<p>The Opening Convocation speaker at my daughter's college this fall is a man she has long admired. Would it be all right for her to bring a book for him to sign or would this be a faux pas? If one book is okay, would two be pushing her luck? (The second would be for a former teacher/mentor.)</p>
<p>I talked to my daughter this morning and mentioned that I hadn’t received any responses to this question so I am bumping it at her request. She has decided that two books would be “greedy” but would still like to have a book signed for the former teacher/mentor. Worse comes to worst, she’ll tuck the book in her purse and see what happens. She doesn’t want to do anything that would be impolite in the situation.</p>
<p>I think the speaker would see this as a compliment. Tell her to bring both books, stay around after the ceremony and politely ask for them to be signed. As long as she doesn’t ask before the ceremony (speaker should be focused on his speech), she should be fine. It is also very nice of her to get one for her mentor as well…</p>
<p>Sure, it would be fine to bring a couple of books for the speaker to autograph.</p>
<p>^^^agree. Kudos to your daughter. The speaker would probably be quite flattered that she admired him and that she thought about this beforehand.</p>
<p>I’ve certainly done it before, and the speakers were flattered and honored that I actually knew who they were. [They weren’t extraordinarily popular, like Bill Gates, just experts in specialty fields.]</p>
<p>As for the second book… I’ve only done that at another book signing. [My best friend has been reading a certain author for 20 years since his first book came out, but couldn’t make it to the signing since he had the flu.] The author laughed since I pulled it off with a bit of humor, then signed my friend’s copy and wrote a get-well message in it! For the most part, a lot of authors tend to be flattered and only really seem to get aggravated when there’s a line of 500 people trying to get their attention. [I’ve met several very well-known writers/actors/musicians who are just rude as soon as a crowd asks them for an autograph.]</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your responses! I’ll forward this thread to my daughter.</p>
<p>Does she have a friend/roommate who would be willing to hold the other book and go along with her?</p>