What is the Wandersong Fanzine?
With contributions from over 50 artists, this anthology celebrates the fifth anniversary of cult classic indie videogame, Wandersong. It features illustration, literary analysis, needle felt, crochet, written fiction and poetry, musical composition, recipes based on Wandersong, and even interviews from the game devs. I directed the project as well as designing the layout and contributing a few illustrations to the book.
Below are sample pages from the book, the entire thing is available to download for free on the zine’s website
Physical edition
With permission from Wandersong’s developer and publisher, the anthology had a small print run, printed by ImprintDigitalCo UK. The order was full color, 200 copies with matte paper, gloss cover and gold foil accents. We also had merchandise with designs by the merchandise design contributors, prepared by me and produced by Zap!Creatives. The zine had several different editions for sale and fully made its profits back while providing a full complete bundle for each contributor.
WIP’s
The zine went through many drafts while the contributors refined their work, here are work in progress shots
Project Timeline
Together with project moderator, James Berri, we figured out a timeline that would work for the contributors without customers feeling like their money was not being handled with the utmost respect. We went back and forth with our contributors a few times to get a timeline that worked for everyone, though we could have stood to delay a bit, overall it went with much success!
| Date | Stage |
|---|---|
| November 2022 | Zine introduction and planning |
| December 10, 2022 | Applications opened |
| January 2, 2023 | Applications closed |
| January 3 - February 5, 2023 | Contributor Discussion planning |
| February 6, 2023 | Contributor assignments sent out |
| February 20, 2023 | First check in |
| March 17, 2023 | Second check in |
| April 10, 2023 | Third check in |
| May 10, 2023 | Fourth check in |
| May 25, 2023 | Fifth check in |
| June 25, 2023 | Sixth check in |
| July 18, 2023 | Contributor deadline |
| July 31, 2023 | Pre orders opened |
| August 2023 | Merch and Print order |
| September 2, 2023 | Pre orders closed |
| September - October 2023 | Production and packaging, place necessary extra merch orders |
| October 2023 | Shipping out pre orders and contributor bundles |
| November 12, 2023 - February 27, 2024 | Leftover sales |
Marketing
Examples of marketing used throughout the process of applications, pre-order sales, leftover sales, and shouting out specific contributors.
Contributors
The anthology had over 50 artists contributing illustration, physical art, music, writing, and more! For a full list of contributors as well as their social media links please visit the zine website.
Website
Our website, hosted on carrd.co and designed by myself holds our about information, download link, information about the director and advisor, and a full list of contributors and was available to visit since pre-orders opened.
