There is only one true rookie card in literature.

The first printing of an author’s debut novel, made before anyone knows if it will matter.

The Genesis.

The Substrate of the Myth.

That's the only true "first." The most collectible of artifacts — the Rookie Card.

Every dollar of the multi-million (sometimes multi-billion) upside that eventually accrues to those artifacts is created years later by culture.

A cheap first printing? It’s just “first”. It could be worth something, but it’s capped.

A debut novel’s first run — the rookie card — should be a deliberately scarce, museum-grade art object.

That uncaps the upside value on those artifacts.

And it's an opportunity that has been squandered for every canon book in history.

We are not squandering it.

Plum Candy is a debut novel by a 17-year-old unknown.

10,000 copies.

One printing.

Plum Candy: The Rookie-Card Edition

• Entirely printed and bound in Japan on luxurious Takeo “wet-touch” paper
• Smyth-sewn with metallic thread into a lay-flat, square-back monolith
• Hand-signed and hand-numbered by Aaliyah Corley while she was still 17
• Housed in a charcoal-linen clamshell box (the Sarcophagus), lined in black suede, with magnetic closure and grosgrain pull

All made to feel like the Origin of the Myth, that it is, in your hands.

But here’s the twist:

Not one dollar from this printing goes to the author or some publisher.

It all goes directly into building the very culture that substantiates the legend.

100,000+ free copies of a teacher’s edition mailed to every known high-school English teacher in America.

Grants for the turnkey curriculum including the audiobook / ebook combo for all their students.

Low cost copies mailed to everyone driving the pulse of culture.

As the cultural significance of the novel grows, that increases its effectiveness as a teaching tool.

The whole point is to make high school kids less dumb, while giving them a hero worth emulating.

Normally, you dream of donating to a charity to have this type of impact.

Now you get to fund the exact same charity —

But with an outside shot at a power law payoff.

Most literary first editions never appreciate; you should assume this one won’t either.

If it doesn’t hit, you’re out the money you wanted to give away to help kids anyway. It’s STILL a great story you can tell your friends. “I knew it was a long shot, but we helped some kids and tried to give them a hero. I had to take a swing at that. It was a beautiful idea, and Plum Candy’s a great book, have you read it?”

But if it becomes canon and you passed?

Well, then you passed on Uber and you hate kids.

Your name will be part of the legend either way.

Villain or hero?

Choose the legacy you want.