In case you haven’t been paying attention, I’m producing an anthology called POSTCARDS. The anthology features Harvey Pekar (you know, the American Splendor guy), Phil Hester (Eisner nominated writer of The Wretch, illustrator known for his run on Green Arrow with Kevin Smith), Tom Beland (Eisner nominated cartoonist behind True Story Swear to God), and 27 more of comics’ greatest creators.

There are 16 stories in the anthology. In each story, a creative team will take a postcard that was sent in the early 1900s and tell the story that they feel is behind the card. The book is packed with tales of quarantines, world wars, secret admirers, sickly mothers – hell; it even has a superhero story, of sorts.

When I pitch the book to people, most of the time they just “get it”.

“It’s an anthology where creators come up with stories inspired by antique postcards, some of them mailed over a hundred years ago.”

“That’s awesome.”

Some people don’t get it, though. They ask, “So creators are making stories based on the postcard art?” It’s usually cleared up with another sentence or two, but what if you don’t have that luxury? What if you’re not face-to-face with the person? What if you send a retailer an email and he reads the first line and says, “corny?” An anthology is hard to pitch in a sentence; a lot goes into a retailer or customer’s consideration. Who is in the book? What genre of stories can be expected? What will the art look like?

I came up with a fun little idea, hopefully one you all can adapt for your own books.

I’m going to purchase a bunch of modern postcards – travel, humorous, motivational – whatever I can find for cheap. On the postcard, I’ll write the text from one of the postcards in the book, something like:

“Dear [shopowner],

I received your card this morning and will say that I am not afraid of the quarantine. If you can come when you said on Sat. eve. all right.”

And then follow it up with, “To be continued July 2007…” put quick hits – publisher, talent, website, contact info, etc.

Bam – you made them see the book.

So, I guess the “big idea” here is to send something personalized to major retailers that’ll make them understand, instantly, what your book is about.

For a discussion, let’s talk about your own book and what we can do to implement this idea.

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