FOR MAGAZINES AND ZINES
Issues that outlive
the print run
Back issues, subscriptions, and special editions,
all from your own site.
Rich Digital Publishing
Sell Individually or Bundle with Physicals
Entirely on Your Shopify Site
$0.60
per edition sold
$149
per month on Retailer Ops today
$50
Creator plan, coming soon
The Format
What an issue actually is
An issue that stays purchasable long after the print run, sold from your own store.
Designed page reading
Spreads and layouts that hold their composition on any screen size.
A living back catalogue
Every issue stays on sale, so an old one can still find a new reader.
Subscriptions per issue
Readers subscribe to the title and are billed as each issue ships.
Issues
Back issues
Specials
Zines
Annuals
It all runs on your Shopify store
Editions publish as products in the store you already run. Checkout, customers and payouts stay in Shopify, and the buyer record is yours.
WHAT YOU GET
Built for issues
The archive stays live and the subscription bills itself, so an old issue can still find a new reader.
A living archive
Every back issue stays purchasable long after the print run has sold out.
Subscriptions per issue
Readers subscribe to the title and get billed as each new issue ships.
Print and digital together
Bundle the digital edition with the physical copy in a single checkout.
THE REAL ARGUMENT
The buyer, not just the sale
Every platform takes a cut. Only some of them take the customer as well, and that difference is written into their terms, not their pricing page.
Their terms, their words
GlobalComix and Zoop both reserve it in their terms: “We are under no obligation to share any customer data with you.”
Borrowed, with a deadline
Backer emails arrive only after a successful campaign, and expire two years after delivery.
Yours, on your own store
A sale is an ordinary Shopify customer record. Email, order history, tags, exportable.
Before you commit
Straight answers before you commit
The questions that decide this either way. Better answered now than on your third invoice.
Will readers buy from me instead of a marketplace?
Some won’t. A marketplace is where browsing happens. The ones who buy direct are the people who already follow you, and they’re worth more than a browse: you get their email, their order history, and the ability to sell them the next thing without paying to reach them again.
I already sell on Gumroad. Do I have to stop?
No. Plenty of publishers run both, a marketplace for discovery, their own store for the people who already know them. The calculator above is about where your direct sales are better served here, not about moving everything at once.
Do I need a big catalogue for this to work?
You need volume more than breadth. One series selling steadily clears the crossover sooner than a dozen titles selling occasionally, because the cost is flat rather than per-title.
What do readers actually get?
A designed digital edition that opens in the browser, not a zip file, and not a PDF they have to find an app for. That difference is the whole reason a flat fee is worth paying.
There’s a volume where this starts to pay
At a $4.99 edition the crossover against a 10% platform lands near 470 sales a month on Retailer Ops today, and drops under 200 when the Creator plan opens. Below that a percentage costs you less, and the table above shows what you give up for it.
Digital editions ship with Retailer Ops today
Today they are included with Retailer Ops at $149 a month, plus 60¢ per edition sold. Creator and Publisher, priced for studios that do not need distributor tooling, are not open yet.
This runs on Shopify
It’s a Shopify app, not a separate platform. If you don’t want a Shopify store behind your publishing, this isn’t the right fit.
We are not a marketplace. You keep the reader.
See your own editions, your own store and your own customer list running on Masterfile before you decide anything.