Hi! I'm Kyle Ingham from The Distilled Man.
And up next I'm going to talk about how
to inscribe a book and why it's so
important to always include a
personalized message whenever you give a book as a gift.
You ever pull a book off the shelf and you crack it open for
the first time in a long time and you
see that old handwritten inscription
from the person who gave it to you?
Now I'm not talking about the illegible
autograph from Mr famous pants who you
who you saw when you queued up for three hours
and in Barnes and Noble that one day.
I'm talking about the old dusty copy of
Catch-22 that your uncle gave you.
You were 16, it was that summer you were learning
how to drive stick, you just started shaving regularly for the first time.
And your uncle decides,
"Hey, maybe this guy's ready to read some real fiction."
Giving someone a book with a personalized message inside
is one of the most thoughtful gifts you can give to somebody.
So why inscribe books that you gave as gifts?
Presumably if you're giving someone a book it's
because you've already read it yourself.
You really enjoyed it and knowing what
you know about that person you really
think they would enjoy it as well or
because you know a lot about that person
you did some research, you found this
book and you really think it might be up their alley.
The point is, giving someone a book is
one of the more personal gifts you can
give but if you don't put a personal
message inside it you're kind of missing an opportunity.
Okay, to use a really bad analogy, it's sort of
like sending someone an attachment via email,
a really special attachment that
you think is really great you really
want them to see, without including
anything in the body of the email.
Now imagine that that attachment was
supposed to be their birthday present.
Seems even worse right?
And kind of impersonal.
For the recipient
a book inscription is like a dusty little time capsule.
It reminds them of a specific
point in their life or a specific person.
And it takes them back.
And it makes the book more than just a
collection of paper and cardboard and glue and
fabric and whatever else the books are
made out of, and it makes it a keepsake.
Something that's special.
So when should you inscribe a book?
Books have been getting inscribed as long
as people have been giving books as gifts.
So I really think that any time you give someone a
book as a gift you should inscribe it.
You know, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and birthdays, graduations, retirement.
Basically any time you give a book as a gift
write a personal message inside.
The recipient doesn't even need to be able to read the inscription.
In fact a lot of interesting inscriptions actually are
ones written in baby books,
where obviously the person knows that
the baby's not be able to read it, but
years from now they would pull
out this book and its really gonna be a
nice keepsake and remembrance.
Now, the only time you may want to avoid
inscribing the book is if you're buying
something like a college textbook for
someone and you know that just based on
the sheer volume of the books and the
type of book that they're going to get
rid of it at the end of the semester.
But in this case you actually may want to
have the student inscribe it and
inscribe it to the person who's going to get it next.
And this is actually a
really funny example I found of that
happening where the student wrote in the
book to the next person who's going to
get the textbook and it's sort of like a
little chain letter that will go on and on and hopefully.
Okay, but what if inscribing the book messes it up?
Well, there's a couple of naysayers out
there. One group says,
"You know I'd ever want to inscribe a book I give as a gift
because what if the recipient wants to
take it back and they don't like it?"
And the other group of naysayers says,
"Well, you know you should never inscribe a book you're giving as a gift especially
if it's a kind of an older book or a
rare book, because it'll ruin its resale value."
Well, I think both of those ideas are kind of crazy.
Is it possible that the
recipient is not gonna like your gift
and that they want to take it back?
Yeah that's a possibility, but that
doesn't mean that you should leave it
devoid of all personalization.
Worst-case they can take the book to a
used bookstore and drop it off.
In fact, I'm actually amazed at all the used
books that I see with cute little
inscriptions in there that clearly
someone didn't treasure enough to keep the book.
On a positive note, those
inscribed books can be a real
treasure for people in used bookstores.
You come across these books that have these
really interesting or really unique
inscriptions in them and it's kind
of a window into other people's lives.
And it could be almost more interesting than fiction.
Now as far as the resale value, if you're
buying books for a collector who's really
going to use this as sort of financial
investment, maybe you should
just focus on buying them thoughtful
books and not worry about buying them
rare books, because at the end of the day
your gift really should be about getting
something uniquely for them.
And it's not gonna be a special if you know they're
just going to kind of see it as an
investment and then resell it two years later.
And who cares if the book's not
going to be worth a ton of money and
again, that's not the point.
Or if you really think that they're going to
still sell it no matter what, you can use
a cheat that I'll mention in just a moment.
So what should you write in your book inscription?
Now, a book inscription is all
about adding a personal touch to what is
already hopefully a personal gift.
But it can also serve a practical purpose and
the tone of the inscription can vary
widely depending on the person, depending
on the situation, depending on the book.
From very serious to humorous
to the downright weird, sometimes.
But regardless, most inscriptions do one or more of the following things.
One, document when the book was given and who gave it.
Two, explain why this particular book is
meant for the recipient.
Three, say what the giver thought was special about the book.
Four, wish the recipient well on a specific occasion.
Five, provide some life advice.
Six, echo an idea from the book, sometimes using a quote.
Seven, serve as a time capsule
for posterity, especially when
the giver or the recipient are no longer with us.
And eight, contain enigmatic riddles and random musings.
So where should you inscribe a book?
Well traditionally it would be on the top of
the title page or on the inside cover.
But really the point is to look for a
page early on in the book that doesn't
have a lot of other clutter on it so
that the inscription will stand out.
So like in this version of Great Expectations I could probably do it on
the inside cover here.
I wouldn't do it on this page because it's got so much clutter.
But probably even the next page.
This title page would be perfect because
it's sort of at the beginning of the
book and people are likely to read it.
And there's plenty of real estate here, less clutter.
So if you think the recipient's really going to be bothered
by the fact that you've written in the book,
you can do a cheat where you add
the inscription on a separate piece of stationery inside.
And this could be a good option for that collector too,
if you think they may try to resell the book later.
Now the problem with the insert is if
the person doesn't mean to hold on to it
there's a much higher likelihood that it
could fall out accidentally and be lost
over the years.
The inscribed book as greeting card.
Now, I haven't seen this in person but I've heard that some
forward-thinking folks are starting to
use inscribed books as greeting cards.
So it's kind of cool idea if you think
about it, you know, instead of buying a
card that has someone else's words in it,
you're buying a whole book that has
someone else's words in it. But those
words could be a classic and that could
be a book that the person really enjoys.
And you write inside the book the same
way that you would inside a card, but now
instead of it being a Hallmark card that
they toss in a drawer or toss in a box, they
can put it on the shelf and they can
admire it for a lifetime.
So to wrap it up, if you get a book for someone
please do write a personalized message in there.
It really is not going to take more than a few minutes, but the person
may appreciate it for a lifetime.
Hope you enjoyed this video.
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Thanks again for watching and until next time.