Published: October 22, 2009 12:50 pm      

LITERATURE: No secret to Web site’s success

Frank Warren is a hard man to shock.

The founder of Postsecret, the online community art project that calls for people to anonymously mail never-shared tidbits on postcards, Warren has received nearly 500,000 postcards since creating the Web site Jan. 1, 2005. So he’s literally seen pretty much everything.

“Nothing shocks me anymore, but I’m surprised every time I go to the mailbox,” said Warren, who receives about 20 postcards every day and saves them all in his Maryland home. “I’m surprised how many people still take an interest in this.”

Each Sunday, Warren posts a handful of cards on his site. The secrets contained on those cards might be inspirational, freeing, criminal or mundane, but millions of people worldwide have visited the site to read them.

Warren has also published a series of compilation books featuring postcards that share a common theme. The latest, “Postsecret: Confessions on Life, Death and God,” represents what Warren said is an increasingly common topic of discussion among fans of the project.

“When I was getting started five years ago, it felt almost like a lark,” he said. “But the confessions seem to be getting more spiritual or soulful ... one constant is the surprise and empathy that especially young people seem to have when they come to the Web site and they connect with the secrets.”

Postsecret’s success hasn’t made Warren nearly as rich as is he is famous. Many of the proceeds from the project go to Hopeline, a suicide prevention network, to which hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone courtesy of Postsecret. The books have been popular with readers, as the latest release is No. 5 on the nonfiction portion of the Wall Street Journal’s best-seller list.

The books allow the site to remain the largest Web site not to feature paid advertisements, and they’ve also spawned a series of college lectures. Warren’s October 2008 visit to the University at Buffalo spawned a story that appears in the latest book: A student read aloud a secret that he found in one of Warren’s books at the school bookstore (Postsecret fans are encouraged to write secrets on paper and leave the papers in books), and the girl who spoke after him said she was the one who wrote the secret.

Sharing such experiences is what makes his live appearances so meaningful, Warren said.

“Secrets can be owned by more than one person,” said Warren, who was interviewed by phone while in a Boston hotel room, where he awaited a speaking engagement that evening. “They inspire hope.”

While the closest Warren is scheduled to come to Western New York is Erie, Pa., on Dec. 10, there’s a chance that Postsecret lovers could get a lot more of what they cherish. He’s turned down multiple offers, but Warren said he’s working on a proper platform to deliver the “stories behind the secrets” via television or feature film. He said the structure of “This American Life,” the Midwest radio program that morphed into a TV show, would be an ideal model to follow.

He’s also become adept at social networking, using Facebook, Twitter and other such Web sites to further spread the project’s message.

“I don’t think Postsecret would be the same without this new kind of communication technology ... which allow us to have new types of conversations,” he said. “It brings people together in the real world as well as online ... it gives me great hope about the future of the Web.”

“The Most Trusted Stranger in America” will continue to tour into the new year, post secrets every Sunday and connect with millions of people whom he will likely never meet. Where Postsecret goes next, he said, is up to those people.

“I knew if I could earn the trust of strangers ... it could be something really special for me, something that I would value,” he said. “But this isn’t something I expected at all from the beginning. I was shocked when it resonated with so many people.

“We just want to do what’s best for the project ... I’ll just continue to try to follow where Postsecret leads.”

Contact Paul Laneat 693-1000, ext. 116.