Oct

4

the future of review zines?

Filed Under publishing, zine news |

The newest issue of Xerography Debt has brought a big change: It no longer contains reviews. The print zine continues to be a zine about zine, with commentary, discussion, columns, and more, but XD’s reviews have migrated to its blog.

In her introduction to the issue, Davida explains that her decision to change the zine’s format is a result of “the lag time between when zines are published and when reviews appear,” the decrease in zines received for review, increasing costs of printing and mailing, and decreasing numbers of supporters and subscribers. Those are issues we can certainly relate to here at ZW hq.

Prior to completing this issue, Davida sent out an announcement asking for comments on print zines versus online presence and how the Internet has changed zines. (XD #24 includes responses from some of her readers.) Read on to see Jerianne’s comments on the topic, including her predictions for the future of review zines.

I’d like to hear your response to this topic. Please let us know — either by adding a comment, or sending me an email — if you think I’m on track or way off base.

Davida’s call for comments:
Change, as always, is still brewing in the zine world. The paper vs. web debate rages on, as does perzines vs. blogs. In many ways these venues can and do co-exist, but at the same time I see the number of zines I receive dwindling. The general demographics of zinemakers and their overall productivity seem to be changing too. Most of the youngsters, the would-have-been next generation, have moved to the web. Many of the zines that I have loved for years have editors undergoing changes in their personal responsibilities (i.e. kids, older parents, jobs) and are publishing less frequently. I know that personally I haven’t published an issue of Leeking Ink in two years, the longest gap since I started the zine in 1995. (I do have plans to get the new issue done in the coming months.) The main people I see publishing semi-consistently are the people who have been at this for at least 15-20 years, are past the major life changes, and don’t view the web as a spot for natural migration. However, as long as postage and printing costs continue to rise, the future of paper as the dominant zine media remains uncertain. Regardless, it is the reading that matters, not how or where it is done.

To XD’s readers – how do you feel about the paper vs. digital changes? Are you online or have moved to online only? Why? Do you have more readers or more reader feedback? Back in the day, zines were only part of the obsession; letters from total strangers were the other part. Has e-mail wiped that component out? If you are a paper devotee, why?

Jerianne’s response:
The Internet hasn’t — and won’t — kill zines, but it has changed the way zines are made, sold, and bought. Not to call folks like you & me “old timers,” but for zinesters our age and older, the way you found out about zines when we got started was through other zines. And we’re hanging on to that practice (and other out-dated practices, like trades). Younger zinesters, though, sell their zines on etsy and promote them on livejournal and pay for them using paypal.

Zines like ours are dinosaurs. Eventually we will be extinct. There’s just no way we can compete with the timelines and immediacy of online reviews. I don’t know your process, but there is a lot of lag time in between someone sending Zine World a zine and when the review is finally seen by our readers. Once I receive a zine, it might sit in my box o’ zines for a month (or two or more) before it gets assigned to a reviewer. The reviewer usually has a month to turn in his/her reviews; not all reviewers are prompt and meet their deadlines, however. Then the review goes through the editing process; it takes more time to get the whole zine written, edited, proofread, designed, and printed. Even if you retain the centralized mailing, assignment to reviewers, and edited-before-published reviews, a website or blog can still get reviews online faster than I can get them into print, even at my best. Most review sites, however, dispense with the editing; cut out the assignments and the process is even faster.

When we relied on reviews published in zines to promote our new issues, we knew it would take some time before the orders would come in. So we made larger print runs and patiently kept issues available for longer.  Now that zinesters rely on the immediacy of the Internet to promote their zines, print runs are smaller and zines sell out sooner. By the time a review zine like ours publishes a review, it’s old news. The zine may not be available anymore.

The one area in which zines like ours remain relevant is for libraries who buy zines (as libraries often need to use “authoritative” review sources, and we’re the closest you can find to that). But: I know of about 50 public and academic libraries in the United States with zine collections. I have about a dozen libraries as subscribers. Sure, there are undoubtedly more who buy us through zine distros… but that’s still a pretty big gap.

So I think it’s only a matter of time until ZW’s readership whithers away to the point of not being worth the effort — if I last that long (and no one is beating down my door to take over the helm). I realize I’m not helping out the situation by my irregular and delayed publishing schedule, but it’s the best I can do. I’m not quite ready to give up yet, but I don’t know what will happen down the road. Though online reviews may be the way of the future, don’t look to find Zine World there. I’m not interested in running a review blog.

Of course, all this is just based on my perceptions. I have no real data to back it up. I’d be happy for someone to prove me wrong.

Readers — what say you?


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7 Comments so far

  1. Elihu Edelson on October 4, 2008 2:03 pm

    It’s hard to look into a crystal ball and predict the future of anything right now. As a New Age zine, Both Sides Now has seen that the world has been in the process of a major transition from one age to another for some time. One thing that many observers (some far from New Age) perceive is that we are in the process of collapse. This is environmental, political, and economic. In more than one way this is good news, because all those areas are out of balance, and it may be best to start over from scratch. That won’t be as hard as it seems, because there have been visionaries among us all along, but they have been ignored or ridiculed. Think Al Gore, for one who is well known. The old bigger is better paradigm will go out, and an appropriate scale will need to be found for things. (”Small is Beautiful.”) Decentralizing will also be necessary. Perhaps that will be good news for zines, as they would be useful for both local communication and networking. Our best bet is to watch the signs and see which way the wind blows.

  2. Tom Hendricks on October 4, 2008 5:36 pm

    This is something we need our readers imput on. They may prefer the quick review on line or they may prefer the print version. Print version is not as timely but it has other pluses. It hangs around longer, is portable, and all around easier to order from.

    Here’s my take. When I get Xerography Debt, I read it from cover to cover (same with ZW). When I got this issue and saw that it was online, I went there and just scanned the reviews . It’s just not the same. The zines reviewed by XD won’t all be seen by me anymore. I just don’t like reading a lot online. I can understand why she did it, and I think I would do the same. But that’s my reaction to it.

    We may be reaching the end of zine review zines, or the darkness before dawn. I don’t know yet.

  3. Gianni Simone on October 4, 2008 11:36 pm

    I couldn’t agree more with Tom Hendricks. Maybe our anagraphical age has something (or a lot) to do with our reactions, but it’s true that reading reviews online is not the same thing. Every time I get an issue of ZW, I put everything else aside, put the zine in my bag and for a few days only read ZW, cover to cover. I’m sorry to say the same does not happen with the XD blog. Still, a review blog is better than nothing, and of course I understand why Davida did what she did. It would be interesting to hear what people younger than Tom and me have to say about this. Maybe to them it makes no difference whether they read a review on paper or on a computer screen. Still, I can’t really imagine a world without Zine World. To my knowledge, there are no other places - either on paper or online - that offer the same amount of zine-related information and reviews. It will be interesting to see how the new wemakezines.ning.com will develope. It has great potential and some of the discussions are very interesting. Opening a page devoted to online reviews would be great. The problem is, with projects like this, you need someone who keeps things going and prods all the members with ideas, questions, etc. I don’t know whether Krissy of Ponyboy Press can or even wants to do that.

  4. ailecia on October 5, 2008 11:53 am

    Unlike the other commenter’s, I’m one of those people who reads online.

    I also write reviews for Feminist Review: http://feministreview.blogspot.com/ and I have to admit that I read their reviews much more regularly than I read Zine World. And this has everything to do with the medium. I feel guilty when I pick up Zine World to read, knowing that time spent reading printed text, better be focused on reading that needs to happen to get my PhD done. But, I have to go on the internet 5 or 6 times a week to keep up with emails from my department and my various jobs. And while I’m checking those emails, I get my weekly email from Feminist Review with excerpts from the previous week’s reviews, and if one of them interests me, then I go to the site to read it and end up usually reading several reviews while I’m there. Zine World, on the other hand, is in my zine box at home. And I’m very rarely home. When I am home, my primary interest is in spending quality time with friends and/or my partner.

    Maybe it’s a generational thing? I’m 32 years old and have had computers in the classroom ever since I was in kindergarten. I learned BASIC computer language in elementary school. Every paper I’ve turned in since starting high school in 1991 had to be turned in typed. I got my first email account during my first year of college and have become accustomed to needing to check it regularly for updates from my professors. Add to that friendster, facebook, myspace, flickr and the demands of my friends all over the world press down on me. There are always 4 or 5 people waiting to hear back from me. And all of this has forced me to compartmentalize my life: in the morning I sit at the computer for 1-2 hours where I respond to urgent messages, email back my friends, upload photos (my primary hobby), read the news and then read for entertainment. When the timer goes off after 2 hours, if I haven’t already, I must turn off the computer. No more internet time allowed. Then I live my life: work, school, exercise, errands—all of this keeps me out of the house. I return home in the evening to make dinner and spend time with people I care about. I have left no time in my schedule to read anything in print that is not directly related to getting my degree finished.

    It is only on road trips, or airplanes where I get the time to read for pleasure from printed text… it is those times that I pull out zines, magazines, and pleasure books. It turns out that I get about 30 minutes of pleasure reading every day during my 1-2 hours online every morning. So, for me, I’d get to read more zine reviews if they were online.

    Technology has definitely impacted our lives. Text messages force us into even more demanding, instant-gratification-seeking lives… I both love and hate the ways that technology has impacted my life. I like cell phones because I don’t ever have to be at home to be contacted. But, I hate how busy it keeps us.

    I don’t know… when does technology help us, and when does it harm us? when is it useful? when does it become even more of a time burden?

    Imagine Zine World as a blog… I know Jerianne is not interested in this.. but for a second, let’s just play make-believe.

    If Zine World were a review website, authors could post their zines as “to be reviewed” and an email could go out weekly, every other week, or whatever to potential reviewers announcing that a certain number of zines are available for review. Then reviewers could log-in and accept reviews and authors could then send zines directly to reviewers, saving that extra round of postage. And also allowing reviewers to choose exactly which zines and how many they want to review (it would be cool if authors had to mark which categories their zine fit in, so that customers can quickly sort through and only read reviews of zines that interest them: perzines by women, zines dealing with mental health, zines dealing with electoral politics, etc.)

    When a reviewer was ready to turn in a review, they could fill out pre-determined fields that have things like price, size, categories, etc. But the program would do the formatting automatically, so that reviewers didn’t have to pull out the format guide every time we sit down to write reviews. Then the review would post automatically to the new reviews page.

    Subscribers to the site, could sign up for weekly or monthly email updates to get an email sent to them with excerpts from recent reviews and a link to go look at the reviews. Then with PayPal reviewers could automatically order the zine directly from the writer. Then customers could get a feedback email asking for them to rate the zine, and also report if the zine was never sent. Authors and customers could also choose to be available only through sending cash through the mail.

    And if someone wanted a hard copy of the reviews, you could have a button that automatically generates a PDF of the last 100 or 200 reviews and allows the person to print that off either at home on their own printer or it could generate to an outside vendor who could print and mail it, the costs would be covered by the person ordering a hardcopy.

    It would take some time to get the website set-up, but with open-source programs like Open Journal Systems, the system a lot of us in academic journal publishing use, it would be really easy to get started. But, this is me playing make-believe.

  5. Frederick Moe on October 5, 2008 5:11 pm

    This is slighty off topic but I’d like to express a few words in general about print versus internet.

    I much prefer to read reviews in Zine World and similar publications. It feels substantial, doesn’t involve squinting at ascreen and I can carry a zine almost anywhere, literally.

    Until internet sites are better archived and accessible, I still feel that the internet is too ephemeral and too vulnerable to technological glitches, and even potential electronic censorship.

    I am working to establish a zine section in the small town public library where I am a trustee, because I feel that zines are a cornerstone of free speech and democracy, and also good sources of information. I hope that for the foreseeable future we will have print review zines than can be shared with others and used by libraries as resources.

  6. Rick Bradford on October 6, 2008 10:33 am

    The whole thing depresses me, to tell you the truth. Poopsheet, which began as a reviewzine, has been online-only for quite a while now but it didn’t take long at all before I was dreaming about reviving the print version.

    I LOVE print and, to me, a website or a blog isn’t and never will be a zine; it’s merely a website or a blog. The spirit may be the same but, then again, we all know that’s often not the case (much like how an e-mail is usually nothing like a letter).

    In the comic zine arena (my main area of focus) there’s certainly been a decline in activity in recent years. I’m not so sure that the publishing itself has declined but rather the distribution. There are enough small press conventions around the country each year now that a great many of the mini-comics publishers plan their publications around them. They distribute at these shows and sell via their websites (or Etsy, etc.). Word of mouth comes via blogs rather than other zines. However, the end result is often that readers will never see many new comic zines if they don’t make it to the show(s).

    For the past decade I’ve been stubbornly resisting the idea that the Internet is killing zines. I still believe in the concept but obviously the typical zine publisher can’t keep publishing if they’re not getting a certain number of orders. It wasn’t too long ago that not breaking even was a given — after all, we weren’t in it for the money — but it’s a different world now. Everything’s more expensive and if the incoming orders are fewer than they used to be then that makes it particularly tough. Even the folks who can handle a dearth of orders because they prefer trades may lose their drive if there aren’t enough trades coming in. Who wants to publish in a vacuum?

    I’m okay with blogs and websites (I mean, I do have both myself) but I will admit that it’s extremely difficult to keep up with content if I can’t access it via RSS — and even then that’s only if I have enough free time to do so. It’s information overload every day (a problem a single zine in one’s hands doesn’t present).

    Jerianne, if it ever comes to the point that you decide to cease print publication I do hope you’ll reconsider reformatting as a website/blog. I understand the reluctance but Zine World is an important vehicle for information; it’d be a great loss for it to go away.

  7. Ray on October 30, 2008 9:41 pm

    Jerianne:

    My zine has evolved over the years to become blog posts reformatted for print. I don’t put that much effort into the print version because only a handful of people read my writings in hardcopy format. I use a basic layout and let the photocopier at the local print shop sort and staple each issue, the corner-staple format.

    I’m guessing that to do Zine World in the digest format takes a lot of work and time. Maybe that format should only used for articles on zining and censorship, using the corner-stapled format for print reviews. I got one of you review updates in that format and it didn’t bother me that there was no fancy cover or digest format. I read it for info, not to enjoy the layout.

    Maybe putting out the reviews as a bimonthly or quarterly newsletter would cut down on the time between a zine’s publication date and when it gets reviewed. Also, to speed up the process, if the newsletter wasn’t that long, you wouldn’t have to put every title in alphabetical order, just paste in each review as it comes in. After all, that’s how a blog would work. Or if someone needed organization, just have general categories (perzine, politics, etc.) without the alphabetization by title. I have no problem with a grabbag newsletter, reviews thrown in as they arrive. I could scan each title, pick out what I want, and along the way might come across a good find.

    Unless USPS decides to rip us off even more, an 8-page newsletter is still one first class stamp. So maybe shorter issues printed more often would do the trick. If you didn’t want to deal with business envelopes, you could leave a blank area on the newsletter for the address, folding it up and using one of those sticky dots to keep it sealed.

    Maybe the digest for articles / newsletter for reviews split would work.

    Ray