--- title: You Can Be the Next ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’ for $10,000 description: Writers are selling character names—but no, it's not for personal gain. authors: - name: Susie Poppick url: https://money.com/author/susie-poppick/ at_money_since: 2013 articles: 117 covers: - Lifestyle - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Loans - Personal Finance - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://x.com/susiepoppick former_staff: true published: '2014-10-29T19:56:09.000Z' modified: '2024-04-16T04:38:10.000Z' section: Lifestyle tags: - Books - charitable donations - Charity - Dave Eggers - Donations - game of thrones - George RR Martin - girl with a pearl earring - John Grisham - Margaret Atwood - novels - Pat Barker - Scarlett Johansson - Stephen King - Zadie Smith word_count: 219 canonical: https://money.com/big-time-authors-auction-off-naming-rights-for-charity/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. 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[Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Book with cover with woman with mask and question mark over face](https://img.money.com/2014/10/141029_em_namingrights.jpg?crop=683px%2C649px%2C1484px%2C835px&quality=85) Tracy Chevalier, author of the 1999 [novel](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,993441,00.html)\-cum-[Scarlett-Johansson](https://time.com/3034230/scarlett-johansson-lucy-and-the-future-of-the-female-action-star/)\-flick *Girl With a Pearl Earring*, is one of seventeen authors auctioning off character names for upcoming novels—not to pay for [giant-mansion-hiding hedges](http://blog.sfgate.com/cwnevius/2014/01/10/danielle-steel-and-her-comically-off-putting-hedge-reveals-much-about-her/)—but to fund therapy for survivors of torture living in the U.K. Other authors participating include Margaret Atwood, Ken Follett, Julian Barnes, Pat Barker, Ian McEwan, Robert Harris, Will Self, and Zadie Smith. The November 20 auction is for books in the works (so no, you can't actually be Johan Vermeer's fictional servant this time) and you can start bidding [today](http://www.ibid-fft.com/auction/lots.php?page=1&cat=-1&type=silent). Chevalier says she auctioned off the name of a minor character in a book for £800 (about $1,300) last year but would require a bigger donation—to the tune of $10,000— for a main character. No matter how generous the donation, however, it's important your name isn't already famous for other reasons. "It's not going to work if you're Bill Gates," Chevalier says. This isn't the first time authors have used a similar stunt for charity: Stephen King, John Grisham, Dave Eggers, and *Game of Thrones* author George RR Martin have all [done the same](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/28/auction-naming-rights-charity-ian-mcewan-margaret-atwood-zadie-smith) for causes including a wolf sanctuary and food charity. The Kardashians did not respond to requests for comment on how much it would cost to star in the next edition of gaming app *[Kim Kardashian: Hollywood](https://time.com/2977187/kim-kardashian-hollywood-game-dante-inferno/).* ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/big-time-authors-auction-off-naming-rights-for-charity/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Lifestyle", "item": "https://money.com/lifestyle/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Art and Culture", "item": "https://money.com/art-and-culture/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "You Can Be the Next ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’ for $10,000" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/big-time-authors-auction-off-naming-rights-for-charity/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/big-time-authors-auction-off-naming-rights-for-charity/", "name": "You Can Be the Next ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’ for $10,000", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2014-10-29T19:56:09.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/big-time-authors-auction-off-naming-rights-for-charity/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/big-time-authors-auction-off-naming-rights-for-charity/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-16T04:38:10.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "You Can Be the Next ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’ for $10,000", "articleSection": "Lifestyle", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2014/10/141029_em_namingrights.jpg?crop=683px%2C649px%2C1484px%2C835px&quality=85", "width": 1012, "height": 569, "caption": "141029_EM_NamingRights" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Susie Poppick", "url": "https://money.com/author/susie-poppick/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/susie-poppick/#author", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/05/14-05-21_bio_author_poppick.jpg?quality=85&w=190&h=190&crop=1", "email": "susie_poppick@moneymail.com", "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/susiepoppick" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2014-10-29T19:56:09.000Z", "description": "Writers are selling character names—but no, it's not for personal gain.", "abstract": "Writers are selling character names—but no, it's not for personal gain.", "@id": "https://money.com/big-time-authors-auction-off-naming-rights-for-charity/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-04-16T04:38:10.000Z", "wordCount": 219, "keywords": [ "Books", "charitable donations", "Charity", "Dave Eggers", "Donations", "game of thrones", "George RR Martin", "girl with a pearl earring", "John Grisham", "Margaret Atwood", "novels", "Pat Barker", "Scarlett Johansson", "Stephen King", "Zadie Smith" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Lifestyle", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Contents/Culture and the arts", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contents/Culture_and_the_arts" ] } ] } ] } ```