The DIY workbench in the popular game Animal Crossing now has a real-life counterpart: The Workshop for Independent Publishing in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The new, small-scale print and copy shop is essentially a couple of tables, a pegboard with hanging tools, and all the scissors your fingers can hold.
Hugging them is a few risographs (one of the only public risograph destinations in the Twin Cities) and photocopiers. Anyone can visit during its weekly open hours and use typewriters, staplers, and booklet-making machines.
Though small, it used to be smaller: Workshop for Independent Publishing (WIP) began in a Minneapolis home with an open door. The founding crew: India Johnson and Aiden Bettine.
Open (and Cheap) Copy at Home
After publishing about local queer history and using shared equipment to do so, they realized a different hub was needed. It was meant to be temporary.
“We ended up getting our own copiers and then sort of realizing that if we were seeing a lack of access to that, or if we were struggling to access that, probably other people making these and other kinds of indie publications were experiencing the same thing,” Johnson says.
Printing at FedEx can be expensive, and the library often has limits on how much you can print. Enter Late Night Copies Press, WIP’s parent. They started in 2022.
“We were like, ‘You know what? It’s not that big of a deal to just put it out there on the internet: Come to our house to make copies. We’ll do it a couple times a month.’”
A small community then formed—people needing cheap copies; folks looking for publishing resources. It drew in local zinester Low, who is now a member and volunteer at WIP.
“I just showed up on their front door and started using open copy there. And we became friends,” they recall.
Friendly and Local
This winter, Johnson and Bettine started renting a corner of a larger screenprinting business in south Minneapolis. It’s open to the public once per week, plus occasional workshops and readings.
Members can use the space during member-only hours each week, which includes staff support for the copiers. Membership is $10-$20 a month and excludes the cost of paper, copies, and the like.
The tools inside mean patrons can publish their work—from band posters to comics to chapbooks—from ideation to physical, shareable copies. There’s also a zine library to peruse while folks wait for copiers to do their thing.
“I truly feel that self-publishing is one of the only ways to get certain voices heard,” Low says, pointing to an experience at a local zine fest.
Johnson says WIP is a “niche in a local art ecosystem,” thanks to this, plus its responsiveness and small scale. It’s a space for artists, makers, and community building.
“It’s important to have spaces that are really friendly both to artists and also to creative people in our community who might occasionally participate in publishing,” Johnson says.
“I also just think the physical making of publications is really empowering to be able to do yourself.”