At the moment, I am considering setting up a process for people who enjoy my writing to be able to buy personalized and signed copies of my novella, Echoes.

The process would be relatively simple. Since I self-published the novella through Lulu Press, people can already buy a copy (using what amounts to a print-on-demand pricing system) from Lulu and have it shipped directly to them. With media mail shipping, it turns out to be something like $12.00 or so.

Thus far, a few people have bought the book, then asked if they could mail it to me so I could sign it and send it back. At this point, the person will have bought the book, paid to have it shipped to them, paid to send it to me, then paid to have it sent back. That just seems like overkill.

My thought was to have a button available on the novella's website where people could send me, say, $20 (or whatever). I would then order a copy of the novella myself and have it shipped to me via media mail. I would then personalize and sign the book and ship it back out, via priority mail, to whomever ordered it. In that sense, it becomes both a faster process and a more efficient process, since there isn't an extra shipment (and cost thereof) as part of the process.

The question is whether this seems like a worthwhile endeavor, or if I should just can the idea and wait until I either finish my quasi-anthology when I finish Recantation or when I finish the Greater Good novel.

Your thoughts?