an important thing to me about my zine business is that 100% of the revenue comes from people buying zines.
I get asked all the time to write sponsored zines ("hey, could you write a zine about our product") and I always say no -- readers are the customer, not the product.
I get asked all the time to write sponsored zines ("hey, could you write a zine about our product") and I always say no -- readers are the customer, not the product.
(which is not to say that sponsorships are bad! Lots of really good education work gets funded through sponsorships. I help organize a conference that we fund largely through sponsorships. It's just not what I do with my zines.)
also please don't reply to this with explanations of other ways I could take money from sponsors. Selling zines to people who want to know stuff is actually a really good business! I don't need extra sponsor income.
(though if you want to give me money from your company I have corporate rates for all my zines at wizardzines.com/zines-team that I will sell you very happily :). get your coworkers cool zines!)
(also most of the time when people try to hire me for sponsorships / commissions they're almost always offering me LESS MONEY than I would make if I just spent my time making useful things to sell people. So it's also a pretty straightforward business decision :))
