History

2020: Coin-Operated Press was founded by Chloe Henderson & Katie McCann on the 20th of May 2020. In our first year of operations we made our first zine, Quaranzine, in June, and published seven zines in our first year of operations. We launched our zine shop, and created a line of zine-themed merch to accompany our zines. The Covid-19 pandemic meant we could not take our love for zines out into the real world this year, so we established our Discord channel to connect with our zine pals, as well as launching our YouTube channel to create educational videos about zines. Our social media channels reached far and wide, and we joined in our first International Zine Month challenge by posting about zines every day throughout the whole of July! We connected with zinesters around the world by participating in a bunch of online zine fairs, including KC Zine Con, and Street Cat Zine Fest, as well as hosting our own online zine fair at Christmas!

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2021: In our second year of operations we published ten collaborative zines, and our first zine annual to celebrate our first birthday, as well as collaborating on our zine, UNAPOLOGETIC FEMINISM, with Artificial Womb! In 2021, we received our first zine commission and opened up a section on our website for commission work. We were still being restricted to online shenanigans, so we launched our Coin-Operated Craft Clubs on Discord where we would hang out, chat, and work on our DIY projects virtually but together. With the success of our Craft Clubs, we decided to host our first big virtual performance night, An Evening With... in aid of Food Not Bombs and it was an amazing night - all of our zine pals are so talented! We celebrated our first birthday in style by hosting another virtual zine fair - our biggest so far! We also virtually tabled at a bunch more zine fairs in 2021, including Glasgow Zine Fest, Swansea Zine Fest, Queer Zest Zine Fest, Street Cat Zine Fest, and Hackney Comic + Zine Fair. As the year progressed, restrictions eased up a little, and we were actually able to do our first in-person events! We tabled at Edinburgh Zine Fair hosted by Typewronger Books, Book Yer Ane Fest at Rad Apples, and the Queer Stuff Small Press Market at Blunt Knife Co. We also hosted our first-ever workshop at Edinburgh's Radical Book Fair.

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2022: In our third year of operations we published twelve collaborative zines. We opened up a distro section in our shop and started taking submissions for stock, as well as publishing our first commissioned publication: Poems for the Ride. 2022 was our year of getting out into the real world! We tabled at our first Comic Con, as well as tabling in-person at Edinburgh Zine Fest, Edinburgh Pride, The Edinburgh Collective Garden Party, Glasow Zine Fest, Scrap Antics Craft Fair, and a bunch of queertastic craft fairs at Kafe Kweer. We also hosted our first in-person zine fair to celebrate our third birthday at Blunt Knife Co. and it went so well that we hosted an even bigger zine fair at the University of Dundee: our first annual HALLOZINE fair! We hosted LOTS of zine-making workshops throughout the year all around Edinburgh and Dundee, including as part of the Embassy Gallery Annuale Festival, Small Press Day, and the Being Human Festival. We also hosted our first collaborative workshop with Rhyze Mushrooms where participants got to learn how to grow mushrooms from home, and then document their growing journeys using zines! As well as tabling at Edinburgh Pride, we hosted a series of workshops to help folks make their own banners to take to protests and march with pride!

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2023: In our fourth year of operations on the 26th of January we were officially accepted as a Community Interest Company. Our company number is SC756663.

 

2024: We have a lot of exciting happenings planned for this year! Stay tuned...