2026 GOAL UPDATE

As we’re in the second half of the year (how is it already august?) I thought now was a good time to look at the goals I set myself for the year. Check if I’ve ticked any off, if I’ve made progress on others and if any might need to be changed or abandoned. Plus hopefully encourage any other goal setters to allow themselves to tweak as needed rather than set yourself up for failure. 

CREATE MORE FREE ZINES

A big old tick here! There are more free zines on the website now than at the start of the year, not all of them are by me but some are. I’m a little bit disappointed that I haven’t made more by now, especially since I have so many drafted. Either I’ve not finished the research or they haven’t gotten passed the first draft phase. On the bright side I still have plenty of time to get a few more finished before the end of 2026.

GET A NEW PRINTER

Honestly, I’m a bit stuck on this front. There are so many options it’s overwhelming and it’s a big enough expense that I feel the pressure to get it right. If anyone has any suggestions of a good printer please send them my way!

POST ON MY BLOG ONCE A MONTH

This goal wasn’t a strict monthly post, it was more setting a goal to post 12 times throughout the year, which seemed like a reasonable number. The motivation behind this goal was to use it to engage with you guys, post to something that isn’t social media, and let myself just ramble about zine related topics. I’m four months behind.

I envy people who have a regular blog they post to and I’m not sure how they do it. I feel like I’m always struggling to have the motivation to write for it. It comes in sudden bursts and when that happens it’s a lot of fun. However, a lot of ideas I have I feel would make better zines than blog content, not that I’m making as many zines as I want to be either. 

I am certain this is something I can achieve by the end of the year but I need to change my mind set around it. Let myself have more fun and let something be a blog post even if it might later also be a zine.

ATTEND AT LEAST 10 FAIRS

I only need to attend 2 more to hit this goal! 

PLAN AND RUN A ZINE FAIR

I can’t talk much about this one but progress has and is being made currently. It’s taken me longer than I wanted to get to this point (for some frustrating reasons) but it’s not something I want to rush anyway. Keep your fingers crossed because if all of this falls into place I’ll be running a zine fair in 2027! I might need to change the wording on this one to ‘Plan A Zine Fair’, just to be fair to myself.

WRITE A ZINE ABOUT RUNNING THE DISTRO

I have notes for this zine! It’s also more about the distro in general rather than the details of how I run it. My current plan is to have it finished for our two year anniversary in a few months.

KEEP RUNNING MY ZINE CLUB

I really love running workshops, its something that I’m still doing in my day job but the zine club just wasn’t feasible to keep running. The amount of work I had to put in and my overheads just wasn’t sustainable, I’ve put in a lot of work for some workshops where I’ve only broken even or even made a very small loss. I’m not particularly driven by money but I wasn’t in a position where I can keep running the zine club at a loss.

It really was a bit of a blow to my ego, softened by the fact I know this was a trend with other local artists’ workshops. It’s a cost-of-living crisis right now and it’s hard when you have to put the work into advertising all alone to get enough people through the door. Though I feel a tad guilty for not doing anymore at the moment. While standing at some local fairs I’ve had a number of people ask when I’ll be doing more again and I have to say currently there are no plans for more.

This isn’t to say I’m not running workshops ever again. I’ve happily run workshops groups/institutions, such No Jobs In The Arts or Two Queens for example and would adore to it more. While this means I have less control, typically I’m working to a brief, I’m being paid a set amount no matter how many people attend. Even better, a lot of these workshops I’ve been paid to run let people attend for free, something I couldn’t afford to do by myself. 

This goal I’m dropping from my board to be replaced with something else. 

CHANGE MY LOGO

This is the bane of my existence. You’ve probably noticed that I use my current logo a lot less, which isn’t because I think it’s ugly but it was designed by someone I’m no longer in contact with. There isn’t any big drama behind this situation and the logo changing is something I want for myself. 

It’s actually something I had hoped to change last year but for a couple of reasons it hasn’t gone the way I’d envisioned. I’ve actually sunk quite a bit of money into this without getting a useable outcome, which has created quite a stressed feelings around it. Currently I’m working with a very good friend on the redesign, who is helping me with her expertise. I pray that this is something I can tick off in the next month or so. 

PLAY WITH POSTING MORE VIDEOS

I can’t lie, I fucking hate posting to social media and making content for it. It’s not where I want to focus my efforts and energy, especially since it generally gives so little return. This was a noble idea but it can be removed, it doesn’t serve me.