Announcing Hail To The Victors 2013 Comment Count

Brian

2013-title

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.

Comments

freernnur5

April 4th, 2013 at 7:26 PM ^

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).

Naked Bootlegger

April 4th, 2013 at 8:09 PM ^

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.

Seth

April 5th, 2013 at 2:24 PM ^

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.

FreddieMercuryHayes

April 4th, 2013 at 7:52 PM ^

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.

stephenrjking

April 4th, 2013 at 7:53 PM ^

Didn't get it last year because we just don't have a lot of cash, but I just sprung for the football/hockey combo. I don't even mind the ebook idea at all.

Early August, football on the brain? This will be good.

bluewave720

April 4th, 2013 at 8:00 PM ^

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.

 

 

NFG

April 4th, 2013 at 8:28 PM ^

Ace, can I get like 1000 points or a members only jacket (size XL) for influencing the shirt idea that Brian is making?

detrocks

April 4th, 2013 at 10:36 PM ^

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.

Thorin

April 4th, 2013 at 11:09 PM ^

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. 

M-Wolverine

April 4th, 2013 at 10:59 PM ^

I don't see round table discussion....I live for the finish with a hearty Q&A for everyone. Even the summer of 2011, where it read like The Road written by someone on downers.

MLaw06

April 4th, 2013 at 11:48 PM ^

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!!