I happened across ‘Kindlegraph’ in some Tweets, so I decided to find out more about it. It’s a way of ‘signing’ a Kindle book for a reader. The website is here.
You log in via your Twitter account and then have to supply the ASIN (the Amazon supplied ISBN) for your book and fill in the inscription you’d like to put. I opted to try the system out with Oh Auntie! and typed in the dedication: ‘Enjoy the story, best wishes, Stephanie Dagg’. Up came the cover of Oh Auntie! with those words in rather neat handwriting.
So far, so good.
However, the next step took you to another site, docusign, where you had to sign an agreement. You could choose from a list of about a dozen handwriting type scripts. There was one remarkably like my writing. I selected that. Then I read the small print which was along the lines that this signature would become legally binding on documents it was used on, or words roughly to that effect, which freaked me out so I ended the process there.
Am I being a chicken? Plenty of authors are Kindlegraphing. However, I just didn’t like the idea that my electronic signature, floating around in cyberspace, might be used fraudulently without my consent and cause me a lot of trouble.
I guess I’ll think about it a little longer. I don’t imagine there’ll be a massive rush for my Kindlegraph in the imminent future … unfortunately!
UPDATE on 19th August: Kindlegragh creator Jacob Evans contacted me with the comment below. I’ve now found the newer signing system which involves drawing your signature if you wish to. That seems a much less scary way of doing it! Thanks to Jacob and wishing him good luck with this innovative service.
Hi! I’m the creator of Kindlegraph.
Thanks for trying the service. I’m working to make it a little bit better everyday. One of the most recent improvements is to the signing process. It no longer requires DocuSign and should be generally easier and produce a better looking result. To try the new request signing process, simply click the link at the top of the requests page.