By: burgundy bug
The Burgundy Zine One Year Anniversary: Changing Our Format, Recruiting Contributors, Printing, and Merchandise
Source: The Burgundy Zine
That’s right, bug buddies! It’s been one year since The Burgundy Zine hit the internet. How did you celebrate? Oh, me? I had four wisdom teeth removed on the big day (yesterday).
Anyways, we have some exciting news to share about the future of The Burgundy Zine: changing our format, recruiting regular contributors, moving towards print, and possibly selling some merchandise!
The Burgundy Zine Q + A
As you may know, we briefly ran a Q + A in anticipation of our one year anniversary – except, we didn’t get any questions. Granted, we do have some pretty comprehensive FAQ / About / Submission guideline pages, so there wasn’t much left to the imagination.
Y’know what was the best part, though? We posted about the Q + A once or twice on our Instagram story and it went pretty under the radar.
We also posted a video of me, burgundy bug, dramatically zooming in on my face while working on finals at 3:00 AM to “You Never Give Me Your Money” by the Beatles, which garnered some great enthusiasm.
Hahahaha, I get it. I always worry that posting content that’s more personal is unprofessional, but as a consumer myself, I always enjoy seeing more personal posts from the writers, artists, and musicians I follow!
The Burgundy Zine – A Year in the Making
Since last year, we’ve published 454 posts, 91 of which were from guest contributors.
We have featured 71 unique guests, 92 different musicians, and have interviewed 49 people.
So far, we’ve released 11 zines… With a 12th one on the way. 😉
The Burgundy Zine issues 1 through 11
Source: Zines | The Burgundy Zine
From Dec. 13, 2018, to Dec. 13, 2019, we have reached over 171,000 visitors globally.
The Burgundy Zine traffic data from Dec. 13, 2018, to Dec. 13, 2019
Source: The Burgundy Zine
Patrick Star exclaims, “WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE!?”
Source: Giphy
Thank You for A Wonderful Year!
Although I say it all the time, it certainly can’t be said enough; thank you so much to everyone who has contributed and to everyone who reads our content.
I started The Burgundy Zine last year during winter break after my first semester of writing for my college’s paper. I loved writing for the paper and couldn’t bear the idea of going a month without writing articles.
Sure, I had been a freelance writer for quite some time, but freelancing wasn’t cutting it for me anymore on a creative level.
Don’t get me wrong: I learned A LOT from freelancing. It was a flexible and feasible way to make a living as a college student (I still swear by freelancing for those who wouldn’t mind an extra $200 to $1,000 a month in their pocket), and I did genuinely enjoy working with my customers, but I needed something more… Something I could truly feel apart of.
Read: How to Make Bank over the Holiday Break Without Leaving the Bed
Source: The Burgundy Zine
My original goal was to start a blog that released a 15-page zine at the end of each month, and now our issues average over 100 pages.
At this point, each issue of The Burgundy Zine is designed so contributors can share their article in the zine with their readers, maybe their readers will stick around and leaf through a few other articles, and that’s about it.
Yet, we regularly receive messages from people who say they read each issue cover to cover. That’s absolutely amazing!
It has truly been an honor to work on The Burgundy Zine. I’ve started up a lot of projects throughout my life, but for the first time I feel I’ve found my niche – and it wouldn’t have been possible without your help!
We’ve built such a supportive community over the last 365 days and it’s only going to grow from here.
Speaking of which…
Going Forward
Going into 2020, we:
- Will move from a monthly to a bi-monthly format
- Will begin recruiting regular contributors
- Will start getting ready to print our magazines (hopefully by 2021)
- Might release some merchandise
Bi-Monthly!? What, Why!?
I know, I know. It was a hard decision to make. But let’s be honest – when there’s one person editing, handling outreach, and laying out the entire magazine, trying to put together each issue every month is kind of an ambitious task.
I’ve been told I should move it to a quarterly publication, but I’m too much of a workaholic for that.
Changing the format to a bi-monthly magazine won’t mean The Burgundy Zine will turn into a 200-400 page publication, no worries. Well, it probably won’t, at least.
Instead, this will give us more time to do event coverage, interviews, and it will give me more time to write articles pertaining to the theme.
There were so many articles I wanted to write for the August, September, October, and November issues that I didn’t have time to even start.
Even now that I’ve graduated and I have a semester off before I begin working towards my bachelor’s degree, publishing a magazine every two months, as opposed to every month, just seems like the right call.
A bi-monthly format will also allow for more time in case there are ever technical difficulties again, like those faced during “The Burgundy Zine #10: Spooky Psychology,” or if something personal comes up.
Does That Mean Two Months Straight Under One Theme?
Not necessarily. Instead, the theme will most likely change each month, but both will be covered in one issue. In October, “Spooky Psychology” was a fusion of Halloween and psychology content; In November, “History and Holidays” was a fusion of history and holiday content.
Regular Contributors?
In addition to our guest contributors, we’re going to recruit writers, artists, photographers, and so on who we can count on to contribute content on a regular basis.
We’ve had a handful of contributors who we’ve featured multiple times and we’d love to extend the invite to them as well as others to write for us more often.
Our regular contributors would earn a spot on our about page with their title, a photograph, and a bio. They’d also have their own author description at the end of each post, rather than the “Guest Post” description that appears currently.
Not only will this help us gauge how much content will be in each issue, it’ll also help us transition to…
Moving Towards Print
In an era where magazines are gradually converting from print to digital (and in some cases, all digital), we’re looking to move towards print!
Now, there’s still a lot that needs to be worked out – finding a printer (I can technically print issues from home if I get a bookbinder press), writing up contracts with our contributors, figuring out royalties, raising or saving some extra moolah, digital marketing, etc…
But, it would be nice to release a print edition of The Burgundy Zine, and we’ve been asked about releasing physical copies quite a bit.
Even if we don’t print every issue, it’s still our goal to print on a quarterly basis, at the very least. 🙂
Merchandise
A long, long, time ago, I can still remember how I used to… run an Etsy shop.
A variety of stickers made and sold by burgundy bug in 2018: drooling vampire lips, grapes, strawberries, drooling frogs, colorful penguins, bears, Celeste, Tea Hazel C., Clock Guy, and a loving portrait of burgundy bug + XtaSeay
Source: Stickers | Penelope Peru Photography
I used to design, print, cut, and sell my own stickers. I’d love to begin doing that again, in addition to selling custom cards, T-Shirts, and some other nifty merch!
Plus, the profits would go towards funding our printing endeavors.
A Rough 2020 Timeline for The Burgundy Zine
As much as we’d love to hit the ground running with all of these ideas, it’ll take some time to get everything together. These are all just ideas at the moment, but here’s our rough timeline of how it might play out:
- January 2020: “The Burgundy Zine #13: A Dawn of a New Decade” is released, we begin accepting applications for regular contributors.
- Spring 2020: The 14th issue is released in March, the 15th issue is released in May. Hopefully we’ll have some stickers for sale by then, as well.
- Summer 2020: More merchandise will be available, more zines will be released, and we’ll begin dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s in preparation of moving towards print by 2021/2022.
- Fall 2020: Burgundy Bug begins working on her bachelor’s degree, bi-monthly zines continue.
- Winter 2020: By our two year anniversary, we’ll release an update on how 2020 panned out and what’s to come for 2021!
In Conclusion
It’s been such a fantastic year, we truly can’t wait for what year two will hold.
We have a lot of big, bold ideas for 2020 – but, we were told starting a monthly mini-zine was “too big and bold” for one person last year, and look at how that’s panned out. 😉
Thank you, bug buddies. For everything, from your contributions to your support. It’s been such a blast!
If you have any questions about the information overload blasted in this post, just contact us… And, if none of this made sense, I blame the wisdom teeth meds, bahaha.
Here’s to another year, my dears,
burgundy bug >:^)
Interested in having content featured in an upcoming blog post or issue of The Burgundy Zine? Head on over to the submissions page!
For all other inquiries, please fulfill a contact form.