We never expected free zines to pay us, so if we ever contacted a free zine, that must mean we wanted to be known

Because even if this zine in particular was free, they know more people than us (who are maybe working on other zines)
Because even if they work on free projects now, that might not be forever, and they'll remember we exist when they decide to work on other projects

Going forward, we'll make sure to include a clause in our contract that contributors should always been made aware of our presence, terms, and cut when embarking on a project.

On our end, we'll also make sure that this info is easily available to all contributors.

Thank you for your constructive feedback! At the time, neither we nor the mods were aware this would become an issue, and that is indeed an oversight on our end that we'll make sure to correct. We're currently releasing our statement in the zines we're in. Furthermore:

We were starting out and trying to get the word out. As we often say to people, if they don't need us, they can share our info to friends who might need us. Our approach may indeed have been clumsy.

This is Aly, that must be me doing the "cold emailing" because I don't use emojis. When we started, we reached out to people who worked in Zines to make our services known to people who would want to work with us. Later on, we quickly found it useless so we stopped

As a precision: we do not own contributors' work. Our contract clearly states that their work remains theirs, and ours remains ours - that is, the finance sheet, for instance.

Below, we are the "Provider", the head mods are the "Heads", Contributors are "Contributor".

As was stated in our document, we do not force contributors to pay for their copies. Finances are made with free full bundles and free shipping for contributors.

We didn't set up any of the projects we joined as Amazine.

We are aware that 15% is not a cut every zine can afford - the same way not everyone can afford to hire movers. Each project can adapt their production team to their needs.

Both of us actually left our previous jobs - as financial analysts and software engineers - to dedicate ourselves to our task. Working in this universe, surrounded by creativity, is infinitely more gratifying than being in a corporate office.

We enjoy working on the logistics of a zine and seeing it come to life. As such, we wanted to make it our job so we could dedicate ourselves fulltime to it. It came to us as we were helping out on past projects; we realized there were people with ideas but no finance/ship mod in their network.

As mentioned in our document, we do the finances of a zine with free full bundles in mind (and free shipping too). So yes, if the zine promised full bundles to their contributors, contributors will receive full bundles. However, that is not our decision - it's up to each project