WHAT'S A ZINE?
From Stolen Sharpie Revolution
(pronounced like magazine without the maga) A zine is an independently created publication containing anything you want it to; personal experiences and stories, political ideologies, music related writing, gardening tips, fiction, travel stories, comics, photography, or anything you like. zines can be put together by one person or a group of people and they are usually photocopied but can also be printed offset, letter press, or mimeographed.
From The Transmitter: A Zinester's Resource #1
(Note: This zine is from New Zealand and was published in March 2002, so some of the references only apply to New Zealanders and may be a tad outdated)
*WHAT?*
"What is a zine?" you may ask if you don't know what a zine is...Zines are small-circulation, non-commercial self-published magazines that are a labor of love. The most common zine format is A5 size, black and white, and folded and stapled. But zines come in a range of styles: A4 sie, coloured paper for the cover, unstapled, bound with string or ribbon, stapled in the corner, full colour cover, coloured paper...although colour and interesting paper is usually reserved for either high-budget zines which border on magazines, or personal zines or "art books" which have a low-print run.
Basically a zine (pronounced "zeen") is a publication that is created by someone - or a group of like-minded people - who wants to express themselves in a cheap, personal, DIY format. As a zine editor (or "zinester"), you have complete control over the production, design, and content of your zine. It's pretty fun.*WHEN?*
Zines originated with "fanzines" about science fiction, which were produced from about the 1950s onward. Fanzines soon came to be about anything that the editor was a fan of - music, pop culture and so on. With the rise of punk in the 70's, fanzines became 'zines as they became a vehicle for political issues. Nowadays zines are a publication in their own right, and the apostrophe has been dropped.*WHY?*
Creating and publishing your own zine is fun and fulfilling. Zines create community, by reaching other people who feel the same way as you do. Zines are generally regarded as independent publications that are created for love, not profit. You definitely won't make any money being a zinester. You might not even break even. But you will enjoy the satisfaction and empowerment of having created something yourself, an alternative to the mainstream media, which speaks directly to and about you. You will enjoy receiving feedback (Verbal and postal - prepare to receive mail). You will dive headlong into the world of zines, as you start becoming penpals with other zinesters, who have you have traded zines with. You will notice your zine collection start to grow.
Zines are important mediums for communication. The basic line is, anybody can make a zine. And have fun doing it.*WHO?*
Sometimes it's good to think about who your "target audience" is. Not in terms of marketing or anything, of course, but in terms of where you will try to get exposure for it. If it's a zine about music, with gig and record reviews and band interviews, you'll be best selling it thorugh a music store and by taking it to gigs and so on. If it's a zine full of short stories, fiction, or poetry, you might like to try an independent bookstore. Also, if you write with a specific target audience in mind, it helps to focus your wirting. For example, if you're publishing a zine about animal liberation for animal liberationists, you won't need to explain basic details about veganism, animal rights etc because you can assume that the reader already knows about these things. Therefore you can push forward with more complex issues.*WHERE?* The last thing you will have to think about is: where do you want to distribute your zine? There are 4 basic options for zinemakers.
1. Giving it away for free. This option is simple, and obviously works best if you have a photocopying hook-up going on. Make heaps of copies, take them for gigs, send them to penpals in the mail, leave them in friendly record or bookstores.
2. Selling it yourself. A good trick to use here is to make ads for your zine, stating the price and postal address. Small A6 size ones are great. Send a bunch of ads to all your penpals, and ask them to send them to their penpals. Send them to zinester friends, and ask them to put one in their zine. Make lots of copies of your zine, and take them to shows or whatever to sell.
3. Selling it through shops. Take your zine to a zine-friendly place (for example, Crawlspace Records in Auckland, The Freedom Shop in Wellington) and ask them if you can sell your zine there. They will probably want to take a look at it at first, and if they want to sell it will ask you for about 10 copies. Shops usually want about 20-25% of the price of your zine. So for example, if you were selling a 20-page A5 zine for $2 a copy, the shop may want around 50c for each one sold.
4. Selling it through a distribution service. This option takes the worry of distribution out of your hands. Send a copy of your zine to a distro, with a letter asking if your zine would be able to be included in the distro. Distros usually only distribute products they are really into, so if they don't want to distribute your zine, don't take offence (and don't write a nasty letter! The distro operator may really like your zine, but for whatever reason feels it's not suitable for the distro). There are heaps of cool distros worldwide you can try. If the distro is keen, they will either ask for a certain amount of copies of your zine, or they may just make copies of the one you sent them. Distros usually take a similar percentage to shops.
Of course, you can use any or all of these options, which is a good idea. And obviously, the other thing you can do is send it to our zine library or advertise it in here!
In addition to all these tips I highly recommend reading some other zine if you haven't already. Write to some of the distros listed, send a stamp or some money for their catalogue, and order whichever zines appeal to you. Besides directly supporting both distros and editors, you'll (hopefully) gain a whole lot of inspiration, knowledge and ideas from them too.