TL;DR - Put any zine (not NSFW) into this jam and it'll be in a split-revenue bundle from August 16th-26th. Sharing and community optional.

What is a Zine?

A zine is basically a foldable booklet. It's far deeper than that, and there's way more to a zine than I can share here, but basically as long as it folds up into a pamphlet or booklet, it's good :D The standard zine is 8 pages, folded and cut from a single page, but there are 4-page zines, zines where the pages are merely folded in half, 12- and 16-page zines, and many more variations.

So basically: if your page(s) folds up into a smaller booklet of some sort, it satisfies me as a "zine." :D

What is Free Zine Week?

We had a Free RPG Day, why not a Free Zine Day? And why stop at a day when we can have a whole week?! 10 days to be exact, but "Free Zine 10 Day Period" doesn't sound as cool 😅 

I propose Free Zine Week run from the middle of August until the last weekend in August. This is in honor of blancisthecreative's Mini Zine July which she runs each year! This allows zinesters (like me...) to finish any late zines and then get em all bundled together to give away 🥳 

What's Allowed in the Bundle?

Free Zine Weekend doesn't have to be made up of Mini Zine July creations. You can include ANY zines on Itch you want! They can be free or paid, released this month or years ago, in whatever format you want, so long as they aren't hateful or NSFW due to adult content or violence. If you're unsure whether your zine qualifies, toss it in anyway and/or email us at bethandangelmakegames@gmail.com

How to Join

Being included has a few steps:

1. Join this jam
2. Once joined, submit your zine(s). While doing so, include at least one form of contact (you'll see why in a moment)
3. Starting on the 5th, I'll put the bundle together and reach out to everyone who submitted any zines. You need to APPROVE the bundle, and I'll explain how to do that in the message to you. This is VERY IMPORTANT as the bundle cannot launch until everyone has approved it.
4. Once the 16th rolls around, the bundle will launch! It'll run from the 16th - 26th, each at 3 am Eastern time (midnight Pacific). I'm starting the bundle over a week after the jam ends so I can reach out to people a few times and potentially reach Itch to remove anyone who doesn't approve.

Let's Promote Each Other! (OPTIONAL!)

I plan to promote the heck out of the bundle, and I would love it if you would at least share it once. The premise here being that we can share our fans with one another 🧡 But this is NOT required by any means. Ways to share include:

• Post on your favorite social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, BlueSky, Mastodon, etc)
• Tell a friend or family member or the people you work with or something
• Email newsletters, Patreons, newsletters, etc
• Your favorite Discord server(s)

If you're interested in cross-promotion, join our Discord server! I just made a #zines-and-zinesters channel and we can each share where we share things. Then we can retweet, share, quote, etc whatever we each do :D

AGAIN, ALL OF THAT IS 100% OPTIONAL!!!!!! Do NOT feel obligated to share. Do not feel like you're not a valid member of this bundle for merely adding a zine and approving the bundle, then ignoring it entirely :) I just know one of my biggest weaknesses is in promotion, and I'm working on that. We can work on it together 🧡 

FAQs

How much will the bundle cost?

It'll be FREE! Technically it'll be PWYW, and if anyone pays anything the zines will be linked to their account. That's the nature of how co-op bundles on Itch work. It also often leads to people tossing $1 or more at the bundle, so they can see they own them and download them whenever they want in the future :D

Where does the money earned go?

It's split between everyone who's part of the bundle. This is per CREATOR, not per zine; Angel and I will be adding at least all of our Mini Zine July 2024 creations (14 zines) but we count as ONE CREATOR because it's one account. So if 4 other people join us, we each get 20% of any income, even if everyone else tosses one zine in :D

It's worth mentioning that it's very likely we'll end up with an uneven split. When that happens, we just click the "split revenue" checkbox and Itch splits it. This sadly does mean some people will get 1% +/- compared to others, and I'm sorry for that; Itch doesn't allow like "17.3%" splits, only even numbers.

What Kind of Zines Qualify?

ANYTHING as long as it's a zine and not NSFW. Games, perzines, fanzines, poetry or photography zines, or anything else you invent. 

A zine here is anything that can be folded into a booklet of some sort. That can be paper you fold in half, in four, in 8 (the standard "mini-zine"), or whatever else. They can require multiple sheets of paper or whatever too! And, as long as there's a download on your Itch page, Electric Zine Maker creations count too: but Electric Zine Maker creations require a downloadable file on the Itch page too.