Okay, Falling Angels, it's time to step up the sales patter. I need your help, and I need it right now.

The next couple of weeks are prime ordering times for comic retailers in this month's PREVIEWS. Which means that if they're going to order Hope Falls #1, they're going to do it now.

And this is where you come in. We can convince the readers to go in when it comes out, but the retailers must have the copies to sell them. So the retailers, the good ol' local comic shop is the first line of our attack.

There are a lot of you who read this. I'm also putting this on my facebook, column and myspace, so although there's a lot of crossover, we should still have a goodly number of people who like Hope Falls and want it to succeed.

I don't ask much. It's actually very simple.

Firstly - create a 'ghost' network. You have ten friends who love comics? Then email them. Tell them about Hope Falls. Ask them to contact their stores for you as a personal favour. Yeah, I'm all about making you owe people for me. Ask them to check out www.hope-falls.com and see for themselves why it is a great deal. But if only a hundred of you do this, then we have almost a thousand people contacting stores. And that's where we start to do great.

(I'm ignoring the fact that the hundred who do this will all know the same people, so we'll end up with a hundred and ten, or something like that)

But if we get that ten to contact another ten, then we should, theoretically be able to cover the globe by Thursday.

So - you've emailed your mates - what do you do then? Well, I'm betting that all of you have one, maybe two comic stores that you visit regurally. So, this week do me a favour and call them. Pop in and speak to them. The conversation only needs to be as follows...

"Hi, can you tell me if you've done your ordering from this month's PREVIEWS yet? No? Great - there's a comic I really think you should order a couple of copies of. It's called Hope Falls, it's in the M section under Markosia, and it's getting a ton of internet buzz. Could you order me one and maybe one for the shelf? It's code is SEP073850."

Of course you can vary this, use the cut out order form that is available on www.hope-falls.com and take it in, phone them up, get all your friends to call en masse - all I ask is that the comic stores get a call. Get a visit. Learn that there is this cool new book called Hope Falls and if they want to get it, they should right now.

Feel free to offer them treats - tell them that I make a statement here that any comic store that emails me with their details on mrtonylee@gmail.com will get sent the first two issues as PDFs so that they can make their own minds up. If you're friends with them, ask them what else could be used to sell copies? Would they be interested in a signing?

And don't be worried that 'oh, well loads of people who read your blog go to my comic store - I won't bother because someone will have done it' - I'd rather they had multiple enquiries. Really. And if you're worried about that, check your yellow pages and find another store. Phone them up and ask them! I called over a hundred stores in the U.S last week and every one of them was positive. Retailers need to know what comics are popular. You're telling them.

So go to it, my eager minions. And let me know by replying here how you got on. Let's give Hope Falls pre-orders one last big push.