Pouch is now available for preorder!

And pouch.cafe is live!

The preview issue of the Pouch!

Happy New Year, everyone!!!

I hope you had a restful break and I hope you’re feeling energized and back into the swing of things for this new year! 🎊

Today I have an exciting announcement….

✨ Pouch Issue #1 is now available for preorder!!!!!! ✨

(I have a promo code for my wonderful Substack readers! It should apply automatically through the link, but if not, enter vrklovespaper for 20% off 😂)

In case you forgot, Pouch is the project I’ve been working on for the last few months, aka the indie magazine for paper lovers! There’s 22 pages of content so far, and I’m about 80% done with the first issue. If all goes well, I’m estimating that Pouch Issue #1 will ship in April/May 2024!!

AHHHHHHHHH!

Q: How are you feeling, vrk?!

A: Y’know it’s weird!! Pouch has been a dream of mine for so long (long before this newsletter started), and it’s become the most ambitious personal project I’ve ever attempted. I’ve put so much time and effort and passion and love into Pouch, and I’m about to release it to the world!

I feel really proud and excited, but it’s also the moment when the dream meets reality. Different from a “dream comes true”! Pouch issue #1 is about to actually become real, which means I will face the reality of its reception, good or bad. Like, there will be a number of sales that I see in a shop dashboard. (That was never in my fantasy!!!) I will see people’s reaction when I hand them a physical copy. I will have answers to so many questions that were so safely unanswerable in its daydream state: Will people buy Pouch? Will people like it? Will they want to be part of it? And for myself, does Pouch live up to the hype in my head?

It’s both a milestone and a point of no return. As I open preorders for Pouch, it evolves from a ✨ dream!!! 🥹 ✨ into a project with an outcome.

Worded like that, it sounds like a downgrade, no? 😂

But it’s not meant to! When I imagined this moment back in October, I thought I would be terrified. That’s not how I’m feeling, though. Surprisingly (at least to me), I am most of all feeling very, very curious: What happens next?!

The daydream, in its daydream form, always ends in the most anticlimactic way: You wake up and it was all a dream!

It’s like when you fall in love with a new TV show, but then it abruptly goes on a hiatus before resolving any storylines. The fantasy of Pouch is the old rerun I’ve watched over and over again in my head, agonizing me with its unrealized potential.

The reality of Pouch means some new episodes are about to air!! Resolutions will be had!! What happens next? I haven’t seen this part yet!! The author might disappoint me 😆 but I’m excited to tune in!!

♡ vrk

PS: Don’t forget to preorder Pouch 😂

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🏡 A cafe opening?!

Playing second-fiddle to Pouch preorders opening is the opening of my zine store: Pouch Cafe!!

In addition to Pouch you can get my other hit zines: Receipt Printer RPG, Toaster zine, or the 2017 hit classic, WHO ARE THE SHARKS: A Shark Tank fanzine.

It’s so weird that somehow having a store — even if I sell zero zines — makes me feel like a way more legitimate zine maker than storeless vrk. Like over the summer I had gone to a zine workshop, and I was like, “I uh kinda make zines, sometimes 😅”

But now I make zines!!!!

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💮 Who preorders stamps?

Another thing that’s new about making a few zines vs selling zines: I’ve become rather familiar with USPS postage calculator, and I’m a regular at the USPS online stamp store.

Yesterday as I needed more stamps, I got VERY excited to see this on USPS:

A THREE OUNCE STAMP!!!

Pouch + accoutrements weighs a bit over 2 ounces, which falls into the $1.14 postage territory, which means I have to use two Forever stamps and technically overpay (Forever stamps are $0.66 and so times two, $1.32) as well as I go through double the stamps.

THREE OUNCE STAMP means “just one stamp” and I don’t overpay!!!!!!!

I doubt three ounce stamps are a new thing in general, but they are new to me!!

They’re only available for preorder right now (just like Pouch!!) and you better believe I preordered (fellow shopkeeps supporting each other).

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🎮 In Nintendo news

Over the holidays, I played a lot of video games!! And caught up on some gaming news!!

There’s a game called Fantasy Life: The Girl Who Steals Time that’s slated to release in Summer 2024 (no preorder yet, alas) (we are not fellow shopkeeps with preorders abound), and I’ll be honest: I’m getting hyped 😌

Like, look at the genre:

“SOCIAL SLOW-LIFE RPG” that is EXACTLY the type of game I want to play

It’s a sequel to Fantasy Life on 3DS, which I had never played, but my favorite cozy gaming streamer streamed it in November and it had been on my mind ever since.

I wanted to buy it, but Nintendo shut down the 3DS estore in March last year, which means you can’t get Fantasy Life through Nintendo other than through expensive resellers, and there’s no way to get the DLC anymore…. UNLESS one mods their 3DS.

Anyway I am not saying whether I modded my 3DS!!!!

But I AM saying that these days I’ve been playing a LOT of Fantasy Life on my 3DS:

VERY GOOD GAME (also need to recharge)

The Switch sequel is adding a farmer class (a natural addition to a 2024 cozy game) and an artist class????? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN

Getting hyped!!!!

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🍟 miscellaneous

We’ve made it to the end of another newsletter!! Now that Pouch preorders are open, I’m about to start cosplaying as Marketer vrk (“vrk from marketing”?). I think it shall be my least favorite cosplay yet lol. But I’m gonna make some flyers, head to some stores & coffee shops, DM some people, send some emails!!

Wish me luck, team!

I’ll leave you with some fun links:

• 📼 My friend Nikki just started a stationery YouTube!! LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE!!

• 🧹 I love these bear LINE stickers

• 📘 Did you know that Kokuyo Campus notebooks have their own matching correction tape 😭😭😭

• 🐧 Ughhhhh I should have purchased this when it was in stock!!!

• 💖 Aaand don’t forget to Preorder Pouch (I’m marketing!!!)