Your year of writing, bound & mailed to your readers.
Inksheaf turns a Substack publication into a printed edition, quarterly or annual. We pull your archive, typeset it as a 6×9 book with a table of contents, running headers, footnotes and your own cover, and you approve every page before anything prints. Your readers order copies from one link; printing and mailing are handled for you.
The beta is five publications, US delivery, first books in readers' hands this winter.
- Paste your publication's URL below. Free posts come from your public archive; for paywalled posts you upload Substack's own export, so no passwords change hands.
- We typeset the issue and send you a proof PDF. You reorder, cut, add an editor's note, then lock it.
- Your readers order at your Inksheaf link. Each copy is printed on demand and mailed to them. You can also sponsor copies for a founding-subscriber list you provide, with a hard spending cap you set.
| Trim | 6 × 9 in, perfect bound |
| Paper | 60# uncoated white, black ink |
| Cover | Full colour, matte, your publication's own masthead and palette |
| Length | 30–300 pages; a year of weekly essays is roughly 200 |
| Apparatus | Contents with page numbers, running headers, footnotes kept as footnotes, bylines per article |
| Price | Published after we print the first copies; we quote measured costs, and there are none yet |
Substack writers with roughly 1,000 to 20,000 subscribers, at least a year of archive, and essays or serialized nonfiction. Every publication in the beta gets concierge treatment: a person, not a pipeline, checks every page of your first issue.
Three ways beta publications plan to use print: a founding-member perk, with sponsored copies for top supporters under a budget cap you set; an annual readers buy from a link in your footer or About page; and a door into the back catalog, so a new subscriber can meet three years of writing as one bound volume instead of an infinite scroll.
- What does it cost me?
- Nothing during the beta. Readers pay for the copies they order.
- What do I earn?
- Beta publications set the reader price and the author's share with us, from measured print and shipping costs. Nothing is promised before it is measured.
- Who owns the writing?
- You do. You grant permission to print and mail the copies your readers order, and you can revoke it at any time; revoking stops sales of your editions.
- How do paid posts get in without my password?
- You upload the export Substack generates in your own dashboard (Settings → Exports). Any subscriber files inside it are discarded unread; only the posts are kept.
- What happens to images, tweets and embeds?
- Every image is checked at its printed size before you lock the issue, and anything that would print badly is flagged to you. Tweets, video and audio become printed cards with a QR code to the original.
- When do the first books exist?
- The beta targets December printing, with books in readers' hands around New Year. Beta publications hear every date change directly.
- Where can I read more?
- Write to hello@inksheaf.com; every message gets an answer. The build is documented as it happens oncaithrin.com.
You're on the list.
We reply to every signup within a few days. If you'd like to skip the queue, reply to our email with a link to the one issue of your publication you'd most want on paper.