My preview for the @contrast-firestormzine
I’m really happy to share this piece! a lot of things had happen in the last 3 years, but I still love this ship and I’m glad I was part of this project.
From September 15th, 2019 until now, this zine took nearly three years to get out the door. This post will give you the summary as to why this happened, in part because I’m sure some people are wondering, and also as a warning to anyone who wants to do a zine and has not before! Don’t be me!
The tl;dr is to not do a zine solo... At least not without having participated in mod roles for other zines first.
So when I started this project, I had a lot! of excitement! about VRAINS and TakeYusa and as someone who, in theory, has gotten through much more difficult life projects, I thought to myself that I could strongarm my way through a zine, how hard could it be to keep all the organizational ducks in a row, learn how to format a zine, make sure prose got edited, make sure art was the correct file types, get the book printed and do all of this in a timely fashion? I’ve made video games! This surely can’t be harder than that!
Boy howdy, this was WAY HARDER. For a number of reasons!
Firstly, I was very much in a position of not knowing enough to even KNOW that I didn’t know enough. Keeping track of as many moving pieces as this, I got overwhelmed, I freaked myself out and avoided the problem instead of asking for help. I could do it! I will do it tomorrow! Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow oh no, it’s been a month.
I kept in touch sporadically with contributors, and ultimately did accept that I had a problem, and I had to do SOMETHING to get this out the door. So I hired a professional editor friend of mine to edit the prose to clean up grammar and all of that, and Erin (imaginarystormz) came to my rescue in so many different ways I owe her my LIFE.
Erin was able to get the books formatted and ready for print, she made the digital versions, I had a printer recommendation from a friend so I got in contact with them, sent off the files... and ultimately stalled out several more times because they would ask me a question I didn’t have the answer to, and I would just shut down.
Eventually, I get through this (Erin, again, to the rescue) and the books are ORDERED. I RECEIVE THE BOOKS. They are BEAUTIFUL. I have also ordered my bubble mailers at this point, gotten a postage scale, gotten everything ready to get these books shipped! At this point, I had enough sense to enlist the help of a local friend who was able to help me quality check the books and also help me put together the packages to ship out contributor copies.
If you are a contributor reading this and you HAVE NOT received your copy, please email mybloodtypeisc AT gmail DOT com at your earliest convenience and I WILL get you sorted out!
So I ship out all the packages, the postal service decides to eat one of them, but as far as I can tell the rest of them all made them to their destinations. I post the above aside JUST in case.
So now I just need to finish up the shop right? I just need to make the listing, I need to punch in a price, I need to punch in shipping information... and here we go again! I get overwhelmed and shut down and Erin has to fix it for me fo the fiftieth time. This was six months ago.
And then there’s like two things I have to do and my brain fails on me again, and here we are today! I finally did those tiny things!
It is ridiculous that it took me so long, even with help, to get this out the door. I can say that within the past few months, I was diagnosed with a mental health condition that explains not only my entire life, but also all my issues with this project in particular. So okay, I have an explanation, but it unfortunately does not allow me to go back in time and resolve this.
In between all of this, there were of course Life Adventures as one has but really, 90% of this was me getting overwhelmed and shutting down and just handling it poorly. COVID certainly contributed to my stress, but that was only part of it.
So if you’re reading this and thinking to yourself “Wow I don’t think I could ever trust Pachi to run another zine in any fandom” I do have good news: I am not going to! I severely underestimated the amount of work involved, and I am never touching another zine. I am never managing something like this again in general!
And to make sure these all get SHIPPED in a timely manner, I will be going to said local friend’s house each Saturday that I have any orders to get them packed up and RIGHT out the door.
There’s not really anything else I can say. I felt bad about this the entire time. I feel bad about it now. I should not have done my contributors like this, and it will not be something that happens again.
If you are thinking to yourself “I want to do a zine!” for the love of all that is holy and everything else, do not do it solo. You might pull it off, more power to you, but you’re more likely to just overwhelm yourself like I did and have 99 problems along the way.
If you read all of this, thank you for your time! I don’t get alerts on the askbox here, so if you have any comments or concerns you want to make sure I see, please email mybloodtypeisc AT gmail DOT com.
Quick note on the price of the books
I have not pulled together the full details of that yet but I can quickly note that the books were a little over $1000 to print because of the fancy cover effect with the foil, there were 100 books produced, a small number of them were just dinged enough that I didn’t want to sell them. I paid for domestic and international shipping out of pocket for each contributor, and each contributor got two books. That leaves me with 70ish books to sell. The cost of each book is roughly $15 BEFORE I add in what I spent on shipping to contributors, packing supplies, editing, etc.
So regardless of how many of these actually sell, buyers will get them at less than it cost to produce them when all is said and done. I do want to share the cost breakdown for educational purposes, but I didn’t want to delay things AGAIN by waiting until I had THAT done to do all of the rest of this.
hey i'm confused about some of your wording. you said that All print costs are to be paid for out of pocket by myself and zines will be sold at the minimum to cover costs. so you're asking for money to cover the costs but you're also going to pay for the print costs out of pocket? is it both? will the digital version be free since there's no print cost?
So basically there's a few ways of getting the funding for a project like this: you can run a Kickstarter, run pre-orders, or you can pay for it yourself.
I'm fronting the costs for the zine myself, which means that this will be printed no matter how many or few people preorder it. No one is providing any money for the project to come into existence but myself, so there's no backers or anything.
However, I would IDEALLY like to break even or come close 😂 hence why print copies do cost money.
Digital version WILL be free.
Thanks for your question! Sorry if I'm getting to this late!
Hello VRAINS fandom! Today we announce our final batch of contributors!
Today we have Trickbuster, who will be contributing art!
Venus will give us prose...
And last but certainly not least, Yun will be contributing an illustration as well!
Please look forward to CONTRAST: A Firestorm Zine, releasing in early 2020! CONTRAST will feature a total of fifteen people, contributing both prose and art. We just passed our first check-in and listen: my inbox is a beautiful place of adorable, lovely, and sometimes angsty firestormshipping content that is killing me to sit on.
Truly, I am beyond delighted to have the privilege of working with all these wonderful people!!
Only just now hearing about this? Check out the links below:
We’ve now arrived at day 3 of our contributors announcements!
Today we'd like to introduce...
Minty, who will be contributing an illustration!
Ravelqueen will be delivering a fic!
Nance will also be providing art...
And Sonny will also contribute a fic!
We’re almost done announcing all the wonderful people who will be contributing to CONTRAST: A Firestorm Zine and then we’ll have a page where you can see everyone all together!
Do check out the links I’ve provided so you can get a taste of what they’ll be contributing to the zine itself~
Hello VRAINS fandom! Welcome to day two of contributor announcements (finally)!
Today we’re featuring four more excellent people:
First off, we have Echo, providing a piece of prose and an illustration!
Nextly, Fr1ndl3 will be providing an illustration...
... and we get an illustration from KT too!
Lastly, Luke will be providing us a piece of prose!
The rest of these will actually post at an actually reasonable pace (sorry everyone, I sure misunderstood my scope of free time with internet access while out of the country!) I’m very excited to get back to announcing everyone else!
As with last time, I encourage you to take a look at the contributors! They’ve provided great things already, and now they’ll be providing more?! I’m ready!
Applications close TONIGHT, October 4th by 3AMEST/Midnight PST!
CONTRAST is an all ages zine dedicated to Takeru and Yusaku as a couple! Partly inspired by the EMOTION anthology, and also by how I Love This Ship Too Much, CONTRAST will be a love letter to Takeru and Yusaku’s differences, chemistry, and the infinite possibilities of them as a couple. Whether you just think they’re a cute ship, or they’re your OTP, consider applying! Both prose AND art are accepted!
This will be a print AND digital zine!
Your organizer for this zine is Pachi, aka A Caffeine Crisis (@acaffeinecrisis).
Please note: This will be a not-for-profit zine! More information is available on our about page.
Apply today!
The full timeline is available on the about page, and once you’ve read through that you can click here to submit your application!
VRAINS might be ending, but HEY let’s do something to honor it and this wonderful little ship it gave us!
I look forward to your applications! Let’s celebrate firestormshipping!!
Don’t hesitate to reblog and signal boost~ tell your firestorm loving friends!
“Pachi, why extend the deadline?” You ask, and well, I was SO thoroughly busy and very distracted (read: crying a lot) by the last episode of VRAINS that I forgot to announce at the 24 hour mark! So here’s a tiny extension!
Read on to learn more about the zine!
CONTRAST is an all ages zine dedicated to Takeru and Yusaku as a couple! Partly inspired by the EMOTION anthology, and also by how I Love This Ship Too Much, CONTRAST will be a love letter to Takeru and Yusaku’s differences, chemistry, and the infinite possibilities of them as a couple. Whether you just think they’re a cute ship, or they’re your OTP, consider applying! Both prose AND art are accepted!
This will be a print AND digital zine!
Your organizer for this zine is Pachi, aka A Caffeine Crisis (@acaffeinecrisis).
Please note: This will be a not-for-profit zine! More information is available on our about page.
Apply today!
The full timeline is available on the about page, and once you’ve read through that you can click here to submit your application!
VRAINS might be ending, but HEY let’s do something to honor it and this wonderful little ship it gave us!
I look forward to your applications! Let’s celebrate firestormshipping!!
Don’t hesitate to reblog and signal boost~ tell your firestorm loving friends!
Five days left to apply to CONTRAST! Applications close on 9/30!!
Thank you to EVERYONE who has applied so far! I love you almost as much as I love firestormshipping! 😘
CONTRAST is an all ages zine dedicated to Takeru and Yusaku as a couple! Partly inspired by the EMOTION anthology, and also by how I Love This Ship Too Much, CONTRAST will be a love letter to Takeru and Yusaku’s differences, chemistry, and the infinite possibilities of them as a couple. Whether you just think they’re a cute ship, or they’re your OTP, consider applying! Both prose AND art are accepted!
This will be a print AND digital zine!
Your organizer for this zine is Pachi, aka A Caffeine Crisis (@acaffeinecrisis).
Please note: This will be a not-for-profit zine! More information is available on our about page.
Apply today!
The full timeline is available on the about page, and once you’ve read through that you can click here to submit your application!
VRAINS might be ending, but HEY let’s do something to honor it and this wonderful little ship it gave us!
I look forward to your applications! Let’s celebrate firestormshipping!!
Don’t hesitate to reblog and signal boost~ tell your firestorm loving friends!
Applications are being accepted NOW through September 30!
CONTRAST is an all ages zine dedicated to Takeru and Yusaku as a couple! Partly inspired by the EMOTION anthology, and also by how I Love This Ship Too Much, CONTRAST will be a love letter to Takeru and Yusaku’s differences, chemistry, and the infinite possibilities of them as a couple. Whether you just think they’re a cute ship, or they’re your OTP, consider applying! Both prose AND art are accepted!
This will be a print AND digital zine!
Your organizer for this zine is Pachi, aka A Caffeine Crisis (@acaffeinecrisis).
Please note: This will be a not-for-profit zine! More information is available on our about page.
Apply today!
The full timeline is available on the about page, and once you’ve read through that you can click here to submit your application!
VRAINS might be ending, but HEY let’s do something to honor it and this wonderful little ship it gave us!
I look forward to your applications! Let’s celebrate firestormshipping!!
Don’t hesitate to reblog and signal boost~ tell your firestorm loving friends!
CONTRAST is an all ages zine dedicated to Takeru and Yusaku as a couple! Partly inspired by the EMOTION anthology, and also by how I Love This Ship Too Much, CONTRAST will be a love letter to Takeru and Yusaku’s differences, chemistry, and the infinite possibilities of them as a couple. Whether you just think they’re a cute ship, or they’re your OTP, consider applying! Both prose AND art are accepted!
This will be a print AND digital zine!
Your organizer for this zine is Pachi, aka A Caffeine Crisis (@acaffeinecrisis).
Please note: This will be a not-for-profit zine! More information is available on our about page.
Applications are open from September 5 through September 30!
The full timeline is available on the about page, and once you’ve read through that you can click here to submit your application!
VRAINS might be ending, but HEY let’s do something to honor it and this wonderful little ship it gave us!
I look forward to your applications! Let’s celebrate firestormshipping!!
Don’t hesitate to reblog and signal boost~ tell your firestorm loving friends!
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