Zines,preserved as made.
Pressrun is a small, independent publishing platform for fanzine makers. We hold your spreads exactly as you laid them out, point readers at the page, and step away. There is no algorithm, no paywall, no recommendation engine, and no “trending”. There is a directory, a subscribe button, and a way to pin a thought to a page.
§01
What a zine is, to us
A zine is a small, deliberately finite publication. It's usually photocopied, stapled, folded — something where the physical object is part of the argument. A zine isn't a blog post; it's a spread. It reads from left to right across two pages, not down a screen in a thread.
When you scan one for the internet, every major platform reformats it: covers get cropped to 16:9, spreads get stretched, text gets OCR'd. Pressrun does not do this. You upload it, we host it at its true aspect ratio, and a reader turns the pages.
§02 · Spread-first
We hold the spread intact.
Aspect ratios, gutters, fold centres. Nothing gets re-cropped. On desktop we show true two-page spreads. On phones, we stack them vertically — still unflattened.
§03 · Margin notes, not comments
Pinned to a spread, not a timeline.
Everyone who reads a zine sees the same conversation. A reader pins a short note to an (x, y) point on a spread. The zine stays the focus; the thread lives beside it, never beneath it. Creators moderate — disagreement stays, spam doesn't.
§04 · One-click, plain-text
Subscribe, get a plain email when it's out.
No digests. No marketing. A short message when a zine you follow publishes a new issue. Unsubscribe with one click. Pressrun does not sell newsletters or a funnel.
§05 · No algorithm
Discovery is manual.
A directory in A–Z order. Search by creator or tag. An editorial pick once a week — one human, one sentence. That's it.
§06
Who runs this
Pressrun is run by a group of three people in Osaka, Bristol, and Bengaluru who spent too many weekends trying to read photocopied zines on platforms built for vertical feeds. We build the site between jobs. We do not have investors. We intend to stay small.
The money model is open: optional donations to makers, optional small monthly support for the platform. We will not add ads, upsells, or boosted posts. If that becomes untenable, we will say so in public and ask.
submissions · open
Submit a zine.
We curate lightly. If you've made a fanzine — printed, photocopied, hand-stapled — we'd like to see it. Anything goes: poetry, theory, illustration, field notes, fiction.
- — PDF, or a folder of page images
- — One issue is enough
- — English or any other language
- — Free to publish, always
Small print
- Who owns the zine I upload?
- You do. Pressrun gets a non-exclusive license to host, display, and send notification emails on your behalf. That's it.
- Will there be ads?
- No.
- Can I remove my zine?
- Yes. At any point, from the dashboard. It disappears within 24 hours including cache.
- What about analytics?
- We show you read count and note count per spread. We do not sell or share reader data. We do not track readers across the web.
- Do you ship physical zines?
- No, but many of our creators do. Check their external websites listed on their profile.