wrote:
>As TD points out but in language much too kind, Flatty is often
>verbose, presumptuous, and verifiably incorrect

You should have seen the first draft of my column! The phrase "Errant
nonsense" plus several others kept forcing their way in, and ending up
on the cutting room floor. I decided to take the high road, and let the
contrast between the two pieces speak for itself. As you point out,
anyone who can read...

> (2) His market analysis must, of course, be limited to those folks that
> have bought from him. He is therefore gratuitously insulting them when
> he inadvertently characterizes them as "Billy Bobs" and nobodies whose
> association with a book adds no value to it.

That's a great point, and one I wish I'd though of. That could be the
new FlatSigned slogan: "We sell from nobodies to nobodies."

> (5) TD raises a great point about the near perfect provenance of
> limited editions. It made me think further that if someone really
> wants a "FlatSigned (r)" [sic: despite the fact that Flatty uses the
> (r) symbol indicating that "FlatSigned" is a federally registered
> trademark, he has not in fact even applied for registration with the
> U.S. Patent & Trademark Office] book, then he should look for a signed,
> limited edition. If someone gets the chance to have an author inscribe
> a trade edition, that's the time to get the author to write as much as
> possible, IMHO.

Another interesting point about signed limiteds - my sense is that
hard-core collectors STILL prefer signed and inscribed trade editions,
even though the signed limiteds are of unquestionable provenance. In
the column I give some stats on the top 20 most expensive signed
Steinbeck's currently listed on ABE. 2 are association copies, 9 are
inscribed, 5 are signed limiteds, and only 3 are flatsigned. This not
only shows high end dealers believe that collectors prefer inscribed
over flatsigned, but that they prefer inscribed over signed limiteds. I
think this has to do with a lack of personal involvement by the author,
since in all probability s/he simply rote signed a stack of limitation
pages which were later bound in, and so never even held the book.

So if it is personal involvement by the author that collectors look
for, flatsigned would not be the first choice.

Still, Miller's business model does seem to work, at least for now.
This is because he has staked out a broad niche in the shallow end of
the new collecting market, and branded and marketed the hell out of it.
It remains to be seen how long his business model holds up.

Regards, Tim