(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

[karendreamer.livejournal.com]

The main thought for me as I read your discussion was the internet, and now Live Journal. I love zines. I still buy them, and love buying them used at cons. I still love paper, but I do have a PDA that I love for making fic portable.

So many fandoms now have recc sites on Live Journal. Also so many authors only post their fic on their journal, or maybe on a fandom related community.

I do mourn the fact that zines are less popular than they used to be, but I'm part of the problem. Most of my reading these days is online.

[graculus.livejournal.com]

The rocks were more expected from the mailing list people, but thanks anyway! :P

But it does have a long and structured history within fandom partly because it was the first and only way to get fanfic for years and years. there seems to be a deep seeded desire on the part of fans who remember this to keep the paper fanfic rolling off the presses.

I like zines. I wouldn't submit stuff to them if I didn't, though I have to say the 'free' copy is a big incentive (since I only tend to submit to zines I'd consider buying anyway). But I'm not sure zines have much of a life expectancy now they're not the only game in town and they are a luxury item. The economy of scale means that such a niche market is always going to be more expensive than the mainstream and to counteract that, there needs to be a comparative increase in quality or uniqueness. Most zines don't have either, from what I've seen.

My comment about zines being perceived as elitist is due to the unfortunate behaviour of some pro-zine people towards those people choosing to put their stuff online rather than in zines. Snobbish comments have been made about the quality of said online fic, which hasn't really endeared zines as a whole to some people - it's not as if online fic has a monopoly on suckage, after all!

Perhaps zines appeal to that Luddite tendency in all of us? ;)

[graculus.livejournal.com]

I'm speaking from the position of being someone who contributes fic to zines, so I hope it's not coming across as me knocking the concept - I just don't know whether there's still a sizeable niche for zines to fill any more.

I guess my interest is in what a zine would have to be in order for zines to be successful again - like I've said in a previous comment, the economy of scale is always going to be against zine producers, so they need to be either better or unique. Many zines are neither.

What makes you buy a particular zine and not buy another one?

[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 love 'zines--in general--but I very rarely buy them these days, primarily because I'm too much of an obscure-fandom person. So I'm lucky if I end up finding 1-2 zines a year in the fandoms I like to read (and oddly enough, I'll buy 'zines in some of those fandoms where I won't go looking for fic on-line). I think as what's already been mentioned, they've become a bit anachronistic, and yet, they still have a certain aesthetic appeal to me, when put together with care and obvious fannish love.

But yeah...if I hadn't been introduced to fanfic via 'zines, I'm not sure I'd hold them in the same regard that I do.

[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.

[cycnus39]

I don't think zines are elitist, but that's probably because I think the idea of elite fans exists only in the minds of the afflicted. ;-)

I will submit quite happily to zines if I trust the quality of the end product.

I don't buy zines because I can get stories for free -- even if I do have to write them myself -- and, again, there's no guarantee of quality. I guess I'd only buy a zine if it was of outstanding quality featuring great writers and artists, but then it would probably cost a fortune.

[seanchaidh.livejournal.com]

so what makes zines so special?

*GASP* Tradition!!!!!!!11

;-)

Okay. I do like 'zines. They're nice, they're handy when you can't pull your laptop into the bathroom for a sitdown. :) But I do tend to trib only to 'zines where I would want to read, and even then sometimes I find the stories to be... er... not great? Same quality as what's online sometimes.

*shrug*

Of course, I'm still thinking about putting together a 'zine, but that's another story. :)

[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.

[karendreamer.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm....that is a good question because I've bought a variety of zines.

For new zines I would have to say who is producing them and the contributors. I don't need to know all the contributors. I prefer to be able to trust the person chosing the contents. I will also buy one if I know at least one of the contributors and trust them.

I prefer a zine to focus on one genre; gen, ship, slash. I like a variety of story lengths. I like a table of contents.

For used zines I just have to go on instinct. I've been pretty lucky there. I really love to find zines from early in a fandom.

[blktauna.livejournal.com]

Well... I have to admit I come to this from an odd angle. Back in the day, I avoided zines like the horrid, poorly put together, mimeographed pieces of boredom they were. That was many years ago. Then I found out that not all zines were horrific gen crap written by persons with pretention to "real" careers in writing.

Even still, I have very few. My tastes are so specific, I only buy what I like. (Or trib to what I like) And it seems I like very little. Like Sockii I'm really more interested in a very few very obscure fandoms, and in a couple fandoms It's just me and maybe one other person writing. I'm also very steady in my fandoms. I like the same shows I always have, I'm in no way a butterfly. I also don't follow writers from one fandom to another.

Zines were necessary before the net. They are much less so now.

I also feel there is an elitist element. "I was published in a zine" implies that not being published in a zine isn't as good. There's also people who look down upon net readers with the , "oh well, you just must not read everything." I see no reason to "read everything" thank you very much... There's also many old schoolers who think that zine = quality control. Boy do I have some examples to open their eyes with. There's another bunch who see zines as a means of controlling who get their stories. Well that's up to them but I like sharing with anyone who's interested.

However, I do contribute to zines. I enjoy working with an editor. I like seeing the end result.

But to be perfectly honest, I'd not miss 'em if they vanished.

[slashmommy.livejournal.com]

I wanted to bring a couple of things into the discussion. On the necessity of zines, the problem that I keep running into is that when things are only published online, you better grab them and save them in either electronic or printed format because you never know when they are going to a) move or b) disappear completely. I was thrilled to finally find a disk that had several stories that had gone poof into electronic dust. Zines stay around. Someone somewhere will still have it, it just may be difficult to find. Look at the archives for some of the "older" fandoms where people are putting the old zine stories online as they get permissions from the authors. The internet way, many of these stories would be lost.

I would agree that quality is declining on many of the zines. I do see a reason for that though. The competition being from the net means that it is fast and frequent. Zine publishers have to get there stuff out quickly in order to make enough sales to make it worthwhile and oftentimes I think that means that corners get cut.

This leads to another problem -- those who do put out a good product get ignored because they get tarnished with the same brush. A few years back I tried putting out a multimedia zine -- never again. We edited and edited and put out a huge zine. We only charged $20 though it was twice the size of most zines at that price. It was a run of 100 and I still have BOXES of the blasted thing. Those that did get sold had a good reputation and we got plenty of positive feedback, but when you put out $900 to put something out there and it doesn't sell, it makes it hard to see why you put in the effort.

On the theoretical side, I'd also point out that the nature of fans seems to be changing. You don't see as much loyalty to fandoms that you used to see. You might see people still reading or writing in an older fandom, but there is more of a moving with a new fandom and keeping only a passing fondness for the old one. In "the old days" it didn't matter if you're show was on the air or not, you still continued on -- even though you might only have bad copies if you were lucky of the actual show. Now you can get many shows on DVD and you still don't have that kind of ... fan loyalty/following.

Anywho, just a few things that popped into my head when I read your post...

Ker

[graculus.livejournal.com]

On the necessity of zines, the problem that I keep running into is that when things are only published online, you better grab them and save them in either electronic or printed format because you never know when they are going to a) move or b) disappear completely.

That's an interesting point. I think that those of us who've only ever known fandom and the internet quite easily forget how transient some of it is. I know on the Stargate forum I help run, we had a discussion about what were the first stories in that fandom and most of them were still around, but not all. But then I also remember the problems that arose when an archive like Master Apprentice started putting stuff on disc and there were issues with that, so nothing's ever straight forward, is it? ;)

I would agree that quality is declining on many of the zines. I do see a reason for that though. The competition being from the net means that it is fast and frequent. Zine publishers have to get there stuff out quickly in order to make enough sales to make it worthwhile and oftentimes I think that means that corners get cut.

I think this is particularly an issue if publishers are trying to keep up with whatever is the New Shiny of the moment. It doesn't seem to be as much of an issue in some of the older fandoms, from where I'm sitting.

On the theoretical side, I'd also point out that the nature of fans seems to be changing.

Fans are changing, fandom is changing. Fandoms go through their lifecycle much quicker now, I think, because of the nature of the internet. Also, many fandoms are much less US-dominated, which can itself lead to issues that haven't been so common before.

You don't see as much loyalty to fandoms that you used to see. You might see people still reading or writing in an older fandom, but there is more of a moving with a new fandom and keeping only a passing fondness for the old one.

There certainly do seem to be fans who are more than prone to attacks of the new shiny. Somehow I doubt that many of the new shiny fandoms will last much past whenever their respective shows get cancelled, as everything does eventually, with the fans wandering off to something else. I've always been fascinated by the comparison between this and the old school fandoms - as an UNCLE fan, I'm so pleased to see a good mix of people who've been in the fandom for decades alongside the newbies.

Thanks for your input! :)

[graculus.livejournal.com]

I certainly tend to submit fic to zines being produced by people I know where I also know who most of the other contributors are likely to be. In the case of UNCLE zines, it was about wanting my fic to be in there with stuff produced by people whose writing I really liked, in the hopes that some of their talent would rub off. ;)

I think for me it's helped by the fact that UNCLE is really the only fandom I've actively sought out zines in. In other fandoms, I've picked up stuff along the way and generally been lucky with what I've come across (both new and used) but a good quality UNCLE zine with stories by the writers I like will mug me and steal my lunch money every time.

[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

[graculus.livejournal.com]

I don't think zines are elitist either, but I think that some zine fans haven't helped themselves with their attitude to the people who don't 100% agree with them that 'online fic bad, zine fic good'.

I guess I'd only buy a zine if it was of outstanding quality featuring great writers and artists, but then it would probably cost a fortune.

Why should a good zine cost more than a bad one?

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Even still, I have very few. My tastes are so specific, I only buy what I like. (Or trib to what I like) And it seems I like very little. Like Sockii I'm really more interested in a very few very obscure fandoms, and in a couple fandoms It's just me and maybe one other person writing.

I think those of us who have obscure fandom loves (Wild Wild West, anyone? I think I'm the only non-American who's ever written anything in that fandom!) may have some different feelings about the whole issue anyway. If there were zines in your fandom of choice, the one where it's you and two other people and a dog, you'd probably buy it because it existed. ;)

I'm also very steady in my fandoms. I like the same shows I always have, I'm in no way a butterfly. I also don't follow writers from one fandom to another.

Have to say, I don't get the whole New Shiny phenomenon either. There are fandoms I like and fandoms I love - I can't imagine, for example, being in a position to ever not love UNCLE since I've been a fan since almost before I can remember. Discovering there was such a thing as fandom was a revelation. If writers I like move into fandoms I like (or want to consider, since this is how I got into WWW) then fine, but I can't imagine reading fic by an author I like in a fandom I have no interest in.

Zines were necessary before the net. They are much less so now.

They don't have the monopoly they used to have. Whether there's a niche for them still has yet to be determined.

I also feel there is an elitist element. "I was published in a zine" implies that not being published in a zine isn't as good. There's also people who look down upon net readers with the , "oh well, you just must not read everything." I see no reason to "read everything" thank you very much... There's also many old schoolers who think that zine = quality control. Boy do I have some examples to open their eyes with.

Both online fic and zine fic is a spectrum - anyone who thinks that all zine fic was brought down from the mountain on tablets of stone needs to seriously have their head examined. I read a lot of stuff online but I'm very picky about what I spend my time on, as I am with both zines and pro fic. Life is too short to read bad prose. ;)

However, I do contribute to zines. I enjoy working with an editor. I like seeing the end result.

Me too. I've particularly enjoyed working with Marian - I've learned a great deal from her input on my UNCLE and WWW fics.

But to be perfectly honest, I'd not miss 'em if they vanished.

As long as nobody raided my house and took my back issues, I might agree with you. ;)

[graculus.livejournal.com]

*GASP* Tradition!!!!!!!11

You know, I'm sure there are still some people out there who'd respond exactly like that! :P

Of course, I'm still thinking about putting together a 'zine, but that's another story. :)

You know, I already knew you were a masochist. ;)

[graculus.livejournal.com]

I think as what's already been mentioned, they've become a bit anachronistic, and yet, they still have a certain aesthetic appeal to me, when put together with care and obvious fannish love.

I think that makes a big difference, when it's clear that some effort has been put in to the production of it, which is more likely to be the case (imo) for the teeny tiny fandoms where there's only three people and a dog who write about the show anyway.

But yeah...if I hadn't been introduced to fanfic via 'zines, I'm not sure I'd hold them in the same regard that I do.

There certainly isn't an automatic response to zines now that there would have been even 10 years ago, I think. The majority of people in a fandom aren't going to ever go to a con (particularly now fandoms tend to be much less US-centric), so they might not ever actually see a zine. It's an alien concept to them, when there's a world full of archives and mailing lists and livejournal communities that (for them) has always been there.

That's why I think I was asking - what is it about zines that's better/different/irreplaceable?

[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.

[blktauna.livejournal.com]

I think those of us who have obscure fandom loves (Wild Wild West, anyone? I think I'm the only non-American who's ever written anything in that fandom!) may have some different feelings about the whole issue anyway.

LOL and how many Americans are writing Sweeney? :P

If there were zines in your fandom of choice, the one where it's you and two other people and a dog, you'd probably buy it because it existed. ;)
But I'd have got a trib copy!!!

I can't imagine reading fic by an author I like in a fandom I have no interest in.

I can't either. My reading time is too valuable. If I want "literature" I'll pull out the Wodehouse or the Chaucer, and I don't do that very often I can tell you.

[graculus.livejournal.com]

LOL and how many Americans are writing Sweeney? :P

The uncharitable among us might say 'too many'! :P

[blktauna.livejournal.com]

Being well versed in the vagaries of bits, I have many cd backups of anything I find on the net that I like... including entire websites...

But that might just be my anal virgo popping out...