We did it! My book, Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore Club Music, reached its $5,000 fundraising goal on Kickstarter.com today. For most of the last 5 weeks it wasn't even halfway to the goal, but thanks to some very generous 11th hour backers it got to where it needed to be in time. The page will still be open for pledges until about 9pm EST tomorrow (Thursday) night, and every little bit helps make the whole project bigger and better, so please feel free to still donate if you want, there's no limit on how high it can go past the initial goal. I owe a huge huge thanks to all of my 39 backers, some of whom are family and friends and peers in the music community, some of whom I don't know but really appreciate their support.
Now comes the really hard part: actually completing and releasing the book. There's a lot to still be settled on the business end, but my hope is to have it completely finished with the research and writing by the end of 2010, and have the book on sale at some point in 2011, although it's difficult at this early juncture to be any more specific than that. But I'm looking into some really great opportunities to make this all as big and as great as it can possibly be and give the project a whole life beyond the book. Just as there have been the past few weeks, there will be more print articles and radio appearances and online promotions between now and the book's release, along with events, the cool rewards some of the Kickstarter backers signed up for and all sorts of other stuff I don't want to spoil just yet but could be really really awesome. I'm gonna take a breather for a minute and just wipe my brow with relief, but the progress of this whole project will continue to be documented on ToughBreaksBaltimore.com. Thank you!!