Hello! So after itch.io was recommended to me for my zine project, I signed up and I'm getting ready for our pre-order go-live. This is a little different from selling games, but I wanted to see if the community could offer me some feedback to see if I'm using the site the best way I can.

Basically, our zine is going to have three tiers: just getting the zine (tier 1, $10); the zine plus some digital merch (tier 2, $12); and the zine, an add-on and the merch (tier 3, $15). I created the three file uploads with 'set a different price for this file' for tier 2 and 3 with the added cost factored in. All of this is in pre-orders, though.

My questions are really:

1. Can I change the files once pre-orders are ending? We don't have the full zine(s) or merch ready to go in, and I just made .txt files for the placeholders.

2. Is this the best way to sell three versions of a zine? By zipping the PDFs and merch together to go into the different file uploads?

I read through everything on the site and just wanted to make sure I was on the right track! Any assistance is awesome!

Can I change the files once pre-orders are ending? We don’t have the full zine(s) or merch ready to go in, and I just made .txt files for the placeholders.

Yes, in fact this is how it’s expected to work. When uploading the file, you can check a box that says:

[ ] This file is a pre-order placeholder

I believe this won’t allow users to download that file, so an empty .txt file should be fine.

Is this the best way to sell three versions of a zine? By zipping the PDFs and merch together to go into the different file uploads?

Sounds about right. One thing to keep in mind, Itch is using the “Tier” system by default. Which means if a user (in your example) spends $15 on your project, they will have access to every file that has the price $15 or below.

In your example that doesn’t seem to be causing any issue, as any new Tier is the same as the previous one plus something extra, but it may be worth keeping in mind.