The zines have shipped!

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The zines have shipped! End post. Just kidding. 

I just mailed our print edition zines to our Everything Bagel Patreon supporters, and I'm super excited to find out what they think! 

They're pretty cool, they've got the cover art by Vondell on them (which you're gonna see on the ebook and web edition as well.)  Coming up with the exclusive content was pretty fun, I'll probably talk about it more once it's out so that I don't spoil anything. 

We're also going to be doing a tumblr give away with some of the zines, tbd soon how many and when.

So yeah, just wanted to update y'all with what was going on. Check us out at solarpunkpress.com/patreon if you want. Otherwise stay tuned for the free version to come out, as well as our podcast.

Stay punk

How to do a short fiction podcast for the first time

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Step one: Turn on the recorder

Step two: Look at the page

Step three: Scream internally

(Our narrator for the first podcast, Nicole, would like to add that as an alternative to step three you could say half of the first line, incorrectly, and then swear.)

Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad. Recording a short fiction podcast, and reading the first story, was a very cool experience. It was nerve wracking because I felt responsible for the proper portrayal of these characters -- I wanted them to be perfectly real and whole and I never wanted my voice to crack while they were saying a line.

But I realized that, like with a lot of art, you really just have to let go as much as you can and see where your intuition takes you. At times I needed to be coached by Nicole to formulate characters (one of the character's voices was based off of Marcie from Daredevil), but we got through it, giggling and swearing, and created something to be proud of.

I'm really excited for everyone to read this story, or to listen to it, if you so choose, because it's a really wonderful piece, and it was a pleasure to record the audio version and learn more about the characters by doing so. 

 (Note from Watson: They did an amazing job on the podcast, and I edited out all the swears.)

Coming soon: Solarpunk Press on Patreon!

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We're getting ready to launch our Patreon campaign for this project. We're really close. We think we've settled on the final prices for the various donor levels (after several weeks of "No, we can probably make that cheaper") and we've confirmed the apparent feasibility of the stuff we want to do.

The first thing you can buy on our Patreon page is influence! Backers are going to have access to polls, which we'll use to guide the direction of the future of the site. 

We'll definitely be open to, and be listening for, feedback from everyone who's following Solarpunk Press, however you're doing it, whether or not you can afford to pay, and obvious public opinion trends will be taken seriously. But we're planning on collecting hard(ish) data on what our backers want, because (a.) we want this project to be at least somewhat democratic, without exposing ourselves to vote brigading or other mass trolling, and (b.) the opinions of those of you who are willing and able to give us money are the opinions that determine the financial sustainability of this project, and we want to make sure our backers know that your voice is being heard.

Ray of Sunshine backers will get one vote, and Lobbyist backers will get two. Backers at $1 and up also get each issue's e-book edition for free.

The next level up is various kinds of early access. We got this idea from CGP Grey's Patreon (warning: the reward's title is a casual Nazi reference) -- he releases his videos to some of his backers some time before their official release, in a mutually beneficial relationship: backers get to see the videos before everyone else, and they can warn Grey if they find fixable errors in the video, before he uploads the version he can't back down from.

We're planning on trying this out with a few days' advance release. Of course, this will only work if people don't leak the content, but we have confidence in the moral integrity of the Solarpunk community not to prematurely leak stories that will shortly be available for free for everyone.

Grammar Vigilante backers will get the text edition early, while The A/V Club backers will get the audio early. Both are invited to let us know about errors. (Even if it's stuff we can't fix -- we can always at least learn from our mistakes.)

The last kind of early access is Visions of the Future. These backers get drafts of each issue's illustrations, as they become available to us, and get to see the final art early. If and when we're working on design or merchandise changes, they'll get preview art of that, too. 

Early content backers also get two votes, and all backers will get access to forums for polls as well as the content of their reward package.

Finally, the biggest reward package we offer is the Everything Bagel. This one comes with all three early access rewards, plus 3x voting power.

And, it's the only reliable way to get the Solarpunk Press print 'zine.

These will be 90s style paper magazines, stapled together and filled with completely exclusive editorial content, doodles, and notes. 

Now, don't get us wrong: we want these zines to spread around. You can collect them, but you can also share them with your friends,  leave them on trains, photocopy them and hand them out, etc. They'll be released under a CC-BY-NC-ND license, so as long as you aren't changing or profiting off them, it's fair game.

And there will be other ways to get it. If you're an author, we're going to give you some of yours. We'll probably do a giveaway with a few every issue on Tumblr. Chances are we'll be carrying some around after printing, so if you get lucky and know us in person, you might just be able to ask for one. But the only way you can be sure is by getting an Everything Bagel subscription.

Also, this reward tier is limited to 100 backers. So, there's that, too.

If and when we get around to merchandise, Everything Bagel backers are also going to be eligible for giveaways to receive demo products and stuff.

Each issue will have a max of two print runs: If you sign up by two weeks before the release (so, for issue 1, that's September 21) you'll be in the first print run and should get your 'zine by the time the story releases. Anyone who signs up after that, and gets billed for the magazine but didn't make the shipping deadline, will get magazines printed and sent out after billing, so they should arrive around mid-month.

We're still pulling the materials together, but we wanted to get this update out as soon as we're sure we can do everything in it.