How to Participate
Print Ready Submissions
Print Ready submissions are invited to form part of curated collections and for inclusion in an ongoing permanent collection. Submissions can take the form of a mini catalogue of an exhibition or recent work, an artwork its own right or an exploration of a particular theme, subject or narrative.
Micro zines are experienced by the reader as a small booklet. Its a good idea to use the front and back covers to engage people with the subject of your zine.
The microzine format is A7 sized comprising 8 pages formed by folding and cutting a printed A4 sheet of white 80gsm paper. Submissions should also include a single A4 sized image for printing on the reverse of the unfolded zine. This can take the form of a poster or text.
Submissions should take the form of single page A4 pdfs and be accompanied by a short profile (max 150 words) a short text about the microzine (max 150 words) and your social media and web links. Templates are available to guide pagination and folding. Please refer to other posts in our resources section.
Generative Artificial Intelligence
The Distromat project celebrates the analogue, the individual and the hand crafted. Our position is that the using Generative Artificial Intelligence, using data scraped without permission, recognition or benefit to individual creatives, is not compatible with the aims of our project. We are interested in celebrating your individual voice and your individual style. Therefore we do not accept any AI generated content.
Collaborations
In addition to accepting print ready submissions we do also occasionally seek to work collaboratively with other creators, designing and creating micro zines in house that feature them in the distromat.
Permanent collection
All successful applications will form part of the permanent collection which will feature in one of the two vending columns at all subsequent distromatic deployments. (subject to the approx 150+ item stocking limit of the machine) All vending purchases are randomly selected based on the stocking order. All contributors will be credited on the distromat website.
Curated sets
Individual zines will also be selected into curated sets which will be featured in the second column with cover illustrations and creatives names displayed. Curation of these sets will be by invitation and in response to the deployment location of the machine. Curated sets will be loaded into the vending hopper in strict rotation to ensure consecutive purchases will enable the full curated set to be purchased.
Copyright and licensing
Copyright of all microzines remains with the creator. By submitting a print ready microzine or components for a collaboration you are granting a non exclusive, perpetual licence for paperworks to reproduce and distribute the microzine as part of the distromat project.
Payments to contributors
All submissions are free. All printing folding stocking and distromat deployment is undertaken and executed by paperworks. For information and transparency the costs for the physical production of each zine are as follows.
| MICROZINE COSTS | PER MICROZINE |
| Woodland Trust Paper | 1p |
| Inkjet printing ( 2 sides of A4) | 6p |
| Folding and Assembly | 22p |
| Printed card vending sleeve | 9p |
| Vending Sleeve closure sticker | 3p |
| RFID sticker and programming ( if used for links to digital assets) | 24p |
| TOTAL ( NO RFID) | 41p PER MICROZINE |
| TOTAL ( INCLUDING RFID) | 65p PER MICROZINE WITH RFID TAG |
The aim of The Distromat is to support and celebrate creative endeavour. We want to create a model which both recognises the value of contributing creatives work and provides an opportunity for the project to cover its costs and continue to grow. With proceeds of individual sales after production costs being between just 35p and 59p our initial aspiration to be able to provide 50p of each sale to the creator is sadly not possible. The administrative overhead of providing micro payments on quarterly sales of a growing number of individual zines would also be significant. This has led us to re-evaluate how we provide value to our contributors. We feel that this value is best provided through the championing our contributors and their involvement with an expanding Distromat network. We will provide a page dedicated to each contributors micro zine on the distromat website with a full profile of the creator including forward links to websites and social media. We will also seek to expand the reach of the project with an investment in new machines, engagement of new venues and taking the distromat to festivals and other appropriate events.
Wholesale supply to Contributors
Distromat is able to provide all contributors with wholesale orders of their own microzines. These are priced at 50p each for a standard zine ( 75p each if the zine includes an RFID tag programmed to direct readers to digital assetts) The microzines are supplied without vending sleeves in bundles of 5. First class postage and packing for orders of up to 20 zines costs £3.50
Zine, book and art fairs
Distromat will seek to attend zine, book and art fairs to both promote the project and generate sales from the distromat machine towards costs of attendance.
Internet Sales
Distromat will explore offering micro zines for sale direct to consumers where we feel this can contribute to the aims of supporting and celebrating creative endeavour. This is likely to take the form of selling bundles of microzines with each item retaining the same price point as in the vending machine.
Publicity
All accepted contributors will be featured here on the distromat website. Microzines will also be featured on Instagram. ( @distromat)
About the project
Distromat is a project by paper-works* an artist led partnership based in Lowestoft ,on the Suffolk Coast ,which runs a printmaking studio, printmaking workshops and also writes and publishes Lowdown a monthly cultural and creative listings zine.
Environmental Responsibility
Our aim is to deliver the most environmentally responsible zines that we can. Printed with an inkjet printer modified to run on solar power using carbon zero white paper. We use food grade inks. The result has a minimal carbon footprint, is chlorine and toxin free and 100% suitable for recycling or composting.
Future Deployment
The aim is that the Distromat project will continue to grow. We want to see an ever increasing catalogue of micro zines, growth in the number of distromat machines and the development of a network of deployment and curation partnerships with venues, galleries and events.
Revisions: Updated 22nd July 2026