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

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.

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.

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.

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.