You wrote a great book for young adults or teens and you want to increase your readership. You want those new Fans to connect to you so they will run out and buy all your books.
One way to do that is by having a book signing event that might be combined with you reading out loud part of your book. As you greet each new fan, you will sign their copy of your book and maybe include a personal note. That extra touch you feel will really make the moment special and they will now have a keepsake to remind them of what a nice person you are.
Or maybe not! 
What if they can’t read your signature or that special little message you wrote? Not because your handwriting might be a little sloppy, it is because you wrote in cursive!!
That new young Fan will stare at what you thought was a witty or kind message and have no idea what you said!! Any points you scored in that special shared moment are now gone.
Yes, it is true, children are no longer being taught cursive in many school districts across the country. If you want to stay connected to your audience, you might as well get ahead of the game and start training yourself to print all hand written communications. Practice makes perfect!
If your audience is mainly Baby Boomers, you are still in luck. Though, they are starting to have near vision issues, so you might as well print to them, too! Oh heck, just toss out all your creative and beautiful penmanship and print, print, print!
If the idea of no longer signing your name in cursive is too much to handle, think of a cool graphic or symbol to use that you can quickly scribble. Your fans will learn to know it’s you by that symbol, and no one has to actually read it. It would also work for those who speak other languages than you.
Am I sad we are loosing the skill of cursive writing? Yes, I am. I am also an artist and seeing a beautiful flowing word makes me smile. I am also sad because there are so many wonderful historical documents that are in cursive that they will not be able to read, from the Declaration of Independence to an old family letter. They will be dependent on someone else “translating it” so they can know what it says. The first person account will be lost to them.
In summary: I want you to build a loyal following by connecting with them on a personal level. One of those ways is to make sure YOUR handwritten messages to all your Fans now and in the future, can be read and understood. The way to do that is to avoid cursive handwriting. Practice printing so when the rush is on, you will naturally fall into that style.
Good luck,
Atwood
If beautiful handwriting is something you enjoy, check out my article in my other blog: Maplewood Press. Click on John Hancock’s signature above to go there.
Be sure and check out the other articles under the Writing Workshop title.
https://www.archeratwood.com/blog/
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