Snipette Analog Fundraiser
Snipette

Analog for Everyone

62,051 rupees Goal: ₹5,00,000
62 people Goal: 750

Who we are

Snipette puppies

We are a web and print magazine seeking to explain the world in an easy to understand way. We borrow techniques from fiction to make our non-fiction shine. Browse our library of 250+ articles here!

What we do

Puppy with a stack of magazines

In order to make our content more accessible, we have been bringing out a print version, Snipette Analog, which is a better medium for long-form articles. Sample the latest issue here.

Our problem

People wanting money and money wanting people

Digital printing is expensive. Offset printing is more cost-effective, but it only works at scale—1000 copies or more. So we can't bring down costs till we got more subscribers, but we won't get more subscribers till we bring down costs. Catch-22.

Your Solution

Puppies catching subscribers and money in a safety net

Here's your chance to pledge to pay the lower rate for our print version. Your donation of ₹500 or more will get you a full years' worth of Snipette, and make it cost-effective for everybody else as well—a win-win situation all round.

How it works

  • 1

    You make your pledge, saying how much you're willing to donate to us (or "subscribe", if that's how you prefer to think about it)

  • 2

    Once we've collected enough pledges to start operations, we'll reach out to you to make the payment (so be sure to provide us with valid contact details!)

  • 3

    You can make your payment through Internet Banking, card, UPI, cheque, or any other preferred method

  • 4

    When all the payments have come in, we will be ready to start printing! The first print run will happen 3-6 months after we reach our goal, and every 3 months from then onwards

  • We will be posting updates on the progress of this campaign on social media. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to drop us a line there or email editors@snipettemag.com.

Recent Pledges

Donation options

Would you like to receive our weekly newsletter?

Are you a robot?

Frequently asked questions

Why are there two goals?

We need enough money to be able to print out 1,000 copies of Snipette—but there's no point in having so many copies if there's nobody to send them to! That's why we required at least 750 people to have signed up, so that we can send out most of the copies to them.

What's actually inside Snipette Analog?

You will be getting four copies of Snipette Analog, which will collectively contain all the articles that we publish in a year (you can see a sample copy here). Apart from this, you will also get the perks listed under your chosen tier—details on those are yet to be worked out and we will update you about them once we begin operations.

Why pay for something that already exists on the internet?

With the world under the grip of the coronavirus pandemic, everyone has suddenly come under the grip of screens. We use it for work, hobbies, play, and even social life. Through Snipette Analog, our print version, we hope to provide some respite from this relentless screen-time that is entertaining and yet informative. We have noticed that people prefer reading long-form content like ours from a physical print copy rather than off the internet, but the current price is prohibitive for many. By contributing to our campaign, you will be helping to make this experience affordable—and, hopefully, giving yourself, your friends, and your family a little bit of respite from screens as well.

What will my email and phone number be used for?

We will use your email (and phone number, if you provide one) while collecting payment. We will attempt to contact you for the number of times you specify, and, if you don’t respond by then, we will unfortunately have to count your contribution as lost.

Once your payment comes in, we will use your email to figure out details of perks (such as what address to ship stickers to or what social media handles to use in our shoutouts). If your perks include an Analog subscription, your email will be stored in our Airtable database for as long as your subscription lasts so we can contact you for Analog-related tasks such as sending you the PDF attachment, following up on deliveries, and sending renewal reminders when the subscription is about to expire.

If the campaign is cancelled for some reason, we will use your email and/or phone to contact you about that and collect details about refunding your contribution.

If you subscribe to our weekly newsletter, you will email notifications for that too.

Apart from the aforementioned purposes, we will not use your contact details anywhere or link them with any other forms of data analysis or profiling. Don't worry!

How will you decide when to start printing?

We will start printing when we’ve reached our funding goal, and we are predicting that it might take about 3-6 months after we reach the goal to get you the copies.

How will I hear about when to pay?

We will start by sending you an email, failing which we will give you a call if you’ve provided your number. We will attempt to reach you through phone and email for the number of times you specify before giving up.

You can also watch out for updates on our social media handles.

How will I make my payment when the time comes?

We will start by sending you an email, failing which we will give you a call if you’ve provided your number. We will attempt to reach you through phone and email for the number of times you specify before giving up.

You can also watch out for updates on our social media handles.

Is this tax-deductible?

Unfortunately, no. We are not formally registered anywhere; in fact if this campaign is successful we hope it will help us scale up and formalise our operations. Till then, you can think of it this way: we’re only asking for small donations, so the taxable amount will be really tiny anyway 😉

Can I back out of a pledge?

You can back out before the final payment is made—just email editors@snipettemag.com saying that you want to drop out. (We’ll add a helpful form for this in a bit, so stay tuned). If you’re dropping out because you don’t want a print copy, consider opting out of perks instead—that way you won’t receive Snipette Analog or any of the other perks, but your financial contribution will still go towards supporting us and our mission.

Once printing starts, we’ll have to lock in your money because we’ll be starting to use it. You will still be able to opt out of perks but we won’t be able to offer you a refund on the money.

What happens if the campaign fails?

This depends on the stage at which the campain fails: before or after reaching our goal and collecting payments:

  • If we have failed to reach our goals in 12 months, we will call off the campaign. Everyone will be informed of this and we will clear our database of donors unless requested otherwise. Since no payments would have been made at that time, there will be no need to process any refunds.
  • If we reach our goals and started collecting money but then run short because some people backed out, we will have to call off operations. (This is why you should make sure we can contact you easily when the time comes, and why we hope you won’t back out!). In this case, if you have already sent in your payment, we will refund that payment to you minus the transaction and processing fees incurred by the payment gateway.
  • A final way this campaign can fail is if we collect all the funds but then fail to start printing copies. (We think this is highly unlikely, but so was COVID before it happened). In this case, the process will be similar to the earlier case: everyone will receive their money back minus the transaction and processing fees incurred by the payment gateway. If some of the money has already been spent (for example, through a partially started but then aborted print run) we may ask for additional contributions but these will be completely voluntary; the default option is for us bear the cost of the failed operation ourselves and give all donors a full refund.

Are you really capable of doing this?

We have been operating as an online magazine for nearly five years, including two years of running our quartely print version. You can see the results for yourself online, and we are confident we can continue to keep up the performance. We even have an existing Airtable database to keep all the subscriber details in order; adding hundreds of subscribers more will basically be an extension of that process.

The only potential stumbling block is the offset printing process itself and the subsequent scaling up of the shipping process. To that end, we have begun to establish contacts in the offset printing industry; in fact our budget estimate is based off a set of official quotes provided by an offset printing firm. We plan to work out a system, either with the printers or on our own, to handle the collection and distribution of prints once they come out. As a last resort, we could use a part of our budget to hire extra people for the packaging and shipping, but we’re fairly confident that won’t be necessary.

What happens to surplus copies?

We aren't sure, to be honest, but the surplus copies could end up being used in any of the following ways:

  • Distributing "author copies" to Snipette authors, to thank them for all the time and effort they put in to creating our articles
  • Sample copies to be sent out to institutions or individuals, inviting them to sign up for a subscription
  • Free copies to be left in public places or on metros à la Books on the Delhi Metro
  • Selling at fairs, melas, and possibly newsstands
By the way, if you have any more ideas on this, please do let us know 🙂

I have some other question...

If you have any other questions, feel free to drop us an email or tweet it in. We'll get back within a week, and maybe you'll find your question magically appearing here as well 😉