Past Creative Diary entries

Saturday, August 22, 2026

I went to Kyoto to attend a study meeting. With some time to spare, I visited Saibundō. To get to the shop you get off at a subway stop called Kitaōji, and from there it's almost a straight shot, but it was unbelievably hot. I wore sunglasses, carried a parasol, and had a tenugui around my neck — I thought I had taken care to protect myself, but I ended up pretty exhausted. I had let my guard down because mornings and evenings in Kyoto are cooler than in Tokyo. I was moved by the coolness when I entered the shop, and I could feel myself recovering just by taking a sip of iced coffee. They told me the rain forecast had been wrong for the past few days. I wondered if the heat from the road surface hadn't been washed away and had built up. After resting a bit I revived, and while exchanging information about ZINEs I checked and fixed the Zindies card that they said wasn't working well. There's not enough documentation, so I need to prepare that properly. While they were showing me the ZINE corner, the title "DISTANCE.zine 01〈WE〉の時代のテクノロジー" and the name Audrey Tang caught my eye. I don't read WIRED much anymore, but I thought this looked like WIRED in ZINE form, so I grabbed it. (I did buy it, honestly.) Apart from that, I showed them the WHOLE ZINE CATALOG (prototype) and received some feedback. For now it contains all the works and creators registered on Zindies, and I plan to use it when I visit shops to explain things, but even with cover photos and descriptions it still can't beat the real thing, so I'm not sure how useful it will be as a catalog — I should think about that a bit more. It was hot, but I'm glad I went. I wonder when I'll be able to go again.

Friday, August 21, 2026

　Today I went to Nagoya. 　First, I visited Kusamura BOOKS Shin-Moriyama (probably in Moriyama Ward). My last visit was about two months ago, and this was my second time. Before speaking to the staff I walked around the store, and the floors were so well stocked that I wondered if it had always been this big. They had not only books but also goods, and to my surprise there was a Starbucks I hadn't noticed last time, with many people studying or working there. 　I had a hard time finding the ZINE corner, and when I did it was in a completely different place from what I remembered, but the atmosphere around it was noticeably different. The individuality that should be inside the books seemed to seep out in front of the shelves. (Maybe that was just me.) For literary or business books—the kind with barcodes—I feel like I know where they belong, but that doesn't apply to ZINEs. They all give off a "Huh? Why am I here again?" kind of message. That's probably the source of the feeling in front of the shelves. 　I think that lack of convention is ZINEs' greatest charm. 　Thinking that, I handed the staff a Zindies pamphlet and a refeel.day card and left. 　Next I went to NAgoya BOOK CENTER. I had a long chat with Zindies member Fujisaka and we planned our next moves. What should we do in an age when AI writes programs? Written down it sounds like a very lofty topic, but we weren't trying to be lofty—we kept coming back to what to do tomorrow, the day after, and over the next six months. Data will certainly be key, but blindly heading in that direction has no point. We need to make it a project that has social meaning. That's roughly what we talked about. 　After the conversation I found and bought a few ZINEs that caught my eye. Encounters like that are always enjoyable.

Wednesday, August 19, 2026

We're building various tools to connect creators and their works with shops. First, we made a "creator portfolio" — a PDF that introduces works and can be easily printed at convenience stores. We've also been trying something called the WHOLE ZINE CATALOG, and today I ordered a prototype of it from a printer. It contains all the creators and their works listed on Zindies, including descriptive text. The idea is to use this as a tool to show shop owners and propose selling the items in their stores. However, the unit cost is high, so for now it's the disappointing situation of taking them back instead of handing them out. I haven't seen the physical copy yet, so my opinion may change once I do. It will be unveiled on 8/21.

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Zindies lets creators and shops write diaries. You can write them on the site, or link entries written on refeel.day. We made diaries more prominent on creator and shop pages, but until now there were no share buttons and past entries were hard to browse, which made them difficult to read. We fixed that by assigning a URL to each day's diary, making it easier to favorite and share entries. You can also view a list of past diaries, so you can see what creators and shops have been doing. Not every day brings something notable, but I think continuing over time reveals things you wouldn't otherwise see. Anyone registered as a creator or shop on Zindies can use this feature, so please give it a try.

Wednesday, August 12, 2026

　Yesterday I went to ImaZINE held in Nagoya with Fujisaka from NAgoya BOOK CENTER. We went casually as attendees to look around, not as exhibitors. I had also been to ZINE Station that was held in Kyoto a little while ago; both were first-time events and each room felt about the same size. (ImaZINE had two rooms, so there were roughly twice as many exhibitors.) 　Sugita from Be Nice, a publisher/mobile-bookstore(?) style group I've known for a while, was also exhibiting; I bought a ZINE that felt like "Be Nice's exhibition history" while saying hello. I was able to talk with Ruko, who is a labor enthusiast, and Saki Shiori (team!) who was next to her, and it was nice to chat with several people who are close to Fujisaka. 　Before going to ImaZINE I actually visited Iruka Shorin near my parents' home. They knew about Librize and had several ZINEs. I found a "delusion ZINE" by someone called Yumetsuna interesting and tried to buy it, but they told me, "They're exhibiting at ImaZINE today too—please buy it there," so I found it at ImaZINE and got it safely. Iruka Shorin later registered with Zindies, so please try contacting the author as well. 　After ImaZINE we took the subway to Nakamura Park and had a meal with Fujisaka and others. We gathered at "Kushikatsu Taikō", where the yakitori and skewers are delicious, chatted a lot about ZINEs and libraries, and then broke up. 　I was pretty exhausted, but talking with people is fun. Hearing and sharing various ideas made me think that this is how things start to move. 　My next visit to Nagoya is on 9/5. I'll attend an event for Iida Kazufumi's new book, "An Introduction to 'Relaxed Reading' for 90% of Japanese." I'm really looking forward to it.

Saturday, August 8, 2026

We get questions about Zindies fairly often. Most of them lead to ideas for improving the service, and we're grateful for that. When writing answers to those questions, I thought it would be better to make them available as Q&A for anyone to see, rather than replying only to the person who asked. note has a feature called '質問箱' (question box). At first I considered using that name for Zindies as well, but the meaning is different: on note creators or shops receive questions anonymously, whereas on Zindies people send questions to the operations team. Creators and shops also sometimes send requests like "I want this," so I decided to name it 'おたずねBOX'. A section has been added to creators' and shops' management pages where they can submit questions. Besides responding to the person who asked, the operations team can edit the question and answer before publishing them. Until now most inquiries came by email, but that keeps the exchange completely private. Useful information is better shared with everyone. A list is available at https://zindies.co/faq, and creators and shops can submit an 'おたずね' from the link there without returning to their management page, so please feel free to use it.

Friday, August 7, 2026

Today I ended up spending the day just grading the test results from last week's class... Sorry this isn't related to Zindies. 🙇

Sunday, August 2, 2026

We released a feature that lets creators generate portfolio PDFs. It also integrates with convenience-store print services such as Lawson and Famima (i.e., convenience stores other than 7-Eleven). You can generate a QR code on the site and print by scanning that QR code at the convenience store. The integration with convenience stores had been in place for a little while, but I wasn't satisfied with how the actual portfolio PDFs came out and remade them several times. I built it by analyzing data from works registered on Zindies, with conditions such as: creator and work descriptions (excluding extremely long ones) can be fully included, the layout doesn't look bad, and it fits on a single A4 sheet as much as possible. Because it's based on Zindies' pop design, some works might not suit it, but I think it meets the need for quickly creating something. After I wrote an article on note, I received a comment saying someone had used it right away, which made me very happy. I'm glad we made it.

Friday, July 31, 2026

　This week I was teaching a programming class at a university, so Zindies took a break. 　I don't feel like I rested at all — I'm actually exhausted — but for Zindies it ended up being a completely inactive week. 　It looks like it will be a little while before things resume.

Sunday, July 26, 2026

I arrived in Kyoto. Work doesn't start until tomorrow, so I first visited Saibundō (彩文堂) to pay my respects. I was a little relieved to hear that authors can communicate through Zindies. I left our new pamphlet and information about the new service refeel. Today wasn't an event per se, but a publisher had a corner in the shop to introduce books, and I was able to give a brief explanation of Zindies. The ZINEs on display at Saibundō are of a high level. I wondered if this is what it means for books to shape a shop. After that I went to an event called ZINE Square Kyoto held at Miyako Messe. Being the first time, I had hoped it would feel different from BunFuri (文フリ) or ZINE Fes; although it was smaller than those, there were about 60 exhibitors. I marked promising items in the sample corner and visited the booths. I bought ZINEs that included things like product design book reviews. There were some I couldn't buy because I didn't have cash on hand, but I thought Zindies might help as a tool for follow-up. I hadn't attended ZINE events for a while, but I was reminded that being on-site is important to understand what authors and readers want.

Saturday, July 25, 2026

At the start of the week I had work in Kyoto, so over the weekend I first traveled to Nagoya. I stopped by NAgoya BOOK CENTER. An event was happening at the time and the store manager, Mr. Fujisaka, was busy, but I managed to buy a ZINE I'd been interested in for a while during a break. I was also glad I could hand over the new pamphlet. They also said 'It's great!' about the iPhone app I'm testing, which gave me extra motivation to polish it. The appearance is mostly the same as the web browser, but turning it into an app lets you create new interaction flows, so it seems easier to improve usability. I'll keep working hard.

Friday, July 24, 2026

I'm continuing to polish the iOS app. It's a battle against the heat. (Not really related)

Thursday, July 23, 2026

An autumn event has been decided. I'm on the organizing side rather than a participant, so I need to prepare various things. Also, the iPhone app passed review (the issues were hardly a problem). I've already had several people try it out. I'm grateful.

Wednesday, July 22, 2026

That said, it isn’t a real release — it’s a preparatory stage so various people can run tests. Unless there are any particular problems, it should pass review. Even so, having something reviewed makes me a little nervous. It’s not that I’m weak before authority; I think it’s just that I worry I’ll have to do something else if it gets rejected.

Tuesday, July 21, 2026

The mobile app development is progressing in a steady, matter-of-fact way rather than especially smoothly. Today I was working on the login part integrated with external services like Google, Apple, and LINE. Although 'working on it' mostly meant I was watching the code the AI generated, testing those external services requires real accounts and you have to operate the test smartphone yourself. It would be nice if everything worked perfectly, but this part is rather tricky. I'll skip the finer details, but since we're not making a smartphone-only app and are repurposing something that runs in a desktop browser, getting the connecting pieces to fit together was difficult. Still, the UI now looks good enough that it doesn’t appear to be a bug, so I'll call it done for now. This is still just the entry point; the real work is organizing and refining the displayed content from here. Somehow it feels like doing a summer vacation craft project, which is fun in its own way.

Monday, July 20, 2026

Even though I'm inside the house... For now, I'll just fix some small bugs and call it a day...

Sunday, July 19, 2026

I use an Android device and don't own an iPhone. For developing the Zindies app it would be helpful to have an iPhone, so I was looking around. Since it's for development rather than everyday use, I searched for a used one. From what I found, the iPhone SE (2nd generation) seems to be sufficient. When I checked Amazon it was about ¥15,000. When the one I ordered arrived, it was in very good condition. Apparently used devices can be hit or miss, so I was lucky. The small screen is actually convenient for testing. Compared to recent smartphones it's very light and easy to carry, so it might end up becoming my everyday phone.

Friday, July 17, 2026

I'm developing apps for Android and iPhone separately. Even now, you can use "Add to Home Screen" to create an icon and launch it like an app, but it's still a web browser under the hood, and notification settings can change without you noticing, so the usability isn't great. I haven't built either before, but if you ask an AI it can create a basic framework. Starting from scratch is tough, but once you have a foundation, development goes faster. The app still has room to improve, but the most tedious part is registering with the app stores. That's also part of the experience.

Wednesday, July 15, 2026

Today I spent the day working on updates for a service called Librize that I've been running for over ten years. After operating something for that long, little cracks inevitably appear throughout the code. I could fix them as I notice them, but they tend to have wide-ranging effects, so it takes focused effort to tackle them properly. Thanks to the hard work, things improved considerably. That's good.

Tuesday, July 14, 2026

NAgoya BOOK CENTER's events have all been impressive, and that has driven an increase in site traffic. I'm very grateful. The other day someone asked if we could add a "歌会" category, and after I set it up an event was already registered. Fast! I occasionally review the structure of the event pages, and I adjusted things because the sign-up button can be hard to see on smartphones. Also, since I heard that people couldn't find where to cancel, I decided to include that information in the registration confirmation email. Ideally it would be nice to show a list on the user's settings page, but I'll consider that if sign-ups increase.