Tuesday 12 February 2013

ONE WEEK TO GO

Hey there, booklovers!

It's been a while, yes, but we've been busy. Making mischief. Up to no good. Taking sexy pictures, and fun things like that. And now we're writing today to tell you, most excitedly, that we are exactly ONE WEEK away from launching Bare It For Books into the world at large.

That's right. In one week, we'll reveal our list of author participants in its entirety. In one week, our Indiegogo fundraising campaign will also go live, so when it does, be sure to head on over to Indiegogo, search "Bare It For Books", and find out about the cool swag you can score if you donate to the campaign.

We're pretty stoked over here at the BIFB headquarters, and we can't wait to have everyone share in our excitement. Here's to getting lusty for literature on a grand scale!

We also thought we'd take this little moment to talk a bit about the decisions that went into curating our 2014 list of nearly-nude authors. Because here's the thing: six months ago, when we conceived of the project, we thought that pulling together a list of people who wanted to get nearly-naked for literature would be easy.

That's right. No problem! we said. Look at how many writers have already responded and said yes! Putting a list together will be a piece of cake!

Turns out, though, that this couldn't have been farther from the truth. Because here's how things break down:

-- We were adamant that the calendar had to have equal representation of gender. So twelve authors meant, naturally, six men and six women.
-- We were also adamant that the calendar needed to try and be as diverse as possible. That meant people from all over Canada, writing in all manner of different genres, working in all manner of different mediums. And when you can only choose SIX men and SIX women, suddenly, sifting through genre and writing styles and regional representation becomes quite difficult.
-- We also had to leave room in case people needed to withdraw participation. And when that happened (and it did), sometimes we had to re-jig our calendar's representation in order to maintain a good mix of writers, genres, and styles.

Also, and perhaps most importantly -- we're all about informed consent here at Bare It For Books. It's not enough to think hey! Author X is pretty darned cute and writes poetry and lives in Area X and would therefore be PERFECT for the project. Author X had to be willing to take that step and bare it all for us, too! And let's face it -- getting down to the bare minimum, even for charity, is not everyone's cup of tea. So we had to be fully mindful of that, and respect people's wishes when they declined our little offer.

All of which is to say, folks, that pulling together a list of twelve Canadian authors who want to be in a risqué little calendar project is actually a helluva lot more difficult than it sounds. It's certainly more difficult than we thought it would be six months ago. And while we think we've done a good job of pulling a list together for 2014, and we are SO very proud of the authors who have jumped on board with the campaign already, we're fully aware of the fact that our authors lists can change, and grow, and showcase different aspects of Canadian literature as the months go on.

What we hope, ultimately, is that Bare It For Books will be able to grow and stretch into new territory with each new phase of the campaign. This might mean that next year, our author lists will look a little different -- maybe we'll add something else to the project to showcase a different side of Canadian literature. Maybe we'll ask some publishing people to get involved and pose, or maybe we'll add other visual elements to the calendar in addition to the nearly-nude photographs. We are open to all kinds of craziness, and it's our sincere hope that Bare It For Books can continue to change and grow and highlight exactly how diverse our literary landscape is, for as long as it is able.

Now we're back to polishing our last-minute campaign details, and getting everything ready for our Big Reveal on February 19th. In the meantime, we wanted to thank you all so much for your enthusiasm and support in these past few months. It's been a wonderful journey already, and we can't wait to share the rest of it with you.

Lots of literary love,

Amanda and Allegra

1 comment:

  1. (Take two) I haven't mentioned this to you folks recently, but I really like what you're doing with this project, and I love the way you've gone about it. Best wishes in 2014.

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