Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Rimby
Hi Andrew, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
The origin story of my arts and culture business, The Ivory Tower Boiler Room began four years ago when so many of us were desperately craving creative connection during such an isolating period in our recent history, the pandemic. In August 2020, I released my first podcast episode about navigating academia and finishing a PhD in a virtual world. As I was teaching and working on my dissertation, I discovered the exciting world of podcasts. Listening to a variety of podcasts, from political to pop culture to artistic conversations, I felt less lonely and more creatively energized to complete my academic tasks. I remember when an intuitive inner voice spoke to me and said “Andrew, why don’t you start an arts and culture podcast?” I followed this gut instinct and taught myself basic podcast editing and reached out to creative friends of mine who wanted to talk about their creative process and finding community during such a unique time in global history. Because I was listening to five-ten different podcasts every day in 2020, I turned to these podcasters as a case study for how to find your audience, articulate your creative mission, and promote your material. After gaining an audience, through the use of social media marketing, like posting clips from my show on TikTok/Instagram/YouTube, I was able to maintain a steady number of listeners that helped move The Ivory Tower Boiler Room from a niche podcast genre, an academic one, to a broader podcast genre, an arts/culture one. After four years, I have had the pleasure of interviewing New York Times bestselling authors, Broadway performers, award-winning artists, politicians, and creative people who’re incredibly innovative and changing the landscape in their industries.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Being an entrepreneur is never an easy road, and entering into the media/entertainment industry as an academic definitely comes with its own challenges. When you’re training for a PhD in a Humanities field, like English in my case, the majority of your coursework, teaching, and writing assumes that you’ll receive a full-time job as a professor. However, in a current academic job market where full-time professor positions are almost nonexistent, especially in Humanities disciplines, so many PhD students are left to their own devices to figure out how to use the skills they’ve learned during their PhD and land a position in an industry outside of academia. Thankfully, I had such supportive mentors in my English department at Stony Brook University, like Dr. Susan Scheckel who helped me navigate these obstacles, and without her support, I would never have been able to find my voice as a public intellectual. Now that I’ve been hosting/directing The Ivory Tower Boiler Room for four years, I have enough distance to realize that I would not be the interviewer I am today without my time at Stony Brook. I have had many interns from the English department at Stony Brook learn how they could use their degree in English and apply it in the digital media space. I’m incredibly proud of my interns who continue to impress me with their jobs in the media/entertainment industry, graduate programs, and education positions.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
As the host/director of ITBR, an arts and culture community, I have the privilege and pleasure of collaborating/interacting with fellow creative people, many from the LGBTQ+ community. My academic research is on LGBTQ+ Literature, specifically American and British 19th-Century Lit., and it has meant so much to amplify and shed a spotlight on LGBTQ+ writers and artists.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
I offer podcast consulting services and have recommended “NPR’s Podcast Start Up Guide” by Glen Weldon since it’s an excellent resource to learn about how to start and then grow your podcast. If you are curious about starting a podcast, I always recommend Spotify for Creators since it’s a free and accessible platform that automatically tracks your podcast analytics (like audience demographics and listener numbers) and releases your podcast to all major platforms.
I have the pleasure of collaborating with fellow creative businesses including Broadview Press, an independent academic publisher that focuses on humanities topics, The Gay and Lesbian Review, a bimonthly magazine that amplifies LGBTQ+ arts and culture topics, and Pen + Brush, a NYC based art gallery that fights for gender equity in the arts.
There are so many books that I love and appreciate, and if you want any literary recommendations, I suggest that you listen to my podcast since I have the pleasure of interviewing such talented and insightful authors. I’m thrilled to host a monthly virtual book club so if you’re looking for a literary community to join, I highly recommend going on our website to check it out. I also listen to so many podcasts, many of them friends in the business, but one tip I can give you, is to listen to Daily Drive on Spotify since you’ll discover podcast genres that you never even thought you’d enjoy.
Pricing:
- I offer consultation for writing services (like college admission or essay editing), podcast consulting, and small business social media strategies. The first hour is always $30 an hour, and then we figure out a financial plan for future services.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ivorytowerboilerroom.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ivorytowerboilerroom/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ivorytowerboilerroom/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ivorytowerboilerroom
- Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ivory-tower-boiler-room/id1527297273
