INTERNATIONAL ZINE MONTH: Zine Library & Education week (week 4)

Welcome to week 4 of International Zine Month 2013, a week dedicated to zine libraries and educating others about zines!  This was a difficult week for me, as I'm struggling to find the time to do the more in-depth tasks in the evenings after my full-time job, but anything I miss I'm going to return to eventually. :)

21 – International Zine Library Day! Visit your local zine library!

Unfortunately I don't have a local zine library, but I have added a list of all current zine libraries to the blog sidebar for readers to peruse.  Info about how to visit and how to submit your zines to their collections can be found here.

22 – Send your zine to a zine library.

I sent mine to Salford Zine Library! 

23 – Make a 1 page zine. 

Didn't have time to do this yet, but I have planned it out and made a start on it.  I'll finish it next week, promise!

24 – Organize your zine collection.

Didn't have time to do this yet either. Bah, I am such a big cheat.  

25 – Teach a friend or family member about zines.

All of my friends and family members already know about zines, as I excitedly blather to them about zine culture on a regular basis! Instead, I've put up an educational page on my blog all about zines, what they are and where to find them.  Please share with anyone you think would be interested!

26- Submit something to a compilation zine.
Although I didn't have time to complete my submission this week, I'm going to submit something soon to Shape and Situate, one of my favourite feminist compzines.

27 – Organize a zine event! A zine reading or a zine fair or fest or even just for friends to get together and work on their zines.

I had planned a beach day with my friends where we were going to read and trades zines - unfortunately a load of my friends couldn't make it at the last minute so this didn't happen, but it was due to factors out of my control.  I ended up going surfing instead, and read some zines when I got in!

EXTRA CREDIT: read a zine every day.

Next week is the final week of International Zine Month 2013 - JUST FOR FUN week (my favourite!).  What will you be getting up to?  Don't forget to share your blog posts, tweets, and photos with us! :)

Feature: Working With Distros

This is a guest post by Lizzy Goddard, who has been running Marching Stars Distro since July 2007.  These opinions are all Lizzy's own. Every distro is different; probably because every distro is run by an actual, gloriously unique person/collective.

Marching Stars at London Zine Symposium 2011

Distros. You’ve heard of them. You’ve seen them around. You might have even ordered from one. Why then are so many zinesters so nervous about working with us?! We want to stock your zines! I’ve run marching stars zine distro (www.marchingstars.co.uk ) for 4 ½ years and this little guide is based on a “Working with Distros” Workshop that I ran at Camden Zine Fest 2011. I hope to run it again at future zine events, because I love talking about distros and my experiences of running one. But more importantly, I want zinesters to feel more comfortable working with us, because we only exist because of YOU and YOUR ZINES.

What is a Distro?

Distro, short for distribution or distributor, quite simply, distributes zines on behalf of zinesters. Lots of zines, in one place. Distro is both a noun and a verb. I run a distro and I distro zines. I truly believe that distros are very much part of the zine community, and here’s why:

Role of a Distro

From a zinester point of view

- get your zine out to a wider audience

- get your zine to a different country

- promotion of your zine

- get your zine in with similar zines

- get your zine sold with other zines you respect and love

- money/shifting your stock

- getting your zine out there without giving your address/etc

From the zine reader point of view

- get lots of different zines in one order

- save on postage

- pick up zines you might night ave otherwise heard about

- lots of similarly themed zines in one place

- might trust the distro owner’s opinion

From the distro owner point of view

- there aren’t other distros selling what you want to buy

- help make lots of zines available in one place

- promote zines in non-zine places (e.g. gigs)

- collect together zines on a certain theme in one place

- help make international zines more accessible here

- not competitive

3 main ways distros work

Quotes taken from ‘Stolen Sharpie Revolution 2’ by Alex Wrekk.

1. Buy zines outright at wholesale prices. “This is when a distro pays you wholesale price for the zines upfront, before they sell any copies or sometimes before they receive them.”

 - Wholesale price: “The discounted price you would offer a distro for buying multiple copies. You can specify a minimum quantity if you like. Most wholesale prices are around 50-70% of the retail price.”

 - Retail price: “The price that you sell a single issue of your zine for and the price you would like other distros to sell you zine for. A high price can detract distros and potential buyers from your zine."

2. Consignment. “When a distro pays you the wholesale price after all or a portion of the zines have sold. Some distros work on a regular time frame like quarterly or monthly. This can vary from distro to distro” 

3. Flat copies. You send the flat pages of your zine to the distro

3 main ways distros sell

1. Online (usually through a website with integrated paypal or online checkout)

2. At shows and events (both zine-specific and non-zine specific)

3. Paper catalogue (good old snail-mail)

Do’s and Don’ts

Do

- reply to emails

- only send zines for consideration that you can make lots of and intend to for quite a while (i.e. not a limited print run)

- include a note with important info on (email address, wholesale/retail price, etc)

- email when you have new issues out

- package zines well when you send them

- keep accurate records

- ask questions if you don’t understand

- send personalised emails

                - maybe look up the distro owners name?

                - tell them how you heard about them? Why you chose to submit to them?

Don’t

- not look at what the distro normally stocks and offer something totally different

- send a zine for consideration and then never reply to emails

- have a ridiculously high wholesale price

- not send zines (either before or after payment), the ultimate ‘not cool’.

- expect to make money out of it

Things you can expect from the distro

Distros are run on love alone. I cannot stress this enough.  But now I’ve put that out there, the following things you can expect from a distro (in due time – life does get in the way sometimes!):

- replies to emails

- accurate records

- zines promptly added to the website

- updated website

- your zines being promoted

- their choosing ‘good’ zines and maintain a certain standard

Distros aren’t for everyone

Sadly selling your zine through a distro isn’t for everyone, but a lot of the problems with distros applying to selling your zine in general.

- No control over who reads your zines/where they end up

- Might work out that you lose money

- Might not like the description of your zine

- Some distros wholesale zines to other distros (they’ll say, but just heads up)

- Producing in the quantities they want if it’s a limited print run

- Zines can stay in distros for months/years after you’ve stopped printing them

- Zero contact with the reader

Rejection

- You might not get a reply. This is probably because it’s really hard for distro owners to reject zines (no-one likes to say no to what people have lovingly created).

- Try not to be too disheartened and consider submitting elsewhere.

- Definitely submit future issues (or ask if it’s ok to submit future issues)

- There are lots of reasons why a distro might reject a zine including space/money and it not ‘fitting’ with other zines stocked. Reasons I’ve, sadly, had to reject zines include: poor spelling/grammar; hard to read; poorly photocopied/put together and too expensive.

- If your zine is rejected, or you just don’t hear from them, feel free to ask why they rejected it and hopefully you’ll get some constructive criticism (or hear it was rejected for some reason out of your control).

- Remember, distros are run on love, so at the end of the day it is the prerogative of the distro owner to decide what they do and don’t want to stock, and that can be a little irrational.

Where to find distros

- The links over there -->

- Google

- Zine fairs/events

- ‘Links’ section on most distro websites

So, I know that’s quite a lot of information, but it’s really not that scary. You haven’t got much to lose in submitting to a distro, and stand to gain a huge amount – so go for it!

Zine Resources

image by Shannon Gerard

As you may have noticed, we’ve added a new set of links in our blog sidebar – Zine Resources.  Sadly, we feel that many of these resources are underused, so this blog post is just to draw your attention to them.  This is mostly where we get our info from for the biweekly news posts – also via flyers, word of mouth, emails, and tweets that get pinged our way – so they can be very useful!  Hope you enjoy spending the evening exploring these sites (if you haven’t done so already)!  If you have any more useful zine resources that we've missed, let us know in the comments or email us so we can add to this entry.

Zine Wiki

A Wikimedia-powered site dedicated to zines and independent publishing.  It’s a cracking resource, featuring lists of distros, zine events, zine libraries, and much more, from all over the world.  There’s a zinester directory, which can be categorised by country, type of zine (e.g. perzine), or theme (e.g. feminism).  There are also pages dedicated to zine history, production, and distribution.  Sign up for free to become a contributor, where you can create pages about anything zine-related; though what the wiki really needs is pages on individual zine series or zinesters.  As you can see by the UK Zinester category page, Zine Wiki is desperately in need of updating.  The creators write that they would like Zine Wiki to act as a central catalogue for people interested in zines, where most zines would be instantly searchable from anywhere around the world, with the same quality standards as Wikipedia.  Sign up today and help make this aim a reality. 
(if you want your zine to be listed, but don’t fancy creating an account for whatever reason, you can always email me with the info you want and I’ll create a page for you!)

Compilation Station

A handy blog that reposts submission calls for zines.  It consists of mostly US-centred submission calls, but if that doesn’t bother you too much then it’s a great place to find lots of zines to write for!  I’ve been using it for about 4 months, and have been published in 5 comp-zines since, which isn’t too shabby.  Go take a look today and see if any submission calls take your fancy!

Syndicated Zine Reviews

A nice blog to pop in your Google Reader if you can’t be bothered to subscribe to many zine blogs.  The blog features zine reviews, news, announcements, and calls for submissions that are syndicated from various blogs (including this blog!).  It’s more of an RSS feed or forum rather than a blog, as the only original content featured are reviews by the editors, Jack and Dan.  It also features lots of useful links in its many sidebars, including lists of zine review sites, zine libraries, zine fairs, distros, and general zine resources.  I find it a little tricky to navigate – there’s a bit too much going on, with too many sidebars and adverts – but other than that, it’s good for a browse.  They also have a Twitter account syndicated there, which I recommend following (though most of the news they tweet is from the US and Canada).

We Make Zines

Okay, so I’m pretty sure you all know about We Make Zines, but I want to talk about it anyway.  WMZ was a huge phenomenon when I first got into zines in 2008, but seems to have fizzled out a little recently.  Most people think that the rise of Facebook and Twitter has rendered WMZ a little redundant, which I think is a fair point.  Having said that, We Make Zines is still a valuable tool for zinesters to keep in touch with each other, not only due to the fact that it’s tailored specifically to zinesters, but also because many zinesters don’t use Twitter or Facebook!  The groups (the biggest ones include Perzines, Over 30 and Still at it, and Let’s Trade Zines), active forum, and event directory are all very useful tools that you can’t get anywhere else.  The location-based groups are great for bringing zinesters together - as well as the 200-strong UK & Ireland Zinesters, many subsections of the country have their own groups, including Kent, Wales, Midlands, East Anglia, and Brighton.  Members can create your own profile page where people can message you and leave you comments.  Zinesters can upload photos of their zines and projects to their profiles, join and contribute to groups, create events, upload videos, and IM each other.  Lots of fun!

Zinescene UK

A LiveJournal community dedicated to the UK zine scene, where members can advertise their zine, discuss zine issues, ask for advice, network, and trade with each other.  It could be a great resource but, again, is underused.  If you’re on LJ, add Zinescene_UK to your friends list and post your news there! 

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PS - While we’re here, we’ve got an important announcement to make: Sheffield Zine Fair is now being held on the 25^th September (Sunday) instead of the 24^th as originally advertised.  Change the date in your diaries – we hope to see you there!