Image: Nathan Pyle Gif: Nathan Pyle Gif: Nathan Pyle Gif: Nathan Pyle Image: Nathan Pyle Image: Nathan Pyle Image: Nathan Pyle Image: Nathan Pyle

Back in late March Nathan Pyle uploaded a series of GIFs to Reddit. The black and white illustrations depicted knowledge that every New Yorker should have in his or her arsenal like: “Beware the empty train car, it’s empty for a reason” or “One $20 umbrella will outlast four $5 umbrellas.” Seemingly basic stuff, but they were cleverly animated and stuck a chord will Reddit’s humor-loving loyalists. Within a few hours, Pyle’s post accumulated nearly 48,000 upvotes, which catapulted it to one of the most visible positions on the Internet. Of the more than 200,000 people who clicked on the link that day, one must have been from Harper Collins because in two weeks time, Pyle—following in the footsteps of viral Internet sensations before him—had a book deal.

>Pyle uses sites like Reddit as a virtual editor.

The book, NYC Basic Tips and Etiquette, is basically a continuation of that first Reddit post. When it goes on sale in April of next year, it will feature 144 pages of Pyle’s wry observational illustrations on life in the big city, though unlike the GIFs on Reddit, the book’s illustrations don't move (you can buy an animated e-book version, too). Pyle, for his part, isn’t new to the internet game.

In fact, this wasn’t even the first time he found one of his artistic projects boosted to Reddit’s front page. His “10 Ads Nobody Asked For” racked up more than 4 millions views via the site, and a couple of the illustrations he uploaded eventually became Threadless t-shirts.

Pyle uses sites like Reddit as a virtual editor that will give him an unbiased opinion of his work in progress. The artist says he gets his designs to about 80 percent complete and then he uploads them to the social site, that way his concept is clear, but he hasn’t invested too much time in something that might not be of interest to anyone other than himself. “As a lot of artists do, I experience this frustration of spending a lot of time on something and it doesn’t go anywhere,” he says.

“I found Reddit is one of the best places to cut your time down.” If it’s a hit, he’ll finish refining the illustration, but if it gets a thumbs down, he’ll either shelf it or spend time tweaking it based on the feedback he received. “The best advice I have for anyone is, put some of your idea out there, like a bait, and you’ll see if people are interested,” he says. "And if they are interested, they’ll ask if you have more. That’s when you tell them you do ... even if you don’t."

>The fan offered "startlingly specific" notes about the bathrooms.

Crowdsourcing approval isn’t for everyone, and it’s easy to imagine that some artists might find Pyle’s method to be too commercially focused. But the the way Pyle sees it, the more people who enjoy his work the better, so why not optimize it based on what they like? Right now, he’s uploading unpublished pages from his upcoming book to his Facebook page.

A recent post depicted a super simplified map of the Union Square subway station (“people love maps,” he notes). This led to an interaction with a fan who proceeded to fill him in on the state of Union Square restrooms. “I had a terrific conversation about all the bathrooms in Union Square,” he said. “They actually gave really specific, startlingly specific, notes about the bathrooms."

Gross? Maybe so. But it’s potential fodder for Pyle, who says he’s pretty good at taking inspiration from just about anywhere. “I realized that there’s a lot of fun and humor to be had by just talking about our mundane, everyday experiences.” Like, he says, “Air conditioner, rain, and garbage juice, and all those things that we experience just walking around.”

Pre-order NYC Basic Tips and Etiquette here.