(no subject)

[graculus]

And meanwhile, I'm throwing myself to the lions... ;)

There's a discussion on one of the mailing lists I belong to about why zine sales seem to be dropping at conventions. There's speculation that perhaps 'young people today' just don't have the same bookworm tendencies and therefore don't buy books and so the not-buying-zines behaviour is just part of the same pattern. I'm not convinced.

I probably shouldn't have, but here's my post - I'd be interested in comments from the people reading this about the subject as a whole:

I think that the situation with zine sales is the result of a number of factors coming together.

First off, I wonder just how many of the people who attend conventions are the same people as previous years? How many new people do even the big cons like MW get, in terms of people who are 'con virgins'? Zines are luxury items, convention attendance even more so, particularly if you're talking about the US where paid leave seems to be at a premium. If conventions themselves aren't being 'sold' to fans then how are they going to survive as the people running them get older and/or less interested in giving up their time to organise them?

Part of the problem with zines is that (like it or not) some of the people producing zines have, to some extent, been their own worst enemy. I can't begin to detail the number of times I've seen the whole zine v. internet debate chewed over in a variety of locations and it never ends well. Like it or not, zines still for many fans have an elitist label stuck to them, based on a supposedly superior quality of fic which hasn't always been the case. Anyone who's been around in fandom for a while will be able to attest to the fact that we have some champion grudge carriers around here. ;)

I think the face of fandom as a whole is changing too. Very few fans seem to be single fandom any more - I remember when I first started attending cons, Sentinel was the fandom that seemed to be sweeping all before it, with more zines than every other fandom together (or so it seemed) and room for not just genre zines but also *sub*-genre zines (virgin!Blair zines being the first example that comes to mind). Where are all the Sentinel fans now? Single fandom fans seem to be much commoner in the older fandoms - I've come across quite a few in UNCLE and I believe it's also the case for fandoms like Pros and Starsky & Hutch.

I guess for me, the question is: what is it about zines that people can't get anywhere else? If it's about having fic in a handleable format, most people now have printers and access to alternative means of binding. For any but the old school fandoms, the chances of you getting fic there which doesn't eventually end up online is never going to be that good, so that's not as much of a pull. Particularly when we're talking about fandom as a whole being so much bigger *because* of the internet, mailing lists, livejournal communities. And certainly there hasn't always been a substantive difference in quality of what's being offered - the major difference at times has been more about presentation than content. And as the economic pressures bite, a fancy cover is going to be the least of people's worries.

Not sure what my conclusion is from all this - personally speaking, I like submitting stuff to zines but if I hadn't done that, I doubt I'd have bought all that many zines. Likewise, if I hadn't got into crossing the Atlantic for cons, I definitely wouldn't have bought many (any?) non-trib zines at $9 a pop shipping, besides which I like to see what I'm getting for my money. While I bless the invention of Paypal for getting money to people overseas, there's lots of competition for my attention and my wallet, so what makes zines so special?

*waits for the rocks* ;)

Comments

[mer1973.livejournal.com]

I think part of the problem is that zine quality is going down. I'm not just talking about editing and story quality here, I'm talking about the format of the zine itself. Take a look at Harlquein Airs. Even if you don't like the story, or Suzan Lovett's art, you have to admit the zine itself is impressive. Wraparound cover, black and white pencil drawing, and color art, and bound like a bookcover. Jean Kluge's Changes is another example, story matter aside, it's an impressive zine, and it sold incredibly well when it came out.

Now, go take a look today's standard zine. The editor may or may not have actually edited it. Fandom artists are rare in the media fandoms, and quality varies wildly. (Sidenote, I'd like to steal some of the anime artists for our subset of fandom.) The layout and materials rarely varies. Quite frankly, they're not impressive on lots of fronts for the most part.

To sum up, I think zines aren't really selling because zine quality is declining. The editors have to give the reader something interesting to look at and read. If they would do that, then sales would probably go up. If they don't? Zines might just die out.

[sidewinder.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I've seen plenty of crap zines for years and years. The good ones may stand out in our memories, but I've got plenty from the 80s and 90s that were virtually unreadable, poorly illustrated, unedited, etc.

[mer1973.livejournal.com]

Good point. It's easier to remember the pretty ones, or the good ones, then it is to remember the bad ones.

[graculus.livejournal.com]

To sum up, I think zines aren't really selling because zine quality is declining. The editors have to give the reader something interesting to look at and read. If they would do that, then sales would probably go up. If they don't? Zines might just die out.

I think what we have is a bunch of people who are operating in a niche market but without always recognising it. My choices for nicest zines I own would be a close-run thing between Perestroika and the Theban Band-produced Once a Thief zines, which are clearly a labour of love. And that's the thing with zines, as I keep saying - they need to be better quality-wise all round or unique in some way in order to capitalise on the niche they occupy.

I agree completely about the overall quality of artwork - I've seen stuff in zines that I wouldn't have given space to, where you can't even tell which fandom it's supposed to be, let alone the characters. If the alternatives are 'bad art' and 'no art', I'd go for the latter every time.

As for fic quality, I think that's debateable. I've seen some excellent zines and some god-awful ones, not just recently. My pet peeve is consistency of quality within the zine.

[blktauna.livejournal.com]

I think katyabaturinsky would disagree. She's completely uninterested in the visuals.

I'd like to see more art but good art is hard to come by. And the cost of reproduction is much more than it used to be.

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Depends on how important you think (good) art is for zines. Personally, I like art in zines, but it's not going to sell me on a zine that doesn't do what I want fic-wise.

Art is the cherry on the cake, nothing more - in the case of those Theban Band zines, the fact that there are no other zines in that fandom whatsoever would have sold me for starters, and then the fic is generally good and the artwork is just amazing. Also, they were much cheaper than many zines I've bought from the US, which is also of the good when you're overseas.

There's so much bad art out there, I'd rather have a zine that's nicely laid out with no artwork whatsoever than bad art where you can't recognise the protagonists or it's the last chicken in the shop! :P

[blktauna.livejournal.com]

I'd rather have a zine that's nicely laid out with no artwork whatsoever than bad art where you can't recognise the protagonists or it's the last chicken in the shop!

Pretty much it.