Unsigned Preorders UPDATE

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Unsigned Preorders UPDATE

Hi, so you may remember that somewhat less than 1% of people who preordered The Fault in Our Stars did not receive signed copies for very complicated reasons that mostly boil down to certain bookselling web sites not being good at math.

This unfortunate <1% will be receiving a nice signed bookplate, but they have not received that bookplate yet because 1. until very recently I was on tour, and Penguin couldn’t ship the bookplates to me until I got home, and 2. I have somewhat bad carpal tunnel syndrome that makes signing much slower than it used to be, and also 3. after I finish signing the book plates, they have to be shipped to Penguin, whereupon the extremely complex and laborious process of sending them out to preorderers will begin.

So, to summarize: I’m sorry you have not yet received your sweet bookplate. It will come. Please be patient. Sorry my wrist sucks at being a wrist.

Note: For the record, many bookstores and web sites no longer have signed copies of TFiOS, but there are still a lot of them floating around bookstores and—God forbid—grocery stores and Walmarts and whatever, so please do not pay $200 or whatever for a signed book. One of the central reasons I wanted to do this in the first place was to kill the market for my autograph by creating an overabundance of signatures.

Note 2: If you preordered the book and have not received it, it is safe to assume that you probably did not actually preorder the book (I mean, it has been more than a month) and you should probably contact whomever you ordered the book from. (Unfortunately, I cannot address problems like that, because I don’t have like a personal relationship with Amazon or anything.)

Note 3: If you preordered the book (and have a receipt or whatever), you can still email sparksflyup-at-gmaildotcom with your name, your address, and where you ordered the book from. Remember, this is only for people who PREORDERED the book, i.e., ordered it before it was published. (Tens of thousands of people who did not preorder have received unsigned copies; I cannot fix that, as it will kill my wrist.) We’ll close it out in the next few days, so go ahead and do this now.

Note 4: If you already emailed the address, you DO NOT need to email again. You did not receive a reply, but I have your info, so don’t worry.

Note 5: If you live in Brazil or another country where shipping is being held up by customs, don’t worry. I will leave this offer open to you in the event your preorder proves unsigned.

Note 6: Re. people who preordered a book from a store hosting a signing but then were unable to attend that signing: This is a pretty rare problem (can’t be more than five or ten people) but a good example of how astonishingly complicated this is. (Like, I could devote at least a 3,000 word tumblr post to the way this thing actually worked/failed to work.) But yes, people in that situation would be eligible to send an email and get a bookplate. (You can also return your unsigned book to the store in exchange for a signed one, in all likelihood.)

Note 7: Re. people who sent an email but have a different last name from their mom who ordered the book or are worried they didn’t include enough information or etc. I realize this is extraordinarily hypocritical advice, but please try not to worry. Everything will be okay. If I need anything from you, I’ll email you.

Note 7: If you have any questions, you can reply to this post and I will try to edit this post to answer them.