Another October has come to a close, and with it the funding for Year 4 of The Deadlands.
Thank you SO MUCH to the 150 of you that bought our fundraising coin—we raised $4350 with the sale of of Ferryman’s Coin. Those coins have been ordered and should arrive at Psychopomp HQ in about 30 days or so.
Huge thanks also to our Patreon members who help fund our work, where we receive about $400 every month.
We are so grateful to those of you who support us.
Here is some interesting publishing math:
The average cost to produce one issue of The Deadlands is about $1900, or $22,800 per year—that includes cover art, paying staff, and of course, buying the amazing works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that go into every issue.
If you do the math, you can see that the roughly $9200 we are currently generating per year ($4350 in coin sales + $400/mo*12 months of Patreon) is well short of the $22.8k it costs to run The Deadlands.
So what will become of us, and this five-figure discrepancy as we move into year four (!!!!) of publishing this little zine?
You might not be surprised to hear it means some changes are coming.
In 2024, The Deadlands will be published on a quarterly basis.
Each issue will contain:
- four to six stories
- four poems
- and two pieces of nonfiction
With that change comes another we are actually pretty excited about:
The Deadlands will offer readers a PRINT EDITION starting in January 2024.
Yes, we’re going forward by going backwards. We <3 print, and think you do (or will!) as well.
What does that mean for current patrons and subscribers?
It’s a whole thing, let’s get into it…
There’ll be some changes to pricing, and possibly a very small shuffle of Patreon tiers, but we think most will be very happy with the changes.
For US residents:
A print subscription (four issues) will be $60 per year. That INCLUDES shipping.
A digital ebook-only subscription will be $27 per year.
The best way to subscribe to The Deadlands as a US resident is to subscribe via our Patreon. Why? Well:
- you can pay monthly ($5/mo)
- you get an ebook AND a print version
- you’ll get some bonus goodies with each issue–a little deathmail collection 💀💀💀
It’s better for us if you subscribe this way, so we are trying to make it better for you as well.
Current US Patreon subscribers will automatically get the print edition; you do not need to change your level of support. We will be in touch about mailing details.
Current lifetime subscribers (Guides, from our Kickstarters), will continue to receive every digital copy we publish, as per our Kickstarter blood oath.
“But!” you may be saying, “I’m international and I want this!”
We thought for a long time about this. Many of our fellow zines don’t ship internationally because there’s SO MANY hurdles involved. We also don’t love it because shipping is so high, we feel bad (even though we do not control the Policy Of Stamps… UNFORTUNATELY. If we did, skeleton stamps for all!).
However, we want to be as inclusive as possible, so we devised a solution we hope you will love:
Join our Patreon and get the same print + ebook of each issue AS WELL AS the same goodies. It’s going to cost more, but we’ll still try and entice you to join:
- you can pay monthly ($10/mo) – INCLUDES SHIPPING
- you get an ebook AND a print version
- you’ll get the same goodies and deathmail 💀💀💀
“I don’t care about THAT, I just want ebooks!”
Well good news for you!
We’ll still have ebook-only subscriptions AND they’ll be a little cheaper.
If you want just the digital version of The Deadlands you can get a year’s subscription at our BFFs, Weightless Books, for just $27/yr (starting in January).
We’ll also have a digital-only Patreon tier so international readers can subscribe (as Weightless does not support EU/UK purchases due to the complexities of VAT).
We will have single copies for sale on our store as well.
OPTIONS!
I’m sorry but I cannot pay to read fiction, it’s not in the budget AT ALL.
Hey, we get it, times are tough, but do not worry.
Every issue of The Deadlands will be fully available on this website for you to read—free, no strings.
Over the course of the quarter, stories, poems, and nonfiction pieces will come online via a handy schedule, so you’ll still be able to enjoy The Deadlands even if you cannot budget to buy the print or digital versions at this time.
This is all very stupid and complicated, why didn’t you just run another Kickstarter??
Kickstarters are exhausting, time-consuming, and fraught af. Only a small handful of the most popular magazines really do well there. And that’s just on the funding side. Both times we ran a KS we barely reached our goal, had to pay Kickstarter a big chunk of money, and then a one-person team was left fulfilling the rewards for months months and months… Not complaining, just telling you the situation. Kickstarters are not sustainable (not to mention the inevitable Kickstarter Fatigue that starts to set in to backers).
What About Psychopomp.com (#1 Publisher of The Deadlands)?
Psychopomp is revving up for a very busy, VERY exciting year.
We are releasing four novellas, four novelettes, The Deadlands Year Two, and Afterlives: Year’s Best Death Stories at the very least.
We also have an amazing crew of writers publishing some 10/10 lists, essays, reviews, and more! We love The Deadlands, and have zero plans to stop publishing this magazine. We’re also making a big play to establish Psychopomp as a well-known publisher of absolutely incredible fiction, so we’ll be busy.
Thank you thank you.
At the end of the day, we love making The Deadlands for you to read, and we’ll be happy if you do, whether that’s via our new print option, ebooks, or online.
It’s wild creating something where before there was nothing.
We’ve carved out an interesting, extremely relatable (unfortunately 😔) niche in the publishing space, and we’re over the several-moons-in-the-sky-above-The-Deadlands that people read what we publish, and review it, and share it, and buy our stickers and pins and books that help us continue to bring this all to you.
So thanks for sticking with us, we love you for that.
A Post Script to this post:
You don’t need to take any action on this today. We will be in touch when it’s time to do a thing. We’ll publish the November and December issue as we have been.
We know this was a lot to take in all at once. The BEST WAY to stay up to date with these changes and to sign up for our new subscriptions–once they’re live, is to sign up to our newsletter, which you can do riiiiiiight….
here: