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Julia Evans

Wizard Zines' first print run: Help! I have a Manager!

Hello! For the first time, Wizard Zines is doing a ★★print shipment★★!

I printed out 400 copies of Help! I have a manager! at the best print shop I could find in Montreal and they’re ready to ship to you. Free shipping to anywhere in the world (as long as Canada Post will let me ship there) is included. The deadline to order a zine is September 6.

I’ve wanted to get into printing and shipping my zines for a long time, so I’m very excited to try this out. So far the only option has been for people to print them on their home printers or at their local print shop.

I’m doing all the packaging and shipping myself from my house, so I’m going to ship them all out in a big batch around September 7.

Edit from the future: this is over but you can now buy print version of all my zines at https://wizardzines.com

the zines!

Here’s a picture of one of the boxes of zines! So many zines!

I experimented with a few different print shops in Montreal, and I found out that using a print shop that cost more got me way better quality zines! So that’s what I did. (I went with Photosynthèse).

why I’m shipping them myself

I spent a bunch of time looking into fulfillment companies to try to scale printing & shipping zines. That research might still come in handy if this first batch goes well (I probably won’t keep doing it myself forever!), but in the spirit of flintstoning, I decided it would be a lot simpler to start out by not overengineering the process. Shipping a zine to the US from Canada using letter mail only costs about $3, so I can even include free shipping.

I’ve actually shipped 100 zines once before in an indiegogo campaign I ran in 2016, and it wasn’t too bad, so I’m confident that I can ship 400 zines manually as long as I can do it all in one giant batch. That time I even wrote all the addresses by hand, which I definitely won’t do this time.

And doing it myself means I can do some fun things with the envelopes & my laser printer that would be hard to convince a fulfillment company to do.

FAQ

Here’s a FAQ which will hopefully answer all your questions! Email me at print@wizardzines.com if you have other questions.

What’s included?

You’ll get:

  1. A print copy of Help! I have a manager!, printed in full colour on high quality paper.
  2. A PDF copy of Help! I have a manager! (which usually costs $10 on its own).

What’s the order deadline?

The deadline to order a zine is September 6.

When will I get it?

I’ll mail all the zines around September 7-8, 2020 (right after orders close).

You should get your zine about a week later, assuming the mail system behaves.

Will I get a tracking number?

No. All the zines will be shipped by first class letter mail from Canada, without any tracking. This keeps shipping costs down so that I can do free shipping :). If anything at all goes wrong with your shipment, just let me know (print@wizardzines.com) and I’ll mail you another one. (it’s like UDP!)

The zines should reach the US in about a week, longer if you’re overseas.

Can I order more than one copy at a time?

No, to keep things simple, I’m only shipping one zine at a time. I’m hoping to do batches in the future though!

Can I order these for my team?

Yes! You’ll just need to make one order per person, so that I get everyone’s shipping address. This is extremely compatible with remote work :)

also, if you want to order 50 or more print copies mailed to a single address, email me and we’ll work something out

What happens if I don’t order by September 6?

If this print run sells out, we’ll print more in the future!

What if I already bought the digital copy?

If you already bought the digital copy – thank you!! You can email me at print@wizardzines.com and I’ll send you a discount code to get the print version for less.

What are your future print plans?

If this print run goes well, I’ll figure out how to scale the process up beyond “let’s ship 400 zines from my house”. I’m not sure how that will work yet, but we’ll figure it out!

Here’s the link to order a print copy, again! If you just want the PDF, you can get it here: Help! I have a Manager! PDF.

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