On zine costs.

[sarren]

kirkspock_recs sometimes has recs for stories only available in zines.

I have a lot of zines, from those dark days before the internet. I try not to think about that time too closely. *covers eyes*

I got thinking about my favourite Kirk/Spock zine - Broken Images. I'd quite like to rec that, so I googled it and found this! http://www.agentwithstyle.com/startrek.htm

And there was a function to search for other stories by the same author. I found two! in a zine called Nome 8! Yay! Except the zine costs $69 AUD!!!!

Who pays this, seriously? Can it really cost that much money to produce each zine? Or is it a business now?

Comments

[neonnurse.livejournal.com]

Yeah, zineds. :) I forget and use the OLD l33t speak sometimes....

Where some of us got burned by her was as far back as in the 80s. In my specific case, we had paid a writer for the rights to re-publish her zine, one of the earliest Trek zines out there. She had gone pro and wanted people to still be able to get the stories, but she was busy with lots of other things and couldn't do this too.

Maybe I should point out that at one point these zines were being done on MIMEOGRAPH machines. Because quick print places either weren't available or were too expensive.

Anyway, this person offered to sell copies of the zines at conventions and give us a cut. This was also in the day where the idea was that you did all this work for the fun of it, and only charged enough to cover your costs.

At first, she sold a decent number for us and all was well. But sales slowly dried up and she claimed it was because now our zines were old and people had moved onto newer stuff.

Except word got around that she was still selling plenty of older zines for us and everyone else. But she had made her own masters and printed up her own copies, and THOSE were the ones she was selling!

Speaking personally, the reason I haven't got ALL my stories up on line (although I would like to someday) is that a boatload of them were written ON A TYPEWRITER! Or later, on a DOS based computer that used a 5 1/4" floppy! To repost my old work would require RE-TYPING every bloody letter of the dang things! And since I have to struggle to find a few minutes here and there to work on NEW stuff...well, it will have to wait until I retire or win the lotto or something. :)

[jya_bd_cp_ttgb]

It's K/S fandom that makes me cry for the fact scanners are so freaking unreliable with words. *pets beaten, tattered copy of Broken Images to chest and whimpers*