Celebrity author events bring publicity, customers, and sales to bookstores. But it can be difficult to entice a celebrity to your location. With the introduction of the LongPen™, that is a problem of the past.

The LongPen™ is the world's first long-distance, real-time, real-pen-and-ink signing device and it allows authors to interact with readers and sign autographs anywhere in the world without actually being there.

With time, distance, and expense no longer a problem to where authors can appear, smaller cities, towns, or countries not normally considered for publicity tours can finally be included.

Operating over the Internet, the LongPen™ comes with video conferencing, enabling live interactions between author, audience, and fans. Authors can read, take questions from the audience, and have an intimate one-on-one with fans while signing their books. A digital recording of the event is available to upload to your website.

For a small fee (which goes to charity), fans can download the video file of their interaction with the author, which they can share with friends, family, and the world at-large through their own website, MySpace.com page, YouTube.com, or their cell phones, iPods, and other digital video devices.

The LongPen™ will also build your book club business. Attracting repeat customers is the key to successful bookselling and club members are some of the most desirable clients a bookstore can have. The LongPen™ gives groups access to authors via the system, making your store an ideal place for clubs to gather and to buy books.

The LongPen™ will also enhance your profile with the media. Advance interviews can be conducted via the system, drawing journalists into your store to speak with authors - and helping to draw your store into their stories.

The LongPen™ consists of two units. The Author End features a video screen, a bit pad, and a magnetic pen; the Book End - which will be stationed in your store - includes another screen, a document holder, and an electronic arm holding the pen.