ST. PETERSBURG --
By Jonathan Petramala, Reporter
Last Updated: Thursday, March 3, 2011
A local company is changing the way readers get their coveted signatures on eBooks.
Local author and inventor T.J. Waters and his friend developed Autography, a place for the author's signature.
"Basically, what you do is pull up a copy of your book as the author, and it inserts a blank page behind the cover and you sign whatever you're going to personalize for somebody," Waters said.
Waters can sign from his iPad, and that message will show up on the eReader within a couple of minutes on a newly created page.
"What we've also been able to figure out is how to do this remotely," Waters said. "So an author could be sitting in his home or a facility like this and doing a book signing in Cleveland."
Pictures and even digital baseball cards can be personalized using Autography.
Some booklovers worry software like Autography could mean the end of bound books.
Experts in the publishing industry predict half of all books will be eBooks in just a couple of years.
"That's an incredible shift in the entire industry that everybody is still trying to get their arms around," Waters said. "How's that going to change bookstores, libraries? How's it going to change author tours, and how is that going to change how the consumers and the authors interact?"
The company is also expanding the technology to other digital mediums like comic books.
