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inky-thoughts · 7 years

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How to Organize a Zine 101

Hey guys!

Since I'm almost through with my very first zine that I organised myself, I just realised how many mistakes you can make without even knowing, and I learned so much within the last few months where a lot was kind of trial and error. So I thought, you guys might like to learn more about this, and I could share my experiences and newly gained knowledge! Maybe this helps if you are looking into organising your own first zine.

If you have any tips and tricks yourself you'd like to share, let me know, I’m excited to hear about them!

I am going to go through the different steps and phases that you should take into consideration, so this might get a small series of some sort? I hope you're up for this.

Also a small disclaimer:

I'm mostly talking about fanzines that have multiple contributors, and it will focus more on artists/illustrators and writers as that is where my experience lies. I have contributed on several free e-zines as well as a printed charity zine, and now have organised my first printed for-profit zine as well.

Phase 1: The Planning

This might sound really obvious and maybe silly, but there are quite a few things that you should take into consideration before just starting a project that might overwhelm you easily. Don't already head off and create a twitter account before you haven't sat down and thought about these questions first!

First of all, you should think about the zine itself:

What topic/theme should it have?

If it is a fanzine: What ships/characters/... should be the focus?

What format does your zine have (printed/e-zine/both)?

What should be included in the zine? (Illustrations, comics, writing, photographs, ... all of them?)

How many contributors/pieces do you want in your finished zine? (especially important for printed zines)

Do you want to have additional merch, e.g. bookmarks, stickers, charms, postcards, ... , that people can purchase with your zine in a bundle?

How are the specs (how many pieces per creator/how long is one piece especially for writers)?

Is it a for-profit, charity, or free zine?

After you now have a vague idea of what you want, you need to think about competition as well if you're not having a free online zine.

How big is the fandom/target group of the specific zine you want to make?

How old are they and how likely are they to spend money on your zine?

Are there only a few, but very dedicated fans?

How many contributors can you gather from the fandom? How is the general quality of fanworks?

Are there other zines that are similar or maybe with the same topic/theme/focus and what sets your zine apart from them?

Are there other zines going around at roughly the same time with the same target group, and should you perhaps wait a little so people can afford your zine again?

Is it a thriving fandom on the rise or has activity already peaked? If no fanzine: Is your theme at the pulse of time, or has some accute relevance to a lot of people?

Especially on tumblr, there are a few blogs entirely dedicated to zines and specifically fanzines. If tagged accordingly, they'll reblog all kinds of posts about a zine, but mostly Call for Submission, Zine Schedules, and Preorder Announcements (we will talk about these later on.) It is really helpful to check those out, sometimes there are even blogs solely about one fandom's projects, so it gets watered down even more. You can also test waters through polls etc. if you have a loyal followership that might just buy your stuff because it has you in or on it. However, I don't really find those very reliable.

The next questions are mainly about the doablity of the zine for you:

If there is any kind of production costs, do you have funds to cover them if the zine doesn't sell well enough?

Do you have anyone you can trust/are friends with who is also enthusiastic about your topic that they can help you?

How do you want to split work? How much do you want to contribute to the zine yourself?

Are you ready to make the commitment to dedicate basically every free minute of your life for the next 6+ month on this project? Are you in a relatively steady environment where you don't need to handle moving, changing jobs, schools, whatever at any point during your zine work?

I highly recommend you to at least have one other person to do the organisation with you, preferrably are two or even more.

Please do not underestimate the workload you'll get, even if it doesn't seem much at first, you will write so many e-mails because you need to get back to your contributors for one thing or another, you need to make sure the files are all correct, if you have writers you need beta-reading while also putting the zine together and finding a good printing service and making sure everyone is on time. For the last 6 months, this zine was basically my job, because it is just that, just without a clear salary, or none at all.

The next thing is kind of working out a schedule, with the rough stages/phases zine creations usually have.

Application/Gathering Contributors You have the option between public applications where people just send in portfolios and you pick from those, or you invite contributors you think are interested in the zine and you would like to have in it. Sometimes, there are zines that do both, but it's rather rare. There are some zines (usually free e-zines) that accept literally everyone who applies, and while it creates an opportunity for lesser known creators and beginners to gain a little exposure and experience, it doesn't necessarily mean that the overall quality of content is consistent and what you want to hold in your hands. I had applications open for a bit more than a month since I was very eager and didn't establish any kind of excitement or build-up thereof until finally applications open, but generally it's very common to have a full month to gather applications. The minimum should be 2 weeks, though. Also, don't let yourself be blinded by the sheer amount of applicants, especially in smaller fandoms, top tier creators are rather rare and everyone tries to get into a zine about something they love.

Curating Contributors If you don't have an Invite Only zine, you'll have a very busy time ahead now: You need to look through hundred or more applications and filter who is a fit for your zine, and who is not. Bear in mind that you aren't only looking for quality of work, but also which creator's style fits your zine best. Especially if you have several disciplines in your zine (e.g. illustrations and writing), I only can recommend to split the work load according to your speciality. That way you work faster and more efficient. Give yourself at least 2 weeks, the bigger/more popular the fandom, the longer it probably will take.

Sending Acceptance/Refusal E-Mails After you chose your pick, you'll need to let people know who's in, and who is not. I would advise to send out acceptance letters first, since there will be first dropouts immediately after you finally agreed on them. As soon as you got everyone to confirm their participation, take those who barely didn't make it and put them in for pinch-hitters. You will be surprised how many you'll probably need along the way. After they confirmed that yes, they'll be pinch-hitters, send out the rejection e-mails. I consider it curtesy to send them because as applicant, you really want to know where you're standing. Calculate roughly 1-2 weeks for the e-mails because things just tend to drag along and people need a long time to respond.

Confirmations This usually only applies if you offer people to make collaborations. They need to be able to check out who else is in the zine, who is up for collaboration, whose style suits them best to collab with, test the waters with each other, and usually should come up with an idea, so again 1-2 weeks would be needed for that. However, if you have got your contributors confirmed and just need the backup and refusal mails, just set those deadlines parallel.

1st Draft Depending on how much you're already asking for, you might want them 1-2 weeks after the rejection mails went out (if you really just want to know what kind of ideas people got), or up to a month if you want first sketches/summaries. The first draft is also helpful to see if two people got the same idea, and you can steer people a little bit into the "right direction."

2nd Draft Usually this is where at least 50-75% of the work should be done if you don't take a 3rd draft. Most common are 2 Drafts and the endproduct. Give people at least a month between 1st and 2nd Draft.

Final Draft This is when the finished pieces should be due. Depending on the time of the year, the contributors might be under a lot of stress, so set this deadline roughly 1 month after the 2nd Draft. You will be stressed, everyone else will be stressed, so give yourself the time you need. Also listen to your contributors and observe if there are a lot not cutting a deadline, then maybe push them back for another 1-2 weeks. It will make everyone more relaxed.

Touch-up Phase Especially with writers, you'll need at least 2 weeks to touch up the final draft they submitted.

Buffer Time (don't write that into the official schedule but definitely calculate with it) There will always be unexpected events that will require buffer times. You also will need time to put the zine together if you didn't work on designing the file beforehand while everyone else was creating. Still, you'll need to fix some things and polish the whole thing. Minimum buffer should be 1-2 weeks.

Contributor Preorders With printed zines, it is curtesy to give every contributor a printed copy of the zine for free with them only paying for shipping & handling. This kind of established itself as compensation for their work that usually ends up to be for free as most zines are either for charity or barely cover their production costs. To know who of your contributors even wants a copy, you should give them roughly 2-3 weeks to preorder. Having those exclusive orders helps you to divide between contributors and the regular costumer if you hold both at the same storefront.

Previews (+ Proofs) Before you're launching public preorders, dedicate at least 1 week to previews to get everyone hyped up. Contributors and the "official" zine site post excerps of zine pieces so people get an idea of what the feel of the zine is. If you already got proofs/samples printed until then, post pictures of those, too! If you don't post the link to the shop yet, there definitely wouldn't be a problem to have the previews start at the same time as the contributor preorders. That way, contributors also have the chance to get a glimpse at their peer's works.

Public Preorders Depending on how eager people are for your zine, you can leave preorders relatively short, but no less than 2 weeks if you don't get an insane amount of orders within the first couple of days. People must be able to check out prices and get their paycheck before preorders close again. Some zines have a stacked preorder system where the first X orders are cheaper, and then there will be leftovers or a second phase of preorders after the first bulk has been shipped. However, this doesn't happen very often. If you don't have a hugely popular zine or are cutting way too close to any important deadlines, consider having 3-4 weeks of preorders.

Production As soon as you got your numbers from the preorders, RUN AND PURCHASE EVERYTHING. Depending on where you get your zines printed (also don't forget the optional merch on this!), you can be ready to go within a week or even more than a month. Calculating with roughly 3 weeks if you're getting your stuff from mostly national level is a good rule of thumb, however shit happens all the time anyway, so to be safe use 4-8 weeks. Let your customers know immediately if there are any delays that weren't planned.

Shipping Depending on how many orders you've got, shipping can be a hassle and most likely will take up one week or longer. Since domestic shipping is fastest, ship international orders first, that way customers don't have the feeling that they're forgotten.

E-Zine Currently, a common trend is to first get the physical copies sold, and then sell e-zines to gather more money and cover leftover production costs of the printed zine. Especially international customers and college students prefer e-zines because of the incredibly high shipping rates around the globe. E-zines aren't linked to any production at all after you got the file put together, so if you set up your storefront with the download, everyone simply downloads it. You can have those open as you like, common is anything between 1-3 month and even a whole year. If no money is involved at all, a lot of zines just exist as a permanent free download in a dropbox or other cloud, so this is the least complicated process.

Conventions Really, it's not necessary to put this up in the schedule, but thinking about it might be helpful. If you have a physical zine, you and some contributors might want to sell it on conventions, so offering them to buy a bulk to a smaller rate can be helpful to spread the zine's exposure. We handled this with "buying on commission" - mainly the contributor only pays for the printing costs + shipping, and later will pay part of the profit back to you. Especially with international contributors, be aware of the longer shipping time. Also reprints might take their time. I personally made it a rule to order the reprints 3 months before the con, and reprints can be made up until one year, but really, you don't need to do this.

After you've got your rough schedule, I would advise you to already gather information on how to produce and spread the finished zine. This also helps to know how much you should have in your backup fund for the zine.

For physical zines/merch

Check out printing services! compare prices and quality as well as product range, and find out how long production takes

Find an online storefront where you want to sell it if you don't have one yet

Research on conventions and fairs where you might sell the zine

Learn about shipping rates and which company is suited best for your purpose

For e-zines

Research on your options:

If it's free, what cloud-service are you most comfortable with?

Find a dowload hosting platform you're comfortable with that also lets you charge per download

Is a round-mailing an option? if yes, do your research on online storefronts as well.

Advertising + Web Presence

This is basically finding your social media where you want to spread the word and store all the information of your zine. It is common for a zine with multiple contributors and mods to have its own web presence.

Tumblr and twitter are very popular for this as tumblr basically is a quick-for-setup homepage where you can spread information incredibly fast if you get to the right people, you have the option to answer questions people have regarding your zine, and twitter is nice and handy to keep applicants and potential customers updated. Also think about where you've got a large following and can advertise the zine yourself. Twitter/tumblr is not required, but most definitely helpful.

If you yourself aren't very known or popular, try to get more influencial people interested in participating, or simply promoting your zine. It definitely helps to have a larger audience. Also find out about the tags used by largely popular zines, and what you can learn from them. Learn how the fanproject blogs filter content they might reblog.

Things you also shouldn't underestimate is affiliations! If there is a zine/project with a largely similar forcus and theme, try to get on their better side, and help each other out. They might be your competition, but if you schedule your zine in a clever way, you won't need to worry about this at all since preorder phase won't overlap at all. They might help you advertise your zine while you do the same for them.

There are also forums on zines and fanzines, but I think nowadays it's rare that you'll go viral through those. I personally don't have any experience with those, so if anyone has, I'm happy to hear about it!

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#inky rambles #zines #fanzines #fandom zines #fan zines #how to organize a zine 101 #long post #advice #art advice

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