"The Hive" is a collaborative brainstorming project, open to everyone, with the ultimate goal of creating a new market for comics instead of simply poaching fans from the existing one. Each column will present a specific idea, which we will then work on to make better as a group. I advise all those new here to read the FAQ before posting -- there are rules, and posts that break them will be deleted.

I spent all of last week putting together a pitch package for POSTCARDS because I needed to send it out to some people last weekend. Despite your intentions with your book, whether you plan on publishing it yourself or selling it to a publisher, you’re going to eventually need to pitch it to someone. Distributors, retailers, wholesalers, agents, publicists -- CUSTOMERS -- you’re going to need to sell someone on your book.

I’m not going to focus on customers today; that’ll be for the next article. I instead want to talk about making the pitch to people who will be supporting your book or buying a couple of hundred copies of it. And I’d like to do that by presenting 11 of the 28 pages I put together for the POSTCARDS pitch package and taking you through each one.

I didn’t want to do the one-sheet with several pages of art; that’s kind of lame. Even with the talent I have in POSTCARDS, to pitch the book and all of its creators -- most of whom are award-nominated or winning -- on a single page doesn’t do the book or them justice. So I broke the rules a bit and just made one really good looking pitch with a layout that’s easy on the eyes and encourages the reader to browse through the pitch for whatever might catch their attention. The design can be expanded to however many pages I want.

12 preview pages

Let’s start with the cover. Originally I was going to make it a transparency but it looked pretty bad when all was said and done so I just printed it as is. It tells the reader two things: the book is titled (and is about) POSTCARDS and the postcards driving the book are of the used and worn-down variety.

Go to the first page and you see the design I used for the entire pitch, giving it a consistent flow. The patchwork logo for POSTCARDS coming after the title page gives the reader the feeling that this book is containing the unwieldy mess of postcards on the front, taming them, even. We’re pulling stories out of the noise, after all.

As far as using the backside of postcards for the copy, the book is about postcards; it’s really that simple. If you’re pitching a western, you should go ahead and the write the copy cleverly on warning posters. If it’s about a musician, you can put the copy on CD inserts. A comic about street racing can have the copy placed on freeway signs. Breathe some life into your pitch; make the presentation’s design tell the reader something about your story.

This page also doubles as my one-sheet. I’m not talking about the stories yet or the creators, I’m just letting the reader know what the anthology is and how it came about; why it needed to be made and why it will need to be read. In the book itself, I plan on acting as the narrator who takes the readers through the stories, so I need to establish my voice in the pitch and make the person I’m pitching to feel at home.

Next, instead of diving right into the talent, I move to the editors, mainly because I’m the guy interacting with folks – the face of the book – and I want people to know who I am and what I’ve done. Once again, I stick with the patchwork logo and the “written on a postcard” design, keeping it consistent. The nice big headings at the top of the page will allow the reader to flip through and instantly know what the page is about without having to read any of the copy. From there, they can decide whether or not to delve deeper into the respective content.

Then we get to the talent. The positioning of the talent is very important. I tried to spread out the more recognizable names and started with Harvey Pekar since he’s the most recognizable of the bunch to most of the cats who will be receiving this pitch.

Each story has a bio for all of the talent involved. I tried to craft the language so that it appeals to the book market, focusing on graphic novels even if they’re not the talent’s strongest work, and namedropping publishers, awards, and nominations whenever I can. Since most of the people receiving this don’t know much about comics, I try to dumb it down and explain as much as I can in a single paragraph.

Each talent page also has a description of the story so that people can get a feel for the tone of the book. For POSTCARDS this is especially important; I want people to know that this isn’t just some book with guys running around in tights, that these are well-researched and well-written stories.

Then we follow up with some art samples to show that these stories are actually being produced, that this isn’t me blowing my load too early, keeping it consistent when I can, namely with the patchwork logo as a header on each page.

In the 28-page pitch there’s three creative teams before getting to Phil Hester. Since I’m trying to brand POSTCARDS as a story driven anthology, I don’t focus much on Phil’s very long illustration resume; I bill him as one of the best writer/illustrators in comics today, a statement I stand by 100%. I even close the pitch talking about OVERSIGHT, probably one of Phil’s best books which also, a) came out this year, b) is a trade paperback, c) is published by Image Comics, and d) is a celebration of Phil’s short stories. For the guy who’s not reading comics regularly, pushing OVERSIGHT makes Phil look like the master of the anthology (which he is) but the way you word makes everyone else know that.

Again, a description of his story and a couple of sample pages; I put in unfinished pages when I can because it makes the pitch a bit more dynamic and gives some insight into the process. It also let’s the people reading the pitch see the amount of work that goes into the book and clues them into potential back matter.

I believe there’s one person between Phil and Tom Beland in the 28-page pitch. Tom’s Marvel romance books were great but for this pitch it’s all about True Story Swear to God. Eisner-nominated, collected into trades, fan-approved, moving to Image Comics; for the people we’re going after with this pitch it’s all about TSSTG. I follow it up with some rough pages like I did with Hester’s for the same reasons.

The rest of the pitch includes character sketches, more sample pages, creator bios, environments; it’s a full meal. The one thing it’s currently missing is a contact page and that’s coming. But I do like how it’s coming along and feedback would be appreciated, but to really get some discussion going, how about some of you tell me about your books and maybe we can all collaborate and design a pitch package for it. I think that would be constructive.

So get to talking…