CLIC Sargent and authors team up for 2017 Get in Character campaign
Melanie May | 27 February 2017 | News
CLIC Sargent is running its Get in Character campaign for the fourth consecutive year this March, offering people the chance to be immortalised in the next book from a top author.
A seven-day Get in Character eBay auction is running from Sunday 26th February to Sunday 5th March, which gives readers the chance to bid to have a character named after them.
Since launching in 2014, the campaign has raised more than £24,000 for CLIC Sargent, and this year over 100 authors are taking part including Graham Norton, David Baddiel, Andy McNab, Michael Morpurgo and Holly Smale.
Signed books are also available from Laura Trott, Jason Kenny, Jeffery Archer and Anne Tyler, as well as signed one-off illustrations from Axel Scheffler (The Gruffalo), Chris Riddell (the Children’s Laureate), French illustrator Jean Jullien and children’s illustrator Emily Gravett. The campaign also offers any budding writers the chance to have their work critiqued by authors Julie Cohen, Claire Dyer, Karla Brading or Eve Seymour.
Graham Norton said:
“Get in Character is a fantastic way to help a vital charity to support young lives in their fight against cancer. I’m thrilled to be able to offer the name of a character in my next book to help CLIC Sargent in its mission to stop cancer destroying young lives.”
Auctioning character names in books has proved a successful way of raising funds for charity. In 2014, London’s Air Ambulance raised £120,000 at a gala event celebrating its 25th anniversary, including £30,000 from one person for the chance to have their name immortalised as a character in Anthony Horowitz’s next James Bond novel.
Ian Rankin also auctioned a character name to raise funds for The Independent’s 2001 Christmas appeal, while last year’s Freedom from Torture Immortality Auction, which launched in 2000, saw authors including Tracy Chevalier, William Boyd, and Louis de Bernières donate a character in a book, raising over £30,000 for the charity.
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.