How it works
A place to develop
visual stories over time.
Chapzine isn’t for single posts. It’s for the long-form work storytellers build over weeks and months — photographers, writers, illustrators — guided, step by step, from a first idea to a finished, sequenced zine.
What you can publish
Five formats, for any stage of the work — from a first dispatch to the finished book.
Zine
The finished work: a sequenced, long-form story you read end to end, built around a statement. Make one on your own or as a collab with other authors. Not ready to publish the full sequence? Post a teaser— a single preview cover that announces the project while it’s still in progress.
Field note
A quick dispatch from the field as the work happens — an image and a few words, or a contact sheet from a roll. The running, dated log of a project.
Workbook
The making-of: a project's sessions, notes, and contact sheets gathered into one working document. Open it up to the people who follow you, or keep it private.
Series
A short, curated set of images — swipe through a sequence, with an optional note and tags. Lighter than a zine, for work that stands on its own.
How to build a zine
A guided process, step by step — followed through one real zine, Between Waves.
Exploration
Define the idea before you start. A guided sequence of reflective prompts walks you, step by step, through what you keep returning to, the question your work is trying to answer, the references it lives among, and the choices that serve it — so you begin with intent, not a blank page.
The question it answers
“What keeps drawing people back to the water?”
Sessions
Document the work as it happens. Log sessions as you go — notes, contact sheets, and images accumulate into a working journal over weeks or months. The process is part of the story, not a byproduct of it.
One of 9 sessions gathered into the project’s workbook.
Editorial
Edit and publish. Select your strongest work, sequence it, write the cover and a short description, and publish as a zine — or share a workbook of your process with the people who follow your work.
Sequenced and published as a zine.Read it →
Print your work
Hold it in your hands
Available nowOrder a real printed copy of your own zine or workbook — printed on demand and shipped to you from anywhere in the world. The same work you publish here, as a physical object you can keep or gift.
- Zine — 210×210 square softcover photobook, matte 150gsm · 20–300 pages.
- Workbook — A5 matte magazine (148×210) · 18–500 pages.
Sell to readers
Coming soonSoon you’ll be able to offer your zines to readers on Chapzine — they order a printed copy, and you earn on every sale. Want it sooner? Join the early-access list.
Sell your zines — early access →Embed it on your site
Available nowPut a published zine on your own website — readers flip through the whole thing right there, no app needed. Grab the code from a public zine’s Share → Embed on your site, paste the snippet, done.
What we believe
Storytelling as a sustained practice
Zines develop over time — not in a single upload. The work is the arc, not the post.
Your work, shown with respect
Images are displayed large and uncropped — never squeezed into a thumbnail or buried in a busy grid. The work comes first.
Process is first-class
Field notes, sessions, and contact sheets are part of the work — and can be shared.
A quiet place to publish
Clean type, a calm interface, and no vanity metrics shouting over the work.
Start your first zine.