Philly Plain Dealer

In November of 2024 about a dozen writers and creatives met at Lucy’s Bar in Center City and talked for hours about how we could make the Philly Plain Dealer into something more than a website with some social media accounts. We agreed that there were a few ways to accomplish this, we needed to make money, we needed to get in front of people, and we needed to write more consistently.

Being that this is an unpaid side hustle for all of us and the fact that in 5 years of existence we’ve never made a dollar, accomplishing all of those goals is incredibly hard.

That being said, we are working hard to keep our lives afloat while simultaneously working towards the dream of turning the Philly Plain Dealer into an outlet that can help buy us writers a drink or two every now and then. So we have self financed the release of a small print-edition of the Philly Plain Dealer!

If you’d like to support our work and keep us alive, we are selling the First-Edition of the re-launched Philly Plain Dealer for $8. If you are interested but do not want to be financially invested, we will be dispersing 200 free copies around Philadelphia at various coffee shops, bars, and a variety of eccentric venues.

Print copies will be available at Triangle Tavern, Latchkey Records, Gleaner’s Cafe, the Art Box outside of Charmed on South Street, and a number of other locations to be announced Friday.

We will admit that this print-edition is a lot smaller and less glamorous than we intended, but we’re extremely proud of the 8-page booklet style publication that we have put together! The print edition features six stories, three blurbs, and one out of every five will have a small knick-knack on page four. One of the six stories is an exclusive interview with GRAMMY winning producer and Germantown-native DJ Drama!

Our asks are modest, our intent is pure, and we hope to make our readers (of which there are thousands) proud. You want independent media that isn’t tied to corporate interests in Philadelphia? Here’s your chance, six writers of diverse backgrounds have made a publication for you. Dozens of writers who have at one point or another believed in this idea have been published on this website, and we hope to be a launching pad for aspiring writers from all across Philadelphia.

If you feel like $8 is too steep, we completely understand, grab a free one. We know how life is right now. All of the print stories will be published online through the end of April, but for a limited time many of these stories will only be available in print.

We are excited for people to read the stories we’ve put together. We hope that this first-edition print becomes something special that is eventually worth more than $8. We hope it becomes a collectors item after we release our 100th edition, whenever that may be.

Thank you for reading this, follow the Philly Plain Dealer on Bluesky, Instagram, and Twitter to learn where the free copies will be.