---- --- ---
Portal Logic Press, established in 2024, is based in Austin Texas and maintained by Morgan Gage. They are interested in supporting the mediums of book and zine-making by providing publication assistance to artists and redistributing a curated collection of zines through tabling at markets and festivals.
Publications made by Portal Logic Press are focused on the accessibility and longevity of the book & zine format.
They consider the opportunity to sell other artist's zines as a way to connect many different people and ideas all at one place/one table.
Portal Logic Press prioritizes the production and dissemination of: unorthodox approaches to creative storytelling, unique and/or radical perspectives, unexpected art, environmental advocacy, fun facts, enthusiasm, honesty, and audacity.
Are you interested in selling your work within our Curated Collection?
Are you interested in producing books with our Publication Services?
More Information can be found below!
Previous Publications & Collaborative Productions affiliated with creative direction by Portal Logic Press are:
(2024) "Common Place Chaos" by Lea Thompson, Caroline Perkison, & Morgan Gage.
(2024) "Infinite Hellscape Festival 2022 Recap Zine" by John Guerry, Morgan Gage, & Shea Carley
Portal Logic Press is a brand new concept and is still in the process of building an inventory.
I am currently utilizing a loan method to gather inventory for specific events. Eventually the plan will be to buy artist books upfront for a more permanent inventory that I can use for sales, but in the meantime while I am saving funds to get to that step, most of my sales inventory is loaned items.
Since this method is less than ideal, my distributor fee on loaned material is only 15% of the sale cost. In the future, when I begin to build a permanent sales inventory, then items purchased from the artist upfront will have a distributor fee of 30%.
(Loaned items will have the sale profit amount sent to the artist via venmo or cash after the event with the 15% cut already removed. Items are loaned in relation to a specific event, for the duration of that event, and will be promptly transported before/after the event (unless the artist allows PLP to continue holding onto the items for future vending opportunities). After conclusion of the event for which the items loan-agreement was connected to, it will be clearly communicated whether the items are to be shipped, delivered to the artists location, or picked up curbside from PLP. If the agreement is that the items are to be picked up from P.L.P. then the artist has up to two weeks to do so- unless there are extenuating circumstances. After two weeks P.L.P. is released from any liability waivers related to your items.)
(Upfront purchases will be done at the reduced cost to me as the reseller so there's standardization of item price to the buyer. So if I am buying your zine/book to resell in the Portal Logic Press Curated Collection, and your item is $10, then you would sell it to me for $7, so that when I am later distributing it to buyers at the cost of $10 I am receiving my compensation at the time of each sale. This way is also good so that the customers are not disappointed by fluctuating costs between buying it from you/me. As a distributor I hope to work with artists who will not sell their work for less money then they ask me, as a distributor, to price it at. If I discover price fluctuation aka: "undercutting" occurring then there will be no initial negative repercussions besides a conversation between myself and the artist. However, multiple occasions of price undercutting discovered after attempted discussion could result in discontinuation of future collaborative opportunities.)
Mutual aid, political, social, and anything that feels to be of informational importance requires no redistribution fee or submission cost. Once this Press is more financially stable I hope to support the cost of production and might be able to pay you/your org in exchange for such donations, but for now this category is confined to items that are given to me free of charge that I will then redistribute them for free. There might be some occasions where I will encourage customers to (optionally) donate to mutual aid org's in exchange for the items....
(if you have a PDF of an info zine, where the author encourages reprinting, please email it to me. I am starting to collect an archive of activist zines that I can print in the future for free redistribution once I gain the funds to do so).
Publication with Portal Logic is a collaborative process-- both inside and out.
Books that are a part of the Portal Logic Press Publication family often (but perhaps not always) include elements of visual contributions, graphic design, and/OR editing by Morgan Gage. The process of making a book together is like an ongoing conversation. I enjoy sending frequent update messages and asking my collaborators about their opinions on the project as it advances.
Creating a result that every collaborator is happy with is PLP's #1 priority! This is achieved through open and honest communication between all of a books collaborators about what they do/don't like and what their goals or intentions might be.
The easiest way to begin the processes of publication with PLP is to share a sampling of your artwork/writing/photography/etc. with my email address-- and then I will keep your work in mind for schemes of future books which would contain your work (featured either collaboratively with another artist(s) or solo). To reiterate-- step 1: you provide PLP with a sample of your portfolio & step 2: at some point in the future PLP might pitch you their idea of what a zine containing your work could look like... This will frequently, but not always, look like pairing 2-3 artists into making a book together, as one of PLP's core missions is to encourage new conversations between different artists or artforms within the book&zine format. Pairing artists to make a book together does not necessarily mean that those artists must work together! There can be group discussions of ideas but it's not necessarily required because step 3: is that PLP will take the submitted artwork and use graphic design and editing to piece it all into a comprehensive spread of the book's interior pages.
Every publication process is different based on material needs and scope of the project. But, in general, my goal is that Publishing a book/zine with Portal Logic Press will be at no initial cost to the artist for the production of material (except for cost of shipping any books to your location if you are not based in Austin).
Once the product has been completed, Portal Logic Press will keep an agreed upon percentage of the produced books and put them up for sale in the PLP's storefront. (The percentage that is kept by PLP will depend on the cost of production-- with small black-ink books at 40% & larger full color-ink books at 60%). The artist will choose the price of the book that both PLP and the artist will sell it for. Once the book is completed and the production has been divided into separate inventories then our transaction is complete and no money percentages need to be kept up with because the split is taken care of in the form of physical books, not money. In this model, artists will not be given profit percentages from sales made out of the PLP storefront but are instead provided with free-of-charge prints of their book.
..."Publishing at no initial cost to the artist for production material" means that (currently) PLP intends to cover all overhead production costs (paper, printing, etc.) without any payment needed from the artist-- unless the scope of a certain books material needs prove too costly to create without costsharing. If your books production cost is considered to be within the range of too expensive to produce without costsharing then a contract specific to your books production and its needs will be written up.
Here is an Example of the Full Publishing Process (post completion of the zine's interior pages): We work together and produce a book of your artwork. I help you design the book and I oversee its printing for free. Once the book is finished if it is an edition of small black-ink books then it would likely be a 40/60% production split. Which means that for every 10 books produced, I will keep 4 books and you (or "the artist") will receive 6 copies of the book to keep. If you decide the book is $15 then that's what we will both use as the sale price. Then each of us sell copies independently & keep the entirety of the $15 when a book is sold. If a book is produced with more than one artist, say a zine contains two photographers and one writer, P.L.P.'s percentage cut is still non-negotiable. So that would mean, during an edition of 10 with 40/60% production split, each of the 3 artists/contributors would get 2 books and I would still get 4.
(Books Published by Portal Logic Press cannot be re-printed by anyone other than P.L.P. without permission!)
Contact Me: StudioMorganGage(@)gmail(.)com