Store Policy

Life of a Rockstar's preorders will be open from January 31st to March 14th.

Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine is not officially licensed League of Legends or HEARTSTEEL merchandise and is purely fan-made. The seller and creators are not affiliated with Riot Games, League of Legends, or HEARTSTEEL. This is not a for-profit fanzine.

If you are interested in hosting a group order, please contact us.

To stay up-to-date on our zine, please follow us on Twitter/X or Bluesky!

By purchasing from Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine you have read, understood, and agreed to our policies below.

ITEMS AND INVENTORY

  • Each item listed in this shop is a preorder item and has not yet been manufactured. As such, the actual colours, textures, etc. of your order may vary from what you see on-screen. Additionally, fulfillment of the final products will not occur until after the preorder and production periods have ended.

  • These items are for sale for a limited time only. They will not be restocked, nor will the store re-open for preorders after all orders have been shipped out. Depending on inventory, a leftover sale may open at a later date.

  • Distribution of pre-ordered digital items will occur 1-2 weeks after all physical preorders have been shipped. All digital orders will be sent to the email address provided at the time of preorder. All emails will come from [email protected]. Please ensure that you have added our email address to your whitelist.

  • All digital goods are for personal use only and may not be redistributed, reprinted for sale, or otherwise shared.

SHIPPING POLICY

  • All items in this project are preorder items and will be shipped at a later date. The estimated production time will be 3-4 months. Shipping is estimated to begin July 2025 or August 2025.

  • Address changes can be made at any time before shipping begins via sending an email to [email protected]. We will send out an email and post an announcement on social media at the beginning of the Shipping Period to provide a Change of Address form.

  • We will be shipping from the United States of America via USPS and are currently unable to ship to the following countries in the suspended shipping list, as well as Israel and the State of Palestine. Any physical orders placed from these countries will be refunded and canceled. Due to various factors including the COVID-19 pandemic, shipping may also be delayed or otherwise affected. 

  • Parcels will be shipped with Pirateship. All orders will be shipped with tracking numbers by default. Buyers are responsible for any customs fees, taxes, or VAT.

  • Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine is not responsible for any packages that are lost or damaged during shipment. If a package is returned to sender, we will reach out via email to attempt a second shipment. The buyer will be responsible for any additional charges in the event of a second shipment attempt.

  • We ensure that your orders are packaged securely. If there are any issues, please contact your local post office first to report the damage before contacting us. After this, we can work with you to find the best solution possible. All inquiries about damaged goods should be sent to [email protected].

CANCELLATION POLICY

Buyers are entitled to a full refund(excluding any service fees incurred by Paypal or Stripe) for cancellation requests made during the preorder period. Once the preorder period has passed, cancellation requests may not be made.

RETURN POLICY

Returns will not be accepted.

REFUND AND EXCHANGE POLICY

Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine may offer refunds or exchanges under the following circumstances:

  • Orders that were not delivered due to our negligence in package labels (i.e. address label does not match the address on order, address label not properly affixed to package).
  • Orders that contain items that were damaged or otherwise faulty due to our negligence in packaging. Please provide videos and/or photos when contacting us.
  • Orders that are missing listed items (i.e. full bundle order missing an item).

All other refund or exchange requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

In the case that a returned or reshipped package is unclaimed or returned again, it will be considered forfeited and will be uneligible for any refunds.

The moderators of Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine reserve the right to cancel and refund any orders that break these terms.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via our contact page or email us at [email protected].

GPSR EXCEPTION ESSAY

Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine is not subject to the GPSR and its regulations because it is a “work of art” under the relevant exception within the GPSR and because its products do not present a danger of the type the GPSR is attempting to regulate. 

The Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine team (hereafter “Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine”) is aware of the new legislation in the European Union (hereafter “EU”) called the General Product Safety Regulation (hereafter “GPSR”). The relevant legislation aims to limit the import of potentially dangerous, toxic, illegal, or otherwise suspect products. The legislation’s overarching purpose is to protect consumers within the EU, better effectuate existing regulations, and enable swift recalls for potentially dangerous products.

The legislation recognizes, however, that certain items do not fall under its purview. Specifically, the language of the GPSR recognizes an exception for “works of art”, which fall under the broader category of “antiques.”

  • Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine is not subject to the rules and regulations within the GPSR because the project falls under the “works of art” exception, and as such, the zine and its merchandise do not constitute “consumer products.”

The GPSR describes an “antique” as a product “such as a collector’s item or work of art.” The GPSR specifies that the art must typically be created “solely for artistic purposes” and states that exempt artwork may include “unique pictures, collages… paintings and drawings…” or “unique prints and lithographs, being impressions produced in limited numbers… executed entirely by hand by the artist.” Later, it was clarified that this definition is “usually created by hand.” 

The GPSR also states that if an item is a “collector’s item” then it must typically include “items of sufficient rarity and historical or scientific interest to justify their collection or preservation.” Examples of such items may include “collections and collectors’ pieces of… historical [or scientific] interest….”

  • Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine was created solely for artistic purposes.

Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine consists of over 30 artworks, 11 stories, and several pieces of related “merch” or merchandise. Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine’s intentions at the time of creation were to share and express excitement for our theme by creating interrelated artwork and stories. Additionally, Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine aimed to create an online creative and collaborative space for their artists and authors. The end-goal for the project is to produce a bound art and story book for people to enjoy. 

  • Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine is "non-profit" and is solely for artistic purposes because the purpose of the zine is to be appreciated artistically.

Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine’s primary goal in relation to sales is to “break-even,” in other words the only goal Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine sets out to meet is make enough sales to ensure that the zine is able grant every participant with “bundles” (collections of artistic works created by the zine), which includes the zine and related merchandise. In the event that Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine is successful beyond the “break-even” point, however, then Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine will make money. This money will be donated to charities and will not be distributed among contributors and creators of Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine. The fact that the products may make money does not limit the fact that the primary goal of the entire project was to create for “solely artistic purposes” however, because the final product is meant to be enjoyed artistically. 

The zine will consist of artwork, of which the sole purpose is to admire from an artistic standpoint. The zine will also consist of written stories which Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine intends to be read and enjoyed for their artistic value. Finally, the zine will include “merch.” While several pieces of the merch may be used as multi-functional items by those that own them, the primary intention of each item is for display, admiration, and enjoyment from an artistic standpoint. Any use past this intention is not within the scope of Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine and is solely at the end user’s discretion.

Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine was created “solely for artistic purposes” because it was created for the singular purposes of admiration, display, and artistic enjoyment. 

  • Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine is not a “consumer product” because it is a made-to-order zine, is not “mass produced” and will feature a limited run.

Although not specific, the GPSR appears to be primarily interested in regulating “mass produced” items of which the origin may be difficult to identify. The GPSR appears to indicate that serial numbers, bar codes, or batch codes may signify when an item is “mass produced” and as such is subject to its laws and regulations. The GPSR is silent in regards to items which are made to order or which feature a limited run.

Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine will host a limited run from late January 2025 to mid March 2025. Although it is impossible to say at the time of this writing how many orders the zine will achieve, it is very safe to estimate that it will receive less than 1,000. Additionally, Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine will not feature a barcode, serial numbers, or batch codes. Every zine produced will correlate to a zine purchased, with the exception of zines produced as gifts, and extra zines produced to account for natural defects (known colloquially as “B-Grades”) in the batch, which may, but are not guaranteed to, be sold in an even smaller limited run later.

Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine is not a “consumer product” as defined under the GPSR because it is not mass produced. It is not mass produced because it features a limited run, is made to order, and it will not feature barcodes, serial numbers, or batch codes.

  • Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine is a collectible because it is a “zine” which is an item of “sufficient rarity” and “significant historical interest” to warrant preservation. 

A “zine” is a self-published, non-commercial print-work that is typically produced in small, limited batches. Zines are often defined as having a limited run of under a thousand, but many are even smaller than that. The first credited zine was published in the early 1930s by a science club in Chicago. Zines gained particular traction in the Star Trek fandom, in which a letter-writing campaign organized through zines even earned the series an additional season in 1968. Zines have been particularly popular and influential in queer and punk spaces as well, and often include the artistic expression of people outside the mainstream, straight, or “controlling” demographics of a culture. 

Zines are also considered a collector’s item and are frequently traded between creators and interested collectors. Additionally, institutions such as the British Library, Harvard University, Archive of Our Own, and the Tate Museum have created zine archives, which aim to preserve zine collections for their historical and cultural significance. Archives such Archive Of Our Own or Open Doors exist for the express purpose of archiving works of art, of which Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine falls under the interests of.

Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zineis a zine because it is a collection and collaboration of related pieces of art, it is self-published, and because it features a limited run. Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine will likely become “rare” and will not be readily available for purchase or consumption after a very strict time period. Additionally, Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine is of “significant historical interest” which makes it “worthy of preservation” because it is the latest in a long chain of self-published works which features a queer angle on a mainstream section of modern media and pop culture. 

  • Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine likely does not fall under the purview of the GPSR because it does not pose the type of reasonably foreseeable threat that the GPSR aims to regulate.

As stated previously, the GPSR aims to protect the citizens of its member-states,  enforce its own regulations, and better effectuate potential recalls by placing restrictions on the ability to import into the EU. The GPSR is likely aimed specifically at drop-shipping sites which may (and do) sell cheap, unsafe, and potentially toxic products. Of most concern are likely items such as electronics, which can contain hazardous chemicals, small parts, and which may spark fires. 

Here, Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine does not pose a reasonably foreseeable threat in any of the ways which the GPSR is likely aimed at limiting. The Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine zine is a small book or publication, containing less than 200 pages, which does not feature a safety threat in any reasonably foreseeable manner. To the very best of Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine’s  knowledge based upon hours of diligent research and effort, our products do not contain cheap, unsafe, or hazardous materials. Our products are also not electronic, and are not likely to spark fires, to the best of our knowledge. 

Additionally, every copy of the zine will be inspected closely for quality assurance before being shipped out to consumers. The Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine merch will go through the same process. Although more varied, every single item will be individually inspected and graded for quality assurance before shipping begins. This is to ensure both high standards of safety, but also quality to our consumers. 

Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine does not believe that it is subject to the GPSR because it falls under an exception to the law and because it does not pose any known danger of which the GPSR aims to regulate.

In summary, Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine is of the opinion that it is not subject to the guidelines and limitations given in the GPSR because it is a “work of art” and as such, it falls under the “antiques” exception within the GPSR. Furthermore, the GPSR aims to regulate certain types of dangers which Life of a Rockstar: A Heartsteel Zine does not pose, or does not pose in any reasonably foreseeable fashion.