Sorry for double sending this, the first post was accidentially marked for paid subscribers only. What started as a little experiment to create a tool for personal use, and honestly to replace Adobe InDesign for small layout purposes, quickly turned into one of the biggest side projects of this year. There are a couple of really good examples of online zine editors out there (shouts to Dirty Little Zine, Shrimp Zine and Jill.photos), all of them are great single-page editors, but I mostly do saddle-stitched booklets. And I needed a tool that automatically arranges the pages after the layout in a PDF that includes proper booklet imposition. So I started to make my own. After many iterations, a few nightshifts and several rounds of feedback, Small Town Zine Club was born: Small Town Zine Club is a browser-based, easy-to-use and free app for making, printing, and sharing your own zines.
It runs in your browser (use Chrome for the best experience, Desktop only), and after registration for an account, you can upload your own images in an easy-to-use layout tool in two zine variants:
But Small Town Zine Club is also a public library to share, view and print featured zines by the community, and I couldn’t be happier about the first submissions that I received in the public-alpha phase. Here’s a glimpse on the first public zines, and hopefully many more are coming!
Collection of 2025 by Micha Reinke
chasing wong by Roman Paul Widera
Everything will be OK by R.E Hulse
Self by xTAMIx161 If you are familiar with basic Layout Editors, Small Town Zine Club is pretty much self-explanatory, but it also has a list of features that make your life easier and layout a lot more fun. Here’s an overview on the features: THE EDITOR The editor works on a canvas that shows your pages in sequence. You bring in images by dragging them from a folder, using the image tool, or dropping them into template layouts: grid arrangements with adjustable margins, gaps, and fold spacing. Text is fully typeable, with 28 font options, colour, outline, kerning, line height, and the ability to upload your own fonts.
Export as a print-ready PDF — duplex booklet layout or single pages — with resolution up to 600 DPI and an optional CMYK profile to send your zine to a print shop. Alternatively, you can export the pages as JPEGs.
A built-in preview shows the zine as it will read, with a shareable link and QR code. Zines can be public or private. Public ones appear on your profile and can be featured in the gallery. You choose whether to allow PDF downloads. I made an Instruction Manual Zine if you want to dig deeper into the different tools. Feel free to print it for yourself at home! ;)
THE PUBLIC LIBRARY
The public library is a showcase of the most interesting zines from the community, curated by me. When you create your zine, you decide if the online version of your zine is public or private. If it’s public, it’s automatically submitted for review to be featured on the front page (and occasionally here on this Substack in the future) One more thing: It’s up to you if you let people print your zine at home by themselves, but it’s always nice to allow that by default! ;) UNLOCK THE FULL VERSION Small Town Zine Club is hosted on a server with Hetzner in Germany, and with a growing user base come growing server costs, so I decided to limit the amount of zines you can create on the page to one booklet and one single-page for new subscribers. If you want to support this project and unlock unlimited additional zines for your library, you can either:
WHAT’S HAPPENING NEXT I can’t wait to see what you are creating with the tool, and I will continue to develop, so I’m happy to read your feedback, ideas, bug reports and anything else that comes into your mind. I am currently concepting ideas for zine workshops using this tool. If you are interested in doing something similar: let's talk xoxo You're currently a free subscriber to Notes from the Lab. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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