Announcing Hail To The Victors 2013
It's back, it's being Kickstarted, and we're totally doing a second book this year: a basketball/hockey combo mag that will launch in September. Note: this is what's called a "stretch goal" if we make 50k—which we did last year—the basketball/hockey book will be paper. Otherwise, eBook.
Here's the spiel:
Hail To The Victors is a yearly magazine from MGoBlog that previews football. It's like Athlon or whatever, except instead of two pages by an intern who doesn't know who Dennis Norfleet is you get 128 pages from the kind of internet obsessives that start their own websites just so someone might read what they have to say.
As an independent publication, we can do things like have a beautiful cover with Denard Robinson or Taylor Lewan on it unencumbered by "TEN WAYS TO MAKE YOUR PUNTER BEHAVE," or have heartfelt personal memoirs that made our previous publisher break out in hives. This is indie, which means it can be weird, which means it can be good in ways other previews can't.
Each edition comes with:
FULL TEAM PREVIEW. Written by Brian Cook of MGoBlog; goes down the roster in excruciating, unbowdlerized detail. Yeah, Athlon, put "unbowdlerized" in your magazine.
OPPONENT PREVIEWS. Each scheduled opponent is previewed; you can know how much fear and hope to have.
TWISTED BLUE STEEL. Michigan's players and coaches profiled. We say goodbye to Denard.
TECHNICAL DOSSIER. Nitty-gritty details on Michigan's schemes, recruiting, and prospects. Stats and diagram heavy. This year's focus: what is an Al Borges offense going to look like?
OLD BLUE. 20 or so pages about Michigan's history. This year's section features Ron Kramer stories. Unedited Ron Kramer stories.
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THE SHIRT
This year's Kickstarter exclusive shirt plays off the awesome "Sports" GIF Ace put together of Facepalm Guy and Rapture guy.
Not quite final. We're tweaking it to look better.
Many thanks to both Facepalm Guy and Rapture Guy for being cool about this.
You can also get last year's Photobomb shirt:
If neither of those strike your fancy we'll have a half-dozen popular MGoShirts available.
WHY IS THE GOAL 30K INSTEAD OF 20K?
We anticipated we'd sell a significant amount of books post-launch last year, which was not really the case. 30K is basically what it costs--it's actually still a little short--and we'd like to not lose our shirts. If this year's like last year we won't have a problem.
NEW BONUS NEW NEW NEW BONUS BONUS
Basketball! Hockey! We're launching a second book covering basketball and hockey. We project it will be 2/3rds to 3/4ths basketball given the level of interest in the two sports -- oh and that whole Final Four thing. We are committed to doing the book either way. But here's one of those Stretch Goal things: if we don't hit 50k, it'll be an eBook. If we do hit 50k, it'll be a real magazine and everything.
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Risks and challenges
Last year we had issues collating and shipping effectively; this year we plan to address those by using a custom solution at UGP's storefront instead of the many-points-of-failure system we used before.
One thing we learned: we can't accommodate unique requests (ie, I want ten books sent to these addresses) effectively. Hopefully you find something to your interests in the offerings; to better fulfill the promises we're making here we have to hold it to just the listed options.
Is this year going to have another article by Chris Brown of Smart Football? Loved the one about the defense and Mattison last year (along with all the other articles).
That is the plan.
Great news!
JUST TAKE MY DAMN MONEY
Move to 'Murrica.
Pretty late to the party there
i was the 9th person to donate,by the time i was done it was at 25 lol. $30,000 will be reached by tomorrow afternoon.
lol yap, this is the most surefire kickstarter project since they did got that veronica mars film goin.
Well, this is starting off much better than PSU's kickstarter. Not that I was worried, though.
I missed out on the photobomb t-shirt last year due to poor.
THANK YOU WOOKIEJESUSBRIAN!
I am SO backing this one. This is great news.
Q: I really want the photobomb shirt, but I'm worried it will scare my children (no offense, Brian...you're sexy and all, but the soft pretzel-chewing face with wildly flowing hair is way intense). Should I get it now and not wear it until my kids aren't afraid of make-believe things like Sasquatch? Or do I just get the sweet Face Palm/Rapture T-shirt and live for the moment? Decisions, decisions.
Also - I was the first to fund. Wish that meant something other than my cool story bro moment.
because i was just about to ask for $30 back from last year.
I remember reading on this site where everyone was complaining about waiting for their magazine last year.
I think I'll just buy it in store...
Some of that will be fixed this year -- I engaged a new printer who allows us to ship directly from them, for a fee. So we made that one of the kickstarter levels. Should arrive 1 to 2 weeks earlier.
The rest should be way better than last year simply because we did a terrible organization job last year. We had to go through thousands of emails individually to get the orders right. This year we are using our own form so we'll have that information automatically.
Damn, I already spent my yearly Kickstarter publication allotment on a Penn State publication that was solicited to me. Kind of feel bamboozled on that one; I mean, I don't even like Penn State. Shame. I would have enjoyed this one a lot more.
Looking forward to it. Money flowing in fast.
But while I was surfing around Kickstarter, I found another project I want to back that ended 7 days ago. Does anybody know how to, well, I guess "kick" an already kicked project? I feel like maybe I'm just too stupid to click on the right icon.
Once it's funded it's too late. Hopefully it is something that you will still get to buy at a later date, though possibly not as soon or for a little more money than if you had found the Kickstarter in time.
Thanks for the info, I was afraid of that. Oh well, it's all good. The thing about Kickstarter isn't that I get it, it's that we all get it.
I did the option to put my name in it, will you contact me for the information or do you put my kickstarter profile name in the book?
everyone's info will be collected once the thing funds.
But I'd really like to see both Lewan and DG on the cover. It's the start of a new era in M Footbaw, and they're our leaders.
Excited to support this again. That shirt is terrible though.
20% funded in <2 hrs.
No $10,000 "Brian shows up at your tailgate in a Terrelle Pryor jersey" this year? Shame.
I love that the guy wearing the photobomb shirt is being photobomed by that guy in the doorway.
Now, excuse me while I go to get my credit card.
Is that an option for the sports shirt? It would better show the dichotomy - despite all the experience you never see that shit coming.
Edit: or maybe sell two versions.
Should put one on the back and one on the front, not sure which one where.
Go money go! I want that basketball/hockey thing in a real book damnit!
This is great and definitely in for football and baketball. Amazing work and dedication to this idea. Thank you!
Canadian love, any options to get this? Will they be released as ebooks as well as hard copy?
Man, last year's HTTV was so great that I was excited at the opportunity to contribute to this year's issue--- and a basketball/hockey one? Definitely sign me up. I've already contributed and look forward to seeing you guys shatter your goal again this year.
Canadian love, any options to get this? Will they be released as ebooks as well as hard copy?
Forget Canada (it's mostly ice and polar bears), South Korea needs photobomb shirts to fend off the North's agression. Fail to comply and I will eat your dog.
Wow, 35% at 11:30pm on the first day;
I'm expecting this to be completely funded when I wake up in the morning.
and take my money
I pledged $150 to get the name in there... I was thinking about the $200, but I honestly couldn't think of two sentences that were worth putting in. *brainfreeze* I'm looking forward to reading both the books!!
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