This is a very good idea. Various writers are auctioning off the fictional names in various books on behalf of the First Amendment Project. For example, Chris Ware is offering: "The appearance in name and approximate drawn likeness, either as a 'supporting character' or more forthright personna, of the auction's 'winner' in an upcoming comic strip by the author/cartoonist, to appear sometime before the end of 2008 in serial (probably newspaper) form, and later to be reprinted in collected form at an unspecified, and probably quite alarmingly later, date." And Douglas Preston is offering: "Want to get killed? The winning bidder's name will be immortalized as a character who dies or is murdered in my next novel, to be published in 2008. The name you choose cannot be my name or the name of any character in a previous novel. I'll need to have written permission to use the name. I'd be happy to discuss with the winning bidder my plans for the hideous death of the character in question, and I'm always willing to listen to any ideas, although naturally the final decision as to the character and his or her fate will be my own. A signed first edition copy of the published book is part of the deal."
Excellent idea. Advertising could do something like this. We use fictional names all the time in ads and stuff.
Via Neil Gaiman, who explains the genesis of the whole thing here.
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