The Bidding Floor
Everything the paper sells is bid for the same way. You choose a lot, you choose how long you want it, and you say what you will pay per day. On each day, the highest bid for a position takes that position. A month is not a different product - it is a bid that covers thirty days.
Squares on the map run on a slower clock: one calendar month at a time, bid for square by square. The month on the floor now is 2026-10. Nothing is charged here and nothing is confirmed automatically - a person reads every bid and writes back.
Pick what you are bidding for
TWO CLOCKS, NOT TWO PRICES. The notice positions are let by the day and a square is let by the calendar month, so the numbers above are not comparable as they stand: €30 for a month of a square works out at €1 a day, and it prints on every page rather than on the front one. Most lots have a floor on the whole sale of €30: agreeing one takes a person twenty minutes of writing back whatever it is worth, and a sale that does not cover that is one we would be making for the fun of it. Bid above the reserve and you reach it in fewer days. The Interval is the exception, and it is deliberate: one ruled line, one day, €5, because the builder that line was put there for is the one not ready to commit to a week. Each lot's own floor is shown on the slip as you fill it in.
The map - 2026-10
Every square agreed for the month is seated on the board under the nameplate of every page on the site - not just the ones near the top, and not just on this page. The board holds all 176 of them at once, so a block prints on every page for every day of the month it was agreed for, whether the map beside it is empty or full. The reserve is flat because every square gets the same thing: the same place, the same size, the same run.
Click squares to select them. A square carrying a name or a mark is agreed for this month and cannot be taken, and so is a black one - that is a corner left over where somebody's squares do not make a rectangle. Yellow means somebody is leading on an offer, and the price on the square is what beats it. Grey is free.
The book
Every bid received, and what it stands at. The standing on any day can be worked out from this list alone - the rule is the highest amount per day, with a tie going to whichever bid arrived first - so a reader can check who holds what rather than take our word for it.
| Bidder | For | Rate | Received |
|---|---|---|---|
| Talentika | 4 squares · 2026-08 | €30 /square /month | 2026-08-25 |
| chessdata.app | 4 squares · 2026-08 | €30 /square /month | 2026-08-25 |
The Tool Review
€80 a week. A week with your tool, and the desk writes what it found. No sugar coating, and no round of notes: the verdict is ours. We can turn a tool down, and nothing is charged if we do. You read it before anybody else and decide whether it is published. Saying no does not return the fee, which pays for the work and not for publication. A review that runs says on it that it was paid for and that you saw it first.
What you are buying is the reading, not the verdict. A review its subject can edit is an advertisement with a byline on it, and it is worth nothing to the reader it is written for. So the desk writes it, at whatever length the tool is worth, in the paper's own voice.
The desk can turn a tool down. Not every tool is worth a week, and the reasons are ordinary: there is nothing to find yet, it cannot be run without an account we would have to be handed, or the paper has covered it recently. You are told which one.
And you decide whether it is published, which is the honest trade for money changing hands before a word is written. It also means a paid review a reader sees is one its subject was content with, and that is not something a reader can work out for themselves. So a review that runs carries a line saying it was paid for and that the subject read it first, in the piece, next to the verdict, the way the disclosure rule already requires of any story about somebody who has bought space here.
The fee pays for the work, not for publication. Nothing is charged for a tool the desk turns down, because nothing was written. Nothing is returned once the piece is written, because it was. If you read it and decide against publishing, that decision is yours and the fee stays paid: what it bought was the reading and the article that came out of it, and you have both either way.
Ask, and say what the tool is: martynas@theindiepress.news. Agreed by hand, like every other lot on this page, and nothing is charged until it is agreed.
Everything the paper has, including what is not for sale
The floor above sells what is open. This is the whole inventory, so the page is not a lie by omission - the positions that are drawn but not built, and the ones we are choosing not to sell, with the reason in each case.
| Position | Where | Reserve | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| The EarsSold one ear at a time, to two different buyers if they turn up. A single ear prints beside the house box, never against a blank. | Front page, flanking the nameplate | €15 / day2 days minimum | On the floor |
| The Foot BannerAlways prints. When nobody has bought a cell, the paper advertises itself in it. | Front page, foot, three cells | €10 / day3 days minimum | On the floor |
| The Rail FootOne box at the foot of the rail, under the ranked modules. Boxed and flagged, never set like a rail entry. | Front page, foot of the right-hand rail | €12 / day3 days minimum | On the floor |
| The IntervalOne sentence, 90 characters, no logo. The cheapest thing the paper sells, and the one a builder with a side project can actually afford. | Front page, one ruled line between The Register and The Timeline | €5 / day | On the floor |
| The MapBid per square, per month. Squares are decided one at a time, so a bidder outbid on one keeps the rest of the set. The reserve is flat across the map: every agreed square reaches the board under the nameplate, so no square is worth more than another by position. | A named square on the paper’s own map | €30 / month | On the floor |
| The Tool ReviewA week with your tool, and the desk writes what it found. No sugar coating, and no round of notes: the verdict is ours. We can turn a tool down, and nothing is charged if we do. You read it before anybody else and decide whether it is published. Saying no does not return the fee, which pays for the work and not for publication. A review that runs says on it that it was paid for and that you saw it first. | A page of its own, written by the desk | €80 / week | Ask the desk |
| The Story Page BoxDesigned, not built. The only inventory that compounds - the archive grows every day. | Every story page and every clipping page | €120 / month | Designed, not built |
| The UnderwriteNot for sale yet. Selling the method means a disclosure rule has to exist first, and it has to cover what happens when we cover an underwriter. | One line under the Sweep Report | €200 / month | Not for sale |
| The Email NoticeNot for sale yet: there is no list to mail. Addresses are being collected; nothing has been sent. | The edition email, one per send | €15 / send | Not for sale |
What happens to your bid
It is written to a store at the edge and read by a person - npm run bids prints
the book and says, for every offer, what the lot currently stands at and whether the offer takes
it. That command was written in the same commit as the form. A paper that files submissions
somewhere nobody looks has an inbox, not a desk.
Clearing prices get printed. What a position went for, and the days it went unsold at the reserve, are the paper's own numbers - the same argument as /books, where what this thing costs and earns is published in full including the months the net is negative.
What is decided, and what is not
Decided. The highest bid per day takes the position for that day. A tie goes to the earlier bid. The reserve is the listed price, and a lot that draws one bid clears at the reserve.
Decided. Squares are won one at a time. A bid for six squares that is beaten on one of them keeps the other five.
Decided. A notice is boxed, set on yellow, and labelled a notice. The renderer has four
notice positions and the story columns are not among them - that is enforced by
src/publish/render.js and checked by the layout gate, not by a promise on this page.
Decided. Copy is set in the paper's type. A notice may carry a mark, and the file is ours: it is uploaded when the copy is agreed and served from this domain, never fetched from the advertiser. What the renderer accepts is a mark, a heading and a line of copy; there is no slot in it for a script or for an image fetched from somewhere else. A mark prints in one colour - send a black version on a transparent ground, because that is what the page is: ink on paper, two signals and no third. A colour file is printed as one colour rather than refused, so what you see here is what runs.
Changed, and worth saying so. The map used to be sold as a permanent block - bought once, held forever, in a position nobody could choose because position was decided by the order things were bought in. It is now a named square let by the calendar month, and bidding settles what a good square is worth. Nothing had been sold when that changed, so nobody lost a position they had been promised. Had it changed a day after the first sale, somebody would have.
Not decided, and so not claimed here. What happens when a bidder is a company the paper also writes about. That is a disclosure rule, it belongs on /methodology rather than on a sales page, and it is the reason the Underwrite is marked not for sale below. A rule written after the first payment is a rule written to fit it.
Questions, or a lot not listed here: martynas@theindiepress.news.