Mended Wheel - Really Finding My Feet (Wheels?)
I did it again! I published an in-character newsletter for IC money at Empire LRP. This is my third edition of the Mended Wheel, and this time it’s even bigger- Four whole A4 pages of content, and some of it’s even serious reporting.
At event 2 this year I think the paper really did find its own voice. I’d been heavily influenced by more frivolous and deranged comedy publications that circulate (primarily The Moon, a fantastic Marcher newspaper that’s utterly cracked) but this edition has genuine attempts at publishing news and opinions relevant to players while keeping some of the more off-the-wall shit in. I want to be able to publish actual reporting and opinions, while keeping it as an outlet for silliness and snark.
As a result I had a much easier time producing content for it myself, from articles, to adverts and even an in-character quiz, and the paper was basically done a week before the event which took a huge load off my mind going in- Previous editions have been delivered the Thursday of an event, whereas in this case it got sent to a pickup point just beside the LARP site days in advance. Plus, I managed to double my output in terms of content, resulting in 4 A4 pages instead of two.
This caused a doubling of the paper’s in-character price- I was worried this would put a lot of punters off buying the publication, but the opposite seems to be true. There’s a general sense that ‘if it costs 10 rings, obviously it’s worth a read’. I’ve experimented with a couple formats- A5, a4 (single sheet) and a3 (folded to a4) and this definitely seems to be the best going forwards. I was shocked that the price for 100 A4s wasn’t very far off 100 A3s, so I’ll definitely be doing it again. I can also afford to pay my resellers a bigger share of the overall sale price, which incentivises them to sell the thing, as I don’t have all weekend to spend making sales.
In-character feedback was good this summit as well- I even had a (relatively) well known character in the field come to me asking if they could give a tell-all interview! If it’s still relevant when I make the next issue (4 issues in a year just isn’t feasible, I’d burn out easily so the next issue should go out in September’s event) I’ll definitely be hitting them up.
[drive.google.com/file/d/1I…](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IS1vt3ErwzgCSBfZU35l74PAMPCvfN6z/view?usp=sharing Wheel - 3rd Issue, Spring 2026 Event**)
