Am I A Small Press, Am I Doing It

During the past two weeks I edited, reformatted, and reprinted two of my zines from 2020. I’m working on the third, which I’ll probably be able to send to the printer at the end of the week.

I also adjusted a few things on my Etsy store, including offering more shipping options and setting up an automatic post-purchase message thanking the buyer.

Most of the Legend of Haiku zines got where they were supposed to go, but one batch randomly fell into a hole somewhere, and I had to pester the central Philadelphia post office every day for a week straight to get them to take care of it. With one exception, everything in that batch was eventually delivered.

One entitled and self-important man made a big deal about the late delivery, but I’m trying not to let it get to me. Most people were very chill and kind and understanding, which I appreciate.

I’m thinking about where to go from here, and I want to say that it’s okay to be a little ambitious. The Legend of Haiku zine got a fairly strong response, so I think I might want to do a monster-themed Zelda zine for Halloween. After that, it might be cool to organize a “queer gaming” zine, which is something I’ve wanted to see for a long time. If no one else is doing something like this, I might as well do it myself.

Unfortunately, after the initial batch of orders for the Legend of Haiku zine, I haven’t gotten any orders on Etsy at all. I used to get at least one order a day, and I’m using the same advertising budget, so I’m not sure what the deal is. I feel pressured to lower the price of my zines, but I think I’m going to hold out another month at the current $5 price point. I don’t want to undercut other zine makers any more than I already am, and I need to have confidence that my work has value.

Online Boundaries

Sometimes I talk about shitty men, but I today I want to talk about a man I admire.

Last weekend, someone started leaving long (and I mean long) comments on every chapter of Malice, which is a supremely self-indulgent Breath of the Wild Modern AU novelfic about magical monster-man Ganondorf showing up naked one morning in Zelda’s apartment that I’ve been writing with no research or planning or really any thought at all. The comments were rambling essays on home invasion and gun control laws and so on, and they didn’t have much of anything to do with the story save for how it wasn’t how he would have written it, so he rewrote parts of it in the comments.

I deleted these comments as they appeared, but they came one after the other, and the guy edited each of them at least a dozen times. If I had to guess, I would say that this behavior may have been the product of a genuine manic episode. This is concerning, but it’s not something that I, a random stranger on the internet, am prepared for or equipped to handle.

I finally replied, saying that these comments were unwelcome and a bit creepy, and that he needed to stop. I also asked him not to reply or try to contact me, and that I would report his account for harassment if he did.

And that was it. No more comments. No nasty messages on Twitter or Tumblr. End of story.

I’m not saying I wanted any of this to happen, but I do sincerely appreciate a dude who respects boundaries. Pushing back the keyboard and stepping away from the computer was actually very cool and cash money of him, and I'm going to remember this the next time I start to get a little too emotionally invested in what's happening on the internet.