eBay

Apparently the First Amendment Project is offering an auction on eBay wherein you can purchase the opportunity to have your name in some author's next novel. What a bizarre world we live in.

Some of the auctions are over, which means that someone has paid $3338.88 (no kidding--apparently we want to have that additional 88 cents) to have their name appear "at least once" in Amy Tan's next novel.

Or how about paying $25,100 for a character name in a Stephen King novel about cell phones and zombies? At least he promises to kill your character if you're a female.

Brad Meltzer makes me chuckle with his offer: Immortality. Or at least a character named after you in my next novel. As for the character, it may be someone brilliant, or just as easily someone of ill repute. But I won't just make you a waiter that appears and is gone with nothing much to say but, "And what can I get you to drink?" All I ask is: no middle initials, no fake names, a good sense of humor, and that you have the consent of whoever it's named after so you don't sue me and all that.

My top three, though, are (in reverse order):

3. Dave Eggers (currently at $761). The winner will be featured in a strange illustrated story I'm working on called "The Journey of the Fishes Overland." The winner, or someone of her/his choosing, will be encountered by the traveling fish in question, as they travel over land. It could also be a family, a house, an address, whatever. I get to decide why the fishes see this person/place, and what's said by/to or done by/to the person/place.

2. Chris Offut. The name of a biker bar, which is the site of a wet T-shirt contest in Louisville, Kentucky. The protagonist of the story reluctantly enters the contest, due to financial despair and the urgings of her roommate. The protagonist loses, but her roomie wins--just like real life! This name will appear in a book of stories called LUCK, that will be published in 2006 or 2007. You can use your name, a business name, or a friend's name. Or perhaps you are the lucky owner of a biker bar in Louisville that hosts wet T-shirt contests!

1. Lemony Snicket (auctioned for $6350), wherein he tells you up front that he won't even spell your name right. An utterance by Sunny Baudelaire in Book the Thirteenth. Pronunciation and/or spelling may be slightly 'mutilated.'