Short Summary
Book Fight! is a weekly literature and writing podcast hosted by Mike Ingram and Tom McAllister, both of whom are writers, college professors, and editors at Barrelhouse magazine. Every Monday since April 2012, we've posted a new ~60-90 minute episode for free. All 100+ episodes in the archive have remained free to download.
In a review of the show, The AV Club wrote:
"Overall, Book Fight! tends to be an enjoyable chat with two dudes who get passionate about the craft, call out authors on their bullshit, shout-out great lit when they read it, and consume a lot of pop culture. Book club with these guys isn’t the tedious chore it can be when sitting around the living room of someone you don’t even like, drinking bad wine. Sometimes they fight. "
We love doing the show and have a ton of fun doing it, but it is a lot of work and there are ongoing expenses. We're asking regular listeners (and new listeners who want to support independent voices in literature) to donate to the show so that we can keep it going, continue improving it, and keep it free to download each week.
We hope you'll consider your donation a small subscription fee for the 60+ hours of free entertainment we upload every week. Your donations will help us to finance equipment upgrades, cover ongoing administrative costs, and (we hope) pay for more live shows on the road.
What We Need & What You Get
This year, we're trying to raise $5,000. Any progress toward this ultimate goal will help us to achieve a number of incremental goals:
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Paying ongoing administrative costs: web hosting on Wordpress and file hosting on Libsyn, plus the cost of new books (only one book in the show's history has been sent as a review copy, and while we like throwing our money at authors and publishers--especially independent publishers--this is an out-of-pocket cost that does add up).
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Equipment upgrades: we'd love to get a fourth microphone so we can accommodate an extra guest from time to time, and also higher quality mics to improve sound quality on the show. We'd also like to get equipment to improve our mobile recording capabilities so that we can accommodate guests who can't make it to New Jersey to record. This would widen our range of possible guests and allow us to bring more new and exciting voices to the show.
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Live shows on the road! We love the community that has sprung up around this show and we'd really like to bring the show out to our fans. This past year, we hosted our first live show here in Philadelphia, and we'd love to do live shows in other cities--including yours. But touring costs a lot of money, and we are far from rich! Note that this is probably the biggest expense on this list.
- Any cash left over will be treated as a (small) salary for our work on the show, which is posted free and receives no ad revenue of any kind.
- There are lots of fun perks for donors!
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If we reach our goal of $5000, we'll record another bonus episode based on a book chosen by our listeners. Last year, you voted for us to discuss Silver Linings Playbook, in an episode that turned out to be a fan favorite. What will it be this year?
- Because Book Fight is an offshoot of Barrelhouse, a registered 501 (c)(3) non-profit literary publisher, your donation is 100% tax deductible.
The Impact
We've been doing this show for a while now, and we think our track record speaks for itself. We've done several fund raisers, and each time we've come through for you with a better show and great giveaways.
Look, we don't want to overstate our importance, but there's a great value to having independent literary voices in the world. We review all kinds of books, from canonical texts to works in translation to graphic novels to small press story collections, and we do it without being beholden to any corporate interests, so you know you're getting a no-bullshit take on the literary world. Agree or disagree with our opinions, you know you can trust our show to be a unique, honest voice in a lit world that is sometimes so concerned with politeness that it's hard to tell what's hype and what's real.
Risks & Challenges
We've got a track record here. For nearly 3 years, we've produced weekly episodes, plus occasional bonus episodes. You can count on us to keep working hard to produce a high-quality show for you. Your donation is your vote of confidence in what we're doing, and it's one we take to heart. You can trust that the money you contribute will go to good use in sustaining this show.
The greatest challenge we might face is in figuring out the logistics of planning and organizing live shows on the road. These events require lots of coordination with local venues, guests, and media. It's possible that we could try to organize a road trip and it will be a disaster. But we have experience in this area, too, thanks to the many events we've organized as part of Barrelhouse, and we have a large network of friends in the lit community, so we're confident we can count on these resources to help us make the best use of your contributions.
Other Ways You Can Help
Even if you can't contribute, we hope you'll help us spread the word, using Indiegogo's share tools and telling your friends on social media.
You can also support the show by rating us in iTunes, Stitcher, or whatever service you use for downloading and listening to podcasts. And explaining to your literature-loving friends a) what a podcast is, and b) why they should start listening to this one.
Thanks for your ongoing support of the show!