Introduction: What is Tactile Zine 2.0?

A physical zine covering the maker and creative culture around custom mechanical keyboards. And anything adjacent. You can expect interviews with community members, commentenary from me, and other related topics. I am also running a blog as well though so I may cross-post snippets of interviews and will be writing other things. This is a revival of my original zine project.

What’s a zine? It’s a physical, printed on paper, mini magazine that I am self publishing. And to keep the original vibe of the zine, this entire project is DIY. I taught myself how to self host the website. I made the stamps for the thank you notes. I write and edit everything myself. I’m going to try and work on as much art myself as I can. This is a passion project and as such, things can take some time.

That’s not to say I don’t want to work with others so if you have an idea, want to contribute, or provide some feedback, please let me know. I also want to hire some of the amazing artists I’ve seen in the community to provide art for the zines or stickers.

Links

• Blog: https://tactilezine.xyz/posts
• Instagram: @tactilezine
• geekhack forum: I post as CPTBadAss.

What happened to Tactile Zine 1.0?

Nothing malicious happened. I lost interest and wanted to get into other things. Check out the original thread on the geekhack forums. I took a 6 year break and I’m interested in mechanical keyboards again so I’m back.

Where can I buy a zine?

Like Tactile Zine 1.0, the zine will be physical only. I cannot offer the zine for free like I did for 1.0 but I plan on keeping the zine as affordable as possible.

When they’re available, I’ll post an update on Instagram, the blog, and on the geekhack thread. They’ll be available at https://tactilezine.bigcartel.com/. If there’s nothing up or you can’t access the site, there’s nothing for sale at the moment. Check back whenever you see an announcement from me.

I’d like to provide feedback, how can I get in touch?

• Email: contact@tactilezine.xyz
• Instagram: @tactilezine
• Discord: CBA88#8728
• geekhack forum: Message CPTBadAss or comment in the Tactile Zine 2.0 thread

How can I support you besides buying the zines

If you feel this way, I’m truly thankful. You can donate at https://ko-fi.com/tactilezine. Please don’t feel obligated. Your donations will help with things such as stamps, stickers, envelopes, printing costs, and other supplies.

On Shipping

In an effort to keep this zine as affordable as possible, I will only ship zines via letter mail. Letter mail means it’s mail where you put paper in an envelope and put a stamp on it like your parents/grandparents might have done.

USPS offers a choice of 2 stamps:

1) For US domestic shipping - USPS first-class forever stamps (link for more information including current pricing)

2) For US to all non-US international shipping - USPS global forever stamp (link for more information including current pricing)

Yes this means that you will be paying approximately $0.63 - $1.45 USD for shipping. This also means there is no tracking number. I will also be subject to any current service restrictions that USPS has.

I have shipped hundreds of zines when I was shipping Tactile Zine 1.0 and there were only a few lost zines. I am currently not willing to add any other shipment methods. Also as I said previously, I want to keep this as affordable as possible. Please keep this in mind when ordering.

If you do not receive your zine in a reasonable amount of time (~1 month), please contact me.

What’s coming next?

Currently I’m working on editing the interviews I have for the next time. That will hopefully be on soonTM. I do also have an idea for a second zine as well so that will be worked on as soon as I am finished with the other.

I have been posting a few things on my blog and will continue doing so. I am interested in doing some new to me switch reviews (lol everything is new to me). I just made my first purchases on Switch Oddities and Keyleido.

I will be attending at least 2 meetups this summer (in Connecticut and the CannonKeys meetup). I have talked to a few people who have asked if I would reprint the 1.0 zines. My intent for those was to stay print only. However, I realize there’s lots of new people who may have found the project later and wasn’t able to read them. I will be bringing the 1.0 zines to the meetups so people can browse them. So I hope to see you at the meetups. I am hoping to attend more as well and will try to make the effort of bringing the 1.0 zines for people to check out. I also hope to have 2.0 zines and stickers for sale at any meetups I go to.

Please look forward to what’s coming next!