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Putting together a Zine

lesserbeinglesserbeing Registered User regular
edited September 2007 in Help / Advice Forum
A couple of my coworkers and myself are putting together a small time 'zine for our community. It's covering the local music and art scene. I was wondering if anyone here had any experience with this that they could divulge for my benefit.

lesserbeing on

Posts

  • PojacoPojaco Registered User regular
    edited September 2007
    Sure, but what sort of advice are you looking for? What city are you in? How many copies do you want to make, do you want color, etc.

    -- If it's covering the local scene, I suggest you take care to do the local scene justice. Every town has someone writing about the local scene, and so often it is terribly misinformed, out-of-touch, or just wrong. So make it relevant, and make it interesting.

    -- Support the DIY tradition of zine-making and DIY. Don't let anyone advertise in your zine.

    -- Double-check your layout before making copies. I once made 50 copies of a 16-page zine where 4 of the pages were upside down. Wasn't that big of a deal, but you get the idea.

    -- Don't try to charge for your zine, ESPECIALLY because it's your first one. I'm all for buying and selling zines at a certain point, but I don't think any first-timer is entitled to an asking price.

    -- Have fun.

    -- When you stop having fun, start doing a different zine.

    *Edit - another rule

    -- Buy a bunch of zines at your local music store / bookstore or check them out if your library has a zine section.

    Pojaco on
  • lesserbeinglesserbeing Registered User regular
    edited September 2007
    Thanks for the tips.

    It's a zone about the local hardcore/punk scene in a smallish university-town in Montana. I'm working closely with numerous members of various bands. We plan on printing it ourselves as a black and white free piece that has extensive articles and announcements for bands with little or no exposure. It will be completely free and we plan to distribute by hand by using the street teams of some of our collaborators.

    lesserbeing on
  • WezoinWezoin Registered User regular
    edited September 2007
    I'm assuming by "zine" you mean magazine (sorry, if it seems like I'm stating the obvious, I just wanna be clear.)

    Anyway, print out your pages onto standard 8 1/2 by 11 sheets, and take it into one of your local print shops. They should be able to set it up so it would print on 11 x 17's, in such a fashion that it'd fold like a magazine nicely. It also would probably cost you quite a bit less than if you tried to print it yourself (laser printers are much cheaper in terms of ink use and the such than ink jets.)

    Also, dont ever use Staples print shops. Any decent one will not make you wait overnight to do a print job. Check the universities, they seem to have the best ones.

    It'll really give your "zine" a much more professional look, rather than looking like a bunch of pages printed at home and stapled together.

    Wezoin on
  • lesserbeinglesserbeing Registered User regular
    edited September 2007
    Actually we made a deal with a local record shop. Our band is going to play a few gigs there and in trade they're going to print off 500 or so double sided 8.5 by 11 B/W copies. So luckily we have that under wraps.

    ED: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zine

    lesserbeing on
  • PojacoPojaco Registered User regular
    edited September 2007
    Wezoin wrote: »
    I'm assuming by "zine" you mean magazine (sorry, if it seems like I'm stating the obvious, I just wanna be clear.)

    Anyway, print out your pages onto standard 8 1/2 by 11 sheets, and take it into one of your local print shops. They should be able to set it up so it would print on 11 x 17's, in such a fashion that it'd fold like a magazine nicely. It also would probably cost you quite a bit less than if you tried to print it yourself (laser printers are much cheaper in terms of ink use and the such than ink jets.)

    Also, dont ever use Staples print shops. Any decent one will not make you wait overnight to do a print job. Check the universities, they seem to have the best ones.

    It'll really give your "zine" a much more professional look, rather than looking like a bunch of pages printed at home and stapled together.
    He doesn't mean magazine, he means zine. There's a difference. Typically they are copied rather than printed, he isn't trying to do what you're thinking.

    Pojaco on
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