Comment by arjie

Comment by arjie 11 hours ago

5 replies

I ordered the print version, but I have to tell you that print-on-demand provider has an incredibly convoluted purchase cycle. I came close to stopping at least 3 times.

* No buy now button: add to cart, accept cookies, view cart, checkout

* Account creation required pre-purchase

* Email verification required pre-purchase

At the least, it was a fairly linear flow except for the email verification (and the email was instant) but christ just let me pay.

EDIT: Ah I see, reading the other comments it's not meant to be paid for. It's meant to be distributed to people "in the right circles". Okay, lucky someone mentioned that. The POD provider only has a 1-hour cancellation policy. Though on second thought, I can't be arsed to go back and cancel for the $27. I'll just skip subsequent ones.

gynvael 2 hours ago

Yeah, we need to onboard more Print-on-Demand providers - perhaps some with easier purchase flow (this said, I have to give it to lulu that they have solid customer support, at least in my experience).

But - per your edit - the PoD option is for folks who either really want a printed Paged Out!, or want to throw some money into the project. This year we got back to finding sponsors to pay for prints to distribute them (for free) on various events - https://pagedout.institute/?page=event-prints.php - and we plan to keep increasing our presence at more events next year. So the "in the right circles" just means "one of these events".

Anyway, whichever way you choose to enjoy Paged Out! - bought, received for free, or just the PDF version - glad to have you with us :)

bigyabai 10 hours ago

Man, if making money off freely-available zines is this easy then I need to stock up on printer toner.

  • arjie 4 hours ago

    I won't really mind if you'd like to pitch me on another that you're going to print. I paid $27 for print+tax+shipping for that Paged Out Issue #7. I can't cancel it any longer but if you want the $27, I can be convinced by a different online magazine.

    Our home color printer is an inkjet, though we have a black and white laser, so it's not as economical for me as it might be for you and I'm happy to do the $27 for a similar 70 or so full-color pages of an equally interesting magazine.

  • gynvael 3 hours ago

    I mean... you actually can do that... https://pagedout.institute/?page=commercial-prints.php

    "If you would like to sell printed copies of Paged Out!, please contact us about a commercial license [...]. We're happy to work both with very small sellers who print and bind Paged Out! at home, [...]"

    ETA: Though admittedly I wouldn't count on buying a yacht for money earned this way ;). Our income from "official" (lulu.com) sales are about 30-300 CHF / month, and this is only because a lot of wonderful people want to support us and get the more expensive "sponsorship" editions.