Help with call to database in postbit hook

[Parker Clack]

I am trying to get a total of posts from the post table so that I can include that in my postbit template.

I have tried using the following in the postbit_start hook.

$postcount=$db->query_first("SELECT COUNT(*) AS posts FROM post WHERE postid AND post.visible=1");
$totalposts=$postcount[posts];

Which gets me an undefined call error in the postbit.php file.

Any ideas how to make this work?

Thanks,
Parker