Everyone has a story to tell. Over 9 million people in the United States and Canada give us a look into their stories through their vanity license plates. I’m sure you’ve seen them everywhere…while driving, in parking lots, in magazines and movies, on television shows and commercials, and, maybe, in your own driveway. But what do vanity license plates have to do with the birth of a book? Let me explain.

While driving along one day my business partner and best friend, Marc and I began noticing cars on the road with vanity license plates. Of course, we started playing the same “game” as most people…trying to figure out the messages and the meanings behind them. Then “the” question was asked: “Has anyone ever written a book about the compelling stories behind these vanity license plates?” Well, we researched it and found the answer to be no! Which brings us to the birth of our book: LCNS2ROM – License to Roam: Vanity License Plates and the Stories They Tell.

We realized that vanity plates are representative of a new form of spelling which is also used in text messaging, instant messaging, and emails. With this new form of spelling words and phrases are usually spelled phonetically, shortened by eliminating some letters (usually vowels), and spelled using numbers in place of some words or sounds (2 for “to”, 4 for “for” or 8 for the sound “ate”). We are calling this new phenomena SHRTSPL (Shortspell) and believe it helps to explain the popularity of vanity license plates.

Now I would like to invite all of you to follow the birth of our book, right here in The Montauk Sun. I will be writing a monthly article with updates on our search for compelling stories behind vanity plates, the writing and design of our book, our efforts to find an agent and publisher, and hopefully, finally, the publication.

Our vision for this book is to relate 25 compelling profiles of vanity plate owners, using pictures and prose. Of course, this meant we would need to find a photographer. We began going to local photography shows, searching the internet, and just plain asking around. Sometimes word of mouth is the best “search engine.” This worked for us. Marc, who is an attorney, happened upon an old neighbor from his time living in Manhattan, who he had done some work for. It turns out she is in the advertising industry and gave us the name of someone she knew. That’s how we found Nancy Ney, our photographer.

As well as being my first book, LCNS2ROM is also Nancy’s first. Nancy is a portraitist and commercial photographer who has photographed advertising campaigns for such clients as AT&T, Macy's, and Pepsi. Her photographs (www.nancyney.com) have won numerous awards, including a CLIO for a Columbian Coffee ad campaign. Nancy also happens to have a vanity plate, COW DOG which honors her dog Jesse, a rat terrier, whose gray and white coat reminds observers of a cow. So we knew Nancy was the photographer for LCNS2ROM. Not only is she a terrific photographer with a great eye, but she has already embraced the world of vanity plates.

Our LCNS2ROM team is also working with the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), which is the trade group for the DMVs in the United States and Canada. We stumbled across AAMVA because we were trying to research a simple question: “How many vanity license plates are there in the U.S. and Canada?” We figured we should know. After all, this would be one of our main target audiences. Evidently, we were the first ones to ask this question, because nobody knew. With AAMVA’s help, we surveyed the DMVs to find a number. AAMVA will be issuing a press release very shortly with the results. All I can tell you is that it is over 9 million! You’ll have to wait for the press release to find out exactly how many and the ranking of each jurisdiction.

Hopefully, if you haven’t really noticed vanity license plates before, you will now. I invite all of you to follow our progress, both our successes and failures, here in The Montauk Sun and on our website: www.LCNS2ROM.com. Our website features one of our first profiles, a married couple named Rudy and Ally who have two vanity plates: Donor and Donee. You may know what their plates say, but you’ll have to read their profile in order to appreciate the compelling love story behind them. You may also add your name to our email list to receive updates and even submit your own vanity plate for consideration in LCNS2ROM.

I look forward to your joining us on our long and winding road to publication. None of us realized how long that road would be, but we’re up for the journey and looking forward to the destination. Keep an eye out for those vanity plates!!

NTL NXT MNTH (Until Next Month),
~Stefan