How to publish a 'zine (was: fanfic on the net)
Randy Landers
<< there's a ton of info on ways to do it/improve on doing it, even if
Randy
seems deeply disinclined to take advice (except from Laura,
perhaps...).>>
Touché! LOL
--
Randy Landers
ORION PRESS
--------------------------------------------------------------------
For 13MB of quality Classic Trek fan fiction, go to:
http://www.mindspring.com/~randylanders/archives/oaindex.html
For information on ORION PRESS and its fanzines, go to:
http://www.mindspring.com/~randylanders
Randy Landers
>I agree. I have written for a zine and I am considereing writing for
a few
>more. I make not a dime off of it, but it much more fun to see my
name in print
>then on the NG. But...I hear much more feedback from the web, so my
ego gets
>its necessary stroking more from the web. If the 4000hits on my
webpage paid
>me, I'd get alot of gratification too. ;-D.
Ah, but see, I never had any web advertising on our web fiction pages
because I'm not interested in making money on Star Trek or Orion
Press. I'm interested in the artform of Star Trek fanzines, and I want
them to continue.
>I buy zines to read and reread.
As do I. And it's not only limited to Trek. I've read David Brin,
James White, JRR Tolkien dozens of times. The same books. Ditto with
zines.
>Please, I want both. Print and web. But, if anybody can tell me how
to charge
>off of a webpage, I don't wanna know. At least, not publicly. hee hee
Oh, I know how to do that. Banners and crud and hit counters. Sheesh.
Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent. Wouldn't wanna.
Randy
Jungle Kitty
one whit of hostility in this post. If you detect any, I respectfully
submit that your scanner is turned up way too high and is giving a false
reading.
John Ordover has addressed Randy Landers' concerns about zine sales
dropping due to reader tastes and preferences, and I think he raised a
lot of good points.
Perhaps the zine publishers should also consider how the *writers'
needs* are affecting their sales. I've been told that they are seeing
fewer submissions. I think that may be because, for the first time in
fanfic, writers have a viable alternative to publishing in zines. In my
original post to this thread, I listed many reasons why I prefer the
web, both as a reader and a writer, and, except for the guy who referred
to sell me a zine because he didn't know me, none of them had to do with
the personalities involved. I tried to point out what seem to me to be
limitations of print and advantages of the web *as media.*
Since Orion Press and most of the zine publishers I've met ask the
writers not to post their stories to the net for a certain period of
time, perhaps they should consider what the writers are giving up in
doing so. So, in the spirit of helpfulness, here is an excerpt from
something I wrote for a K/S newsletter in days long gone by, before I
came to a parting of the ways with that part of fandom.
***
I think it might be useful for zine readers to understand the appeal of
the web from a writer's point of view. In my experience, a web writer
who's just starting out usually gets a lot of encouragement. I'm not
saying a new writer won't be welcome in the zines, because the zine
editors I've contacted have been very kind and encouraging. And I don't
mean to imply that the web is the place for stories that aren't good
enough for zines. I'm just saying that many newbies (myself included)
have found their writing wings through the feedback of the net readers.
And when you're new, there's a certain comfort in the anonymity of the
net. You may feel uncertain about sending your first efforts off to a
more "official" media like a zine. You may fear being told that your
story isn't "good enough." The web is a little less intimidating that
way. And because of the immediacy of the response and the possibility of
discussion, you can get a lot of help and insight from both readers and
writers.
Which brings us to the feedback issue. The personal satisfaction of
completing a creative effort and the reader response are the only
"payment" fanfic writers receive for their efforts. I've corresponded
with a number of writers about this, and they all say the same thing:
You get more feedback from an online story than a zine story. I believe
that if the zines are to remain an important venue for K/S, it's up to
the readers to keep it going. Yes, the readers. Because zines are *not*
the only game in town anymore, and the writers know it. So if you're
really sold on print, speak up.
Remember--just because K/S zines have been around for a long time
doesn't mean they always will be. The zines cannot exist without the
writers, and it's quite possible that the writers will not continue to
publish in a given format if it doesn't result in "payment." Not when
there's some other forum where they can practically count on it.
And finally, here's the main reason why I love the web. If you write and
read a lot (as I do), there simply aren't enough zines, and they don't
come out often enough. I really doubt that people want to see three or
more stories by the same writer in every issue of every K/S zine. And I
don't know how K/S fans who are entirely dependent on zines *survive*
between fixes.
The reality is this: zines are no longer the exclusive source of K/S.
***
I doubt that there is anything the zine publishers can do about this
situation. They want to recoup their costs, or at least lose less money.
The writers want to be "paid," too, and feedback is the only form of
"payment" they can legally accept. And payday comes more often and in
larger amounts on the web.
As long as I'm trying to be helpful, I'll address the reader side of the
equation as well. There is an axiom in the business world--better,
faster, cheaper. The web delivers what the customer wants better,
faster, and cheaper. Not *every* customer, but enough of them so that
the market for zines is shrinking. Some people will always love the
printed page, and some will always enjoy the artwork. But if zine sales
across the board are shrinking, it would appear that many of the
customers are willing to do without those things in order to get the
core product--fan fic--better, faster, and cheaper.
BTW, when I say "better," I do not mean to imply that the stories on the
web are better than those in zines or vice versa. I've seen the full
range of quality in both media. I am using the word "better" to mean a
more efficient method of accomplishing the product objective, which I
define as 'the sharing of fanfic between writers and readers.' I realize
that zine publishers have additional financial objectives, but if
they've lost sight of the objectives of their contributors and
customers, they're doomed. People do not write stories or purchase zines
so that the publishers can make money. Running a successful business
means finding a way of turning a profit by meeting the needs of your
contributors and customers.
The zine publishers are the middle men in this, and the web is
eliminating the need for them. Middle men cannot survive unless they
provide added value to the people on the two ends.
So, zine publishers, here's some advice that you may find helpful. If
you're going to compete, then *compete.* What does the web do that you
can't? You can't publish as quickly, nor can you force your readers to
send feedback. Those are facts that I doubt you can change. So if you're
to stay in business, you have to start delivering something that the
customer wants so badly that s/he won't object to the cost and the wait.
You will also have to offer something to the writers that they can't get
on the web, or an enticing print-only variation of something they do get
on the web.
I don't know what that something is, but right now, it would appear that
zines do not offer it. They aren't giving enough added value to justify
the cost to the other parties involved.
--
Jungle Kitty, still stunned that she has applied her businessperson-ish
thinking to her hobby! I guess it falls under the heading, "Using RL for
Good instead of Evil."
http://www.accesscom.com/~jkitty
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, I'm a Kirkologist, and I'm OK,
It's Kirk all night, and it's Kirk all day.
He wears gold shirts, he's got tight pants,
And women by the score.
He thrills his many shipmates
With EVEs galore.
Oh, I'm a Kirkologist, and I'm OK...
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Raku2u
thanks to 1800whine for kicking it off. For those thinking about publishing a
zine, there's a ton of info on ways to do it/improve on doing it, even if Randy
seems deeply disinclined to take advice (except from Laura, perhaps...).
Ain't often you get helpful hints from several zine editors, market info from
those who prefer different series, review notes from those who read zines and
also the pro books, commentary from PocketBooks' editor complete with sales
info (the kind of thing that's damned hard to get, normally speaking).
Coupla good notes from people who look forward to the coexistence of paper and
net, and/or zine and net, including a useful assessment from Gabrielle about
what's essentially just-in-time printing, which is one of the rages in book
publishing at the moment.
Some realistic financial statements also, from a few who've tried it, and a
clear indication that for various reasons this isn't an activity to get
involved with if you're looking to make a million bucks.
Last but not least, some good comments on ads, the uses/abuses of websites,
ways to lure people in and thoughts on what to give them once they've been
lured.
All in all, a gold mine for those who elect to listen.
raku
(note self-serving advertisement in .sig file)
-----
"Look! There's Barbie!" --a young friend on seeing Yeoman Rand for the first
time
"The Learning Curve," hypertext TOS story, now online at
http://members.aol.com/U2ukar
and through http://members.aol.com/Raku2u
-----
Sydvick
>This thread on "fanfic, web or zine" has been a pretty interesting one. Many
>thanks to 1800whine for kicking it off. For those thinking about publishing a
>zine, there's a ton of info on ways to do it/improve on doing it, even if
>Randy
>seems deeply disinclined to take advice (except from Laura, perhaps...).
>
>Ain't often you get helpful hints from several zine editors, market info from
>those who prefer different series, review notes from those who read zines and
>also the pro books, commentary from PocketBooks' editor complete with sales
>info (the kind of thing that's damned hard to get, normally speaking).
>
>Coupla good notes from people who look forward to the coexistence of paper
>and
>net, and/or zine and net, including a useful assessment from Gabrielle about
>what's essentially just-in-time printing, which is one of the rages in book
>publishing at the moment.
>
>Some realistic financial statements also, from a few who've tried it, and a
>clear indication that for various reasons this isn't an activity to get
>involved with if you're looking to make a million bucks.
>
>Last but not least, some good comments on ads, the uses/abuses of websites,
>ways to lure people in and thoughts on what to give them once they've been
>lured.
>
>All in all, a gold mine for those who elect to listen.
>
>raku
>
>(note self-serving advertisement in .sig file)
>
> -----
more. I make not a dime off of it, but it much more fun to see my name in print
then on the NG. But...I hear much more feedback from the web, so my ego gets
its necessary stroking more from the web. If the 4000hits on my webpage paid
me, I'd get alot of gratification too. ;-D.
I buy zines to read and reread. Most of what I read has never and probably will
never be on the web, so I get the best of both worlds. There are 20 more years
of stuff out there in print form that I haven't read. I get real antsy
sometimes on the web because there is not enough for me to read. I read fast. I
write fast. I live fast. I am the ENTITY. hah, sorry,I don't know where that
came from.
Please, I want both. Print and web. But, if anybody can tell me how to charge
off of a webpage, I don't wanna know. At least, not publicly. hee hee
My heart is single and cannot be divided
And it is fastened on a single hope;
Oh you, who might be the moon
Until I die, I shall not give up lovesongs.
Oh God, forgive me my shortcomings
SOMALI LOVESONG
JWinterCNA
>Randy
>seems deeply disinclined to take advice (except from Laura,
>perhaps...).>>
>
For starters, do not use Heart of Glory as a model of how to do a zine. (Well,
the content was pretty cool, but if I had to do it all over again, I'd dump it
off on Randy. Oops! Sorry, guy.)
(No, this is not advertising. Unless Peg Kennedy still has the master, it's
out of print.)
K'tol... er, um, J
Randy Landers
Jungle Kitty wrote
>My two cents, and a long two cents it is, but I promise, there is not
>one whit of hostility in this post. If you detect any, I respectfully
>submit that your scanner is turned up way too high and is giving a
false
>reading.
Actually, most (if not all) of this post was straightforward and well
thought out. Thanks!
>Perhaps the zine publishers should also consider how the *writers'
>needs* are affecting their sales. I've been told that they are seeing
>fewer submissions. I think that may be because, for the first time in
>fanfic, writers have a viable alternative to publishing in zines. In
my
>original post to this thread, I listed many reasons why I prefer the
>web, both as a reader and a writer, and, except for the guy who
referred
>to sell me a zine because he didn't know me, none of them had to do
with
>the personalities involved. I tried to point out what seem to me to
be
>limitations of print and advantages of the web *as media.*
Actually, I've been given this some thought. And what I think
happening may be a (Lord, I hate this word) paradigm shift. When ORION
PRESS first debuted in 1979 (it was STARDATE PRESS at that time),
zines were produced either through off-set printing or through
mimeography. Our first two issues were printed off-set, in fact. In
the Spring of 1980, we made a transition to xerography, and we were
suddenly able to produce zines as fast as we could fill them. We
literally did a 60-100 page zine every 6-9 weeks with quality works
(most of which are available in the asc TOS archive). Submissions were
flooding in because we could turn around the zines so quickly, as
compared to most of the other zine presses who were, for better or
worse, and for the sake of quality artwork, entrenched with the offset
printing process.
A few years later, every single person who wanted to be a Trek zine
writer was heading to Kinko's and producing their own zines. The
larger, older, more established, offset printed fanzines had a harder
and harder time filling their pages. Zines like our STARDATE (which in
1984 became ORION) and IDYLLS came out quickly, reliably and more
often than their offset counterparts. However, there were still offset
counterparts which then strove to maintain levels of quality of
production (and artwork) as well as sales.
Now, there's a new paradigm shift away from print into the electronic
realms of this newsgroup and personal websites. Printed zines are
striving to hold on to their readership by cost saving measures, by
increasing their levels of expectation of quality, and by increasing
their production schedules to keep up with the voracious appetites of
the readership.
What's being lost is the artwork (in April, we made the decision to
minimize if not eliminate interior artwork--cover art will remain, but
the illustrations for the stories are being phased out). What's also
being lost is the esprit de fandom of the authors, editors and
publishers as they face what literally may be the extinction of an art
form. I certainly am guilty of my lamentations about this. I've been
doing it for twenty years, and I have enjoyed every minute of it.
(Well, okay, that's an exaggeration, but you get the idea...)
Fanzines must pay for themselves in order to continue. By doing so,
they need to sell around 100 copies of an anthology, 50 copies of a
novella, with a reasonable mark up to cover the expenses. An exchange
of currency occurs, and the editor hopes to break even (which we've
done two years out of twenty).
Small websites, on the other hand, are often available to folks with a
modest amount of bandwidth at no extra charge. These allow writers to
post their (usually unedited) works freely, and allow folks to freely
access those stories.
Websites such as ours, however, are costly. In addition to paying for
the 40+MB of disk space required for posting merely one-third of our
fiction from three years ago and back, you have to pay for the
excessive bandwidth such a site generates. Advertising on such as
site, according to our legal advisor, could invite unwanted legal
attention from the owners of the Star Trek copyrights. Further, making
the site a "pay site" would be self-defeating considering the number
of small websites it would have to compete with. We asked for website
donations on each order form, but most people chose not to do so (as
is their right). Frankly, I have no interest in creating a massive
website of fan fiction that cannot pay for itself by any means, so we
closed three out of our four sites. (The one that remains contains
11MB of TOS fan fiction we published from 1979 - 1994).
>Since Orion Press and most of the zine publishers I've met ask the
>writers not to post their stories to the net for a certain period of
>time, perhaps they should consider what the writers are giving up in
>doing so.
We realize what we're doing. We're asking that the authors DELAY (not
forego) a certain amount of feedback in order to allow us enough time
to sell enough zines to recoup the expenses of that zine (detailed by
Biffan and myself elsewhere). If an author wants the joy of seeing
that zine printed by ORION PRESS, then that delay is the price they
will pay. However, if an author wants to do as Gabrielle has done,
then I am ecstatic as well. Publishing a work simultaneously on the
net and in print worked for her novella as she had the capital-risk,
not ORION PRESS. It worked for my own CHEKOV'S ENTERPRISE, as I took
the capital-risk, not ORION PRESS. It would probably work for any
lengthy novella-sized zine providing the author takes the
capital-risk, not ORION PRESS.
>You get more feedback from an online story than a zine story. I
believe
>that if the zines are to remain an important venue for K/S, it's up
to
>the readers to keep it going. Yes, the readers. Because zines are
*not*
>the only game in town anymore, and the writers know it. So if you're
>really sold on print, speak up.
And with THAT, I am in COMPLETE AND TOTAL AGREEMENT. We used to get
over 40 letters of comment per month, even on zines which I'd be
embarrassed to publish today. I can only speak for myself and my zines
(the other ORION PRESS editors may be receiving letters as well--I
don't know), but I receive only 3 or 4 letters of comment per month
these days. To me, this lack of feedback from printed zine readers is
incredibly detrimental to the morale of the author who has slaved over
a work.
One of the best examples I have here is for BEKi's wonderful novella,
ASSIMILATION, which received ecstatic reviews everywhere. She got like
twelve total letters of comment for her effort. Twelve. Fortunately,
the reviews made up for a lot of it, but she had to be disheartened by
such a lack of comment from the over 300 folks who've bought and read
this fanzine.
>Remember--(snip) zines cannot exist without the
>writers, and it's quite possible that the writers will not continue
to
>publish in a given format if it doesn't result in "payment." Not when
>there's some other forum where they can practically count on it.
Quite.
>And finally, here's the main reason why I love the web. If you write
and
>read a lot (as I do), there simply aren't enough zines, and they
don't
>come out often enough. I really doubt that people want to see three
or
>more stories by the same writer in every issue of every K/S zine. And
I
>don't know how K/S fans who are entirely dependent on zines *survive*
>between fixes.
Fortunately, frequency of publication has not been a problem for ORION
PRESS until recently. WAYFARERS and DELTA QUADRANT cannot keep up with
the present level of submissions, so we're looking at reworking our
titles and adding more VOY zines.
>I doubt that there is anything the zine publishers can do about this
>situation. They want to recoup their costs, or at least lose less
money.
>The writers want to be "paid," too, and feedback is the only form of
>"payment" they can legally accept. And payday comes more often and in
>larger amounts on the web.
Quite true. I received more letters of comment from the posting of
CHEKOV'S ENTERPRISE on our website and here in ASC than we did from
publishing it and selling it. Like I said, I'm in total agreement
here.
>People do not write stories or purchase zines
>so that the publishers can make money. Running a successful business
>means finding a way of turning a profit by meeting the needs of your
>contributors and customers.
>
>The zine publishers are the middle men in this, and the web is
>eliminating the need for them. Middle men cannot survive unless they
>provide added value to the people on the two ends.
I would consider myself in the same role as the ISP. We provide access
for fan fiction through our operations.
>So, zine publishers, here's some advice that you may find helpful. If
>you're going to compete, then *compete.* What does the web do that
you
> can't? (snippage throughout)
>You will also have to offer something to the writers that they can't
get
>on the web, or an enticing print-only variation of something they do
get
>on the web.
>I don't know what that something is, but right now, it would appear
that
>zines do not offer it. They aren't giving enough added value to
justify
>the cost to the other parties involved.
Neither do I know what that something is. That's why I'm here
soliciting comments and ideas. And it may boil down to the fact that I
can take a zine to bed with me, that I can read it in a car, in a
plane, in a hottub, that I can hold it in my hands. (LOL -- I keep
seeing Samuel T. Cogley waving a book around saying, "What's the
matter? Don't you like books?")
Jungle Kitty, I'd like to reprint your treatise in the next quarterly
report for ORION PRESS. Get with me on it, okay?
Aleph Press
: What's being lost is the artwork (in April, we made the decision to
: minimize if not eliminate interior artwork--cover art will remain, but
: the illustrations for the stories are being phased out). What's also
This may be a mistake. One of the few things you *have* over web zines
and forums like ASC is that you can reproduce art almost as easily as
text. On the web, art takes time to download, and takea a lot more space
on the provider's site, and if you want to hang it on your wall you have
to print it youself, which is time-consuming, costly, requires equipment
many people don't have, and results in a lower-quality reproduction.
Zines such as Orion Press may *be* the only place people can get
high-quality fan artwork (and I'm almost not exaggerating when I say that
Orion Press is the *only* fanzine I've seen in the Trek world whose art
does not suck; there's some lovely art for Blake's 7 zines, but mostly
what I see as far as quality in Trek is some lovely Bashir/Garak slash
zine covers, Orion Press' art, and the rest is utter dreck.)
Also, while this does not impact *your* decision to keep stuff off the
web, the fact that you have 40 megs and high bandwidth needs doesn't mean
you need to pay a lot of money. Interspeed and simplenet both offer
absurd amounts of bandwidth and storage for ridiculously low prices
($9.95/month in the case of Interspeed.) They won't allow adult material,
but that wouldn't have hurt something like Orion Press, or any other
fanzine publisher of gen stories who wished to switch to a web format.
I personally plan to launch web zines in the near future-- archives on
the web that are edited just like fanzines, that have "issues" like
fanzines, and if I can get it, artwork like fanzines, but that never go
out of print. I have a certain advantage in this regard in that I am
dating an ISP provider with oodles of space and bandwidth. :-) But if I
were willing to keep it under 70 megs I could use Dreamhost (my current
provider, in fact) for $23.95/month; if I were willing to exclude adult
material I could use Simplenet or Interspeed. $300 a year for a web site
strikes me as probably less money than the fanzine producers lose yearly.
In any case, I agree with Jungle Kitty's assessemtn that the fanzines
need to provide something that the web *doesn't*-- and editing isn't it,
not when a person can launch an edited webzine. Art might be one of your
points of difference, however, so I don't know how wise it is to cut back
on it.
--
Be good, servile little citizen-employee, and pay your taxes so the rich
don't have to.
--Zepp Weasel
Alara Rogers, Aleph Press
al...@netcom.com
All Aleph Press stories are at http://alara.dreamhost.com .
randylanders
>This may be a mistake. One of the few things you *have* over web zines
>and forums like ASC is that you can reproduce art almost as easily as
>text. On the web, art takes time to download, and takea a lot more space
>on the provider's site, and if you want to hang it on your wall you have
>to print it youself, which is time-consuming, costly, requires equipment
>many people don't have, and results in a lower-quality reproduction.
True enough. The scanned artwork on our sites takes up a lot of space unless
we sacrifice quality (which we do).
>Zines such as Orion Press may *be* the only place people can get
>high-quality fan artwork (and I'm almost not exaggerating when I say that
>Orion Press is the *only* fanzine I've seen in the Trek world whose art
>does not suck; there's some lovely art for Blake's 7 zines, but mostly
>what I see as far as quality in Trek is some lovely Bashir/Garak slash
>zine covers, Orion Press' art, and the rest is utter dreck.)
Thank you. I'm very pleased with the caliber of artists we have. But many of
them are leaving. In the past ten years, fandom has lost a lot of talented
artists to the dread GAFIAtion.
>Also, while this does not impact *your* decision to keep stuff off the
>web, the fact that you have 40 megs and high bandwidth needs doesn't mean
>you need to pay a lot of money. Interspeed and simplenet both offer
>absurd amounts of bandwidth and storage for ridiculously low prices
>($9.95/month in the case of Interspeed.) They won't allow adult material,
>but that wouldn't have hurt something like Orion Press, or any other
>fanzine publisher of gen stories who wished to switch to a web format.
Actually, some of the material on our website has been classified as adult.
I've not heard of either of these ISPs. How reliable are they? What do they
charge for bandwidth? Do they stick their icon on each screen? (such as the
GeoCities logo in the lower right hand corner of their websites)
>I personally plan to launch web zines in the near future-- archives on
>the web that are edited just like fanzines, that have "issues" like
>fanzines, and if I can get it, artwork like fanzines, but that never go
>out of print. I have a certain advantage in this regard in that I am
>dating an ISP provider with oodles of space and bandwidth. :-) But if I
>were willing to keep it under 70 megs I could use Dreamhost (my current
>provider, in fact) for $23.95/month; if I were willing to exclude adult
>material I could use Simplenet or Interspeed. $300 a year for a web site
>strikes me as probably less money than the fanzine producers lose yearly.
But will the website help build sales? Otherwise, it's compounding our
losses.
>In any case, I agree with Jungle Kitty's assessemtn that the fanzines
>need to provide something that the web *doesn't*-- and editing isn't it,
>not when a person can launch an edited webzine. Art might be one of your
>points of difference, however, so I don't know how wise it is to cut back
>on it.
Laura has some beautiful artwork in her zine, OUTPOST 10. As does Sandra
Hunger in IMZADI. With the departure of the talented Zaquia Tarhuntassa, we
no longer have any interior artists for ANTARES, and Christine Myers whose
beautiful cover art graces many of our TOS zines is not interested in
interior artwork. BEKi continues to provide her beautiful work for our VOY
zines, but she's not interested in interior artwork. Bev Chick has taken on
some of this, thankfully, and her work is wonderful as well. I think you're
right, Alara, and I may address this again with the editors in the coming
weeks.
Randy Landers
ORION PRESS
MissElise
>high-quality fan artwork (and I'm almost not exaggerating when I say that
>Orion Press is the *only* fanzine I've seen in the Trek world whose art
You haven't read First Light then! Our artwork rocks. ;)
First Light en Masse #6 is available now with stories from Anna C. Bowling, Sue
Love, Vicki Reid, Jim Schultz, and more!
Artwork by Risata and Sophia Kelly Shultz. Lovely lovely stuff. The cover
can be viewed at the addy above. :)
$15 including priority postage.
MissElise ~ remove the ELY to REply
http://members.aol.com/etobler/
Whatever you wish for me, may you be blessed with twice as much.
"Sign your work, tell the truth, and shame the Devil." --MZB
Jungle Kitty
> Actually, I've been given this some thought. And what I think
> happening may be a (Lord, I hate this word) paradigm shift.
That is *exactly* what has happened. As a small business owner for the
past 12 years, I have gone through several paradigm shifts. I have
adapted because it was important to me to stay in business. I have seen
others go under because they continued to offer the same
services/products they always offered, even though there was no longer a
market for them. If you wish to continue publishing fanfic, you must
also adapt. You can reminisce all you want about how you used to do it,
and that may be the way you would *prefer* to do it, but if there's not
enough market for it, you either adapt to the new market or go out of
business. Darwin was one helluva a business analyst.
>
> What's being lost is the artwork (in April, we made the decision to
> minimize if not eliminate interior artwork--cover art will remain, but
> the illustrations for the stories are being phased out).
I think that's a mistake. It's one of the few things zines offer that
the web doesn't. From devoted zine readers I've talked to, the artwork
is one of the things most frequently cited as a favorite feature. Sounds
like you need to do some serious market research to find out what people
*do* want from your product.
> Websites such as ours, however, are costly. In addition to paying for
> the 40+MB of disk space required for posting merely one-third of our
> fiction from three years ago and back, you have to pay for the
> excessive bandwidth such a site generates. Advertising on such as
> site, according to our legal advisor, could invite unwanted legal
> attention from the owners of the Star Trek copyrights. Further, making
> the site a "pay site" would be self-defeating considering the number
> of small websites it would have to compete with. We asked for website
> donations on each order form, but most people chose not to do so (as
> is their right). Frankly, I have no interest in creating a massive
> website of fan fiction that cannot pay for itself by any means, so we
> closed three out of our four sites. (The one that remains contains
> 11MB of TOS fan fiction we published from 1979 - 1994).
I really wonder why you maintain this huge website. You've said it adds
to your cost. It doesn't bring in money. If it is intended to sell
zines, then I see no reason to use it as an archive. Post announcements
about upcoming zines, take advance orders, put in story excerpts--MAYBE
include a different story every month, posted in its entirety, but make
sure it's from an old zine.
You might also consider running with Gabrielle's idea of just-in-time
printing. Customize the product to your customer's needs. Instead of
posting 40+MB of old stories, post excerpts for them. Let readers pick
the stories they want and order that as a custom zine. You'd print only
one--you'd probably have to charge more but you could base that on size
(charge more for a large zine than a small one), and the customer would
have a unique zine that contained only the stories s/he wanted to read.
> We realize what we're doing. We're asking that the authors DELAY (not
> forego) a certain amount of feedback in order to allow us enough time
> to sell enough zines to recoup the expenses of that zine (detailed by
> Biffan and myself elsewhere). If an author wants the joy of seeing
> that zine printed by ORION PRESS, then that delay is the price they
> will pay.
But what I am trying to point out is that, with the web and its deluge
of feedback available immediately, many authors apparently feel that the
joy of seeing their story in an Orion zine does not outweigh the cost of
the delaying what amounts to the bulk of their feedback. Cost does not
outweigh benefit. If you wish to continue to attract writers, you must
somehow increase the benefit.
> >We used to get
> over 40 letters of comment per month, even on zines which I'd be
> embarrassed to publish today. I can only speak for myself and my zines
> (the other ORION PRESS editors may be receiving letters as well--I
> don't know), but I receive only 3 or 4 letters of comment per month
> these days. To me, this lack of feedback from printed zine readers is
> incredibly detrimental to the morale of the author who has slaved over
> a work.
Yep. But the readers fulfilled their end of the bargain, so you can't
blame them. They paid for the zine, they didn't sign an agreement to
send feedback. (And I doubt that would sell many zines, although it
would be funny to see someone try to enforce the feedback clause. <g>)
You are the main contact with the writers, keeping them productive and
happy is ultimately your problem. So you need to find something else
that you can offer the writers that they won't get on the web. I don't
see any way that you can *make* the readers do it.
Maybe you can encourage it, though. Institute a frequent feedbackers
program. Give a discount on future sales to people who send LOCs. They
would send them to you so you could track their contributions, and you
would forward them to the writers.
> Fortunately, frequency of publication has not been a problem for ORION
> PRESS until recently.
Really? Have you (or any zine publisher) ever published at a rate equal
to the web's? On ASC, it frequently looks like a zine's worth of stories
a day if you were doing a mixed-series zine. In series-specific, it
looks like VOY gets about a zine's worth of stories every week.
Again, Randy, get in step with the times. What used to be considered
adequate frequency of publication is no longer sufficient in the current
marketplace.
> >The zine publishers are the middle men in this, and the web is
> >eliminating the need for them. Middle men cannot survive unless they
> >provide added value to the people on the two ends.
>
> I would consider myself in the same role as the ISP. We provide access
> for fan fiction through our operations.
OK. Yep, they're middle men, too. But they're middle men who are, at
this point in time, provided a necessary service to the parties on both
ends. In the face of what ISPs offer, the zine publishers are becoming
irrelevant to providing access to fan fic.
> Neither do I know what that something is. That's why I'm here
> soliciting comments and ideas. And it may boil down to the fact that I
> can take a zine to bed with me, that I can read it in a car, in a
> plane, in a hottub, that I can hold it in my hands.
But that's *you*. You are not your market. Apparently, the people who
really value those aspects of a zine are a small number. If you want to
attract other readers, don't try to make them accept your reasons for
loving zines as theirs. Find out what they want. And deliver it.
And, Randy, I'll point out that, with the exception of a hot tub (where
I usually have company and therefore have little interest in *reading*
<g>), I can do all those things with my laptop.
Hate to point this out, Randy, but you've solicited suggestions a couple
of times from the NG that I can remember. It seems to me that, for the
most part, most of the suggestions have been rejected. You are under no
obligation to take anyone's advice, but it looks like some of the ideas
have been dismissed because it would mean that you would have to change
the way you do things, or start doing things you would rather not do,
such as institute money-making features on your web page. So how badly
do you want to continue publishing fanfic? Is your dislike of banners
and hit counters greater than your love of publishing? What exactly is
your reason for publishing fan fic? And what are the readers' reasons
for buying zines? If meeting their needs would make it impossible to
meet yours, you're facing a basic and almost insurmountable obstacle.
I hate making sales calls. But in order to continue doing the things in
my business that I *do* enjoy, I have to make sales calls. I have
learned to do so, and I have become pretty good at it. I still hate it.
But I love being in business for myself *more* than I hate sales calls.
So do you love publishing zines *more* than you hate the measures you
would have to institute in order to continue publishing zines?
If continuing to publish zines is that important to you, you must be
willing to acknowledge the changes and adjust to them, even if it means
you no longer get to do it the way you prefer. If doing so would take
all the joy out of publishing for you, then you should acknowledge
*that,* fold up your tent and leave, comforting yourself with the
knowledge that you had a good run and it was fun while it lasted.
I know that's not easy. I work in a rapidly changing industry. Several
times, I've had to shut down a part of my business that I really enjoyed
because it was no longer profitable--increased customer sophistication
had eliminate the need for that service. Given a choice between giving
that part up, or letting it drag the entire business into
unprofitability, thereby forcing me to go to work for someone else
<shudder>, I chose to stay in business, by building the parts of the
business that were profitable and exploring new opportunities to replace
the part I terminated. But if it reached the point where the entire
business consisted of me doing things I dislike--if my personal needs
were getting lost under the burden of staying in business--I'd rethink
the whole thing.
>
> Jungle Kitty, I'd like to reprint your treatise in the next quarterly
> report for ORION PRESS. Get with me on it, okay?
Sorry, Randy. Just giving out free business advice here, not submitting
anything for publication by Orion Press in any form.
I used to wonder why John Ordover foolishly gave out free business
advice on this NG, and now I wonder the same about myself. Must have
done something *really bad* in a past life. <g>
--
Jungle Kitty
Unzadi
>>does not suck.
>
>You haven't read First Light then! Our artwork rocks.
Absolutely! I'm proud to be a First Light staffer. The art is always lovely.
It's First Light that inspired me to start Cat Toy, which also has some
fabulous artists.
Dawn Johnson (aka Ensign Roe McLaren) and Tim Harrison never fail to thrill me.
They've both got the knack of capturing character and story like few others.
Anna
Friends don't let friends write bad fanfic!
Chamber of the Warrior Queen
http://members.aol.com/unzadi
randylanders
>I really wonder why you maintain this huge website. You've said it adds
>to your cost. It doesn't bring in money. If it is intended to sell
>zines, then I see no reason to use it as an archive. Post announcements
>about upcoming zines, take advance orders, put in story excerpts--MAYBE
>include a different story every month, posted in its entirety, but make
>sure it's from an old zine.
I maintain the TOS website because our TOS sales have not been affected by
the most part by its presence. All of the fiction is relavent to current
stories, though, so it makes sense to maintain it out there. For example,
we're about to published Donna Frelick's INTO THE NEXUS, a sequel to three
previous stories (THE MINDSWEEPER, CHILDREN OF HAOLE and RETURN TO TARSUS).
The website has all three of those stories (which are no longer available)
accessible to those interested in INTO THE NEXUS.
>You might also consider running with Gabrielle's idea of just-in-time
>printing. Customize the product to your customer's needs. Instead of
>posting 40+MB of old stories, post excerpts for them. Let readers pick
>the stories they want and order that as a custom zine. You'd print only
>one--you'd probably have to charge more but you could base that on size
>(charge more for a large zine than a small one), and the customer would
>have a unique zine that contained only the stories s/he wanted to read.
The idea of a custom zine does not work in a print media. Otherwise you'd
have around a $40.00 fanzine instead of $15.00. Were zines on CD-ROM (and
this is an area we've been considering lately), then a customizable zine
would be childs' play. However, with a CD-ROM, you might as well put all the
stories available at a given time on one rather than like one of the music
companies that offers customizable CDs and audiotapes.
>But what I am trying to point out is that, with the web and its deluge
>of feedback available immediately, many authors apparently feel that the
>joy of seeing their story in an Orion zine does not outweigh the cost of
>the delaying what amounts to the bulk of their feedback. Cost does not
>outweigh benefit. If you wish to continue to attract writers, you must
>somehow increase the benefit.
Most authors are selecting one story for publication and another for posting
on the net. This seems to them as happy a compromise as they can get and I
can offer.
>Maybe you can encourage [letters of comment], though. Institute a frequent
feedbackers
>program. Give a discount on future sales to people who send LOCs. They
>would send them to you so you could track their contributions, and you
>would forward them to the writers.
Actually, we may start offering a discount for folks writing letters of
comment. That's a good suggestion. Thanks.
>Really? Have you (or any zine publisher) ever published at a rate equal
>to the web's? On ASC, it frequently looks like a zine's worth of stories
>a day if you were doing a mixed-series zine. In series-specific, it
>looks like VOY gets about a zine's worth of stories every week.
But how many of those stories published are acceptable/suitable for
publication? ORION PRESS was founded in part as a backlash to slash fiction
which permeated fanzines when we first debuted. We don't publish it. We also
don't publish erotica. When you eliminate that, you've got considerably less
material.
>Again, Randy, get in step with the times. What used to be considered
>adequate frequency of publication is no longer sufficient in the current
>marketplace.
>> Neither do I know what that something is. That's why I'm here
>> soliciting comments and ideas. And it may boil down to the fact that I
>> can take a zine to bed with me, that I can read it in a car, in a
>> plane, in a hottub, that I can hold it in my hands.
>But that's *you*. You are not your market. Apparently, the people who
>really value those aspects of a zine are a small number. If you want to
>attract other readers, don't try to make them accept your reasons for
>loving zines as theirs. Find out what they want. And deliver it.
Actually, that paragraph really defines the difference between those readers
who want their zines in print and those who want it in an electronic media.
Perhaps that's where the future of fanzines is heading for: a smaller market
that enjoys having a physical product to read and cherish. Again, Samuel T.
Cogley rears his ugly head.
>And, Randy, I'll point out that, with the exception of a hot tub (where
>I usually have company and therefore have little interest in *reading*
><g>), I can do all those things with my laptop.
I have a lap top, too. I don't use it to read zines. Heck, I don't use it at
all unless I'm traveling and need to do work for my RL job.
>Hate to point this out, Randy, but you've solicited suggestions a couple
>of times from the NG that I can remember. It seems to me that, for the
>most part, most of the suggestions have been rejected. You are under no
>obligation to take anyone's advice, but it looks like some of the ideas
>have been dismissed because it would mean that you would have to change
>the way you do things
Actually, I reject those ideas that I've already considered and/or tried. I
reject those ideas that will cost additional funds.
>, or start doing things you would rather not do,
>such as institute money-making features on your web page. So how badly
>do you want to continue publishing fanfic? Is your dislike of banners
>and hit counters greater than your love of publishing?
Our legal advisor has said no to them. Given our traffic, I would be
receiving payment in excess of the fees charged by the website provider.
That would be making money on fan fiction, and that would be in violation of
the very definition of fan fiction. Were I into this for the money (and
willing to flaunt the legalities of the situation), there are all sorts of
things I could do with the website and the zines (including selling
advertisements and that sort of thing) to make money. I'd be publishing LOTS
of adult zines, and SLASH zines, too. But that's not what I'm interested in
doing. Like Biffan points out, I'm in this to break even, not to make money
and not to lose money.
> What exactly is your reason for publishing fan fic?
I publish fanzines out of my love for Star Trek. I publish fanzines because
I love reading them, writing them, editing them.
>And what are the readers' reasons for buying zines?
They read zines because they're one of several outlets that allow one to
read Trek fiction.
>If meeting their needs would make it impossible to
>meet yours, you're facing a basic and almost insurmountable obstacle.
But see, I don't think of it in those terms. I don't see this as an
insurmountable obstacle. I see it as a problem that needs to be explored.
>So do you love publishing zines *more* than you hate the measures you
>would have to institute in order to continue publishing zines?
I am willing to consider *anything* within certain restrictions as listed
above. In fact, we started offering excerpts of our zines on our website
last night, and we posted advertisements to this newgroup as well. We are
considering Alara Rogers' advice not to lose the artwork. We're considering
offering a discount to LoCers.
>If continuing to publish zines is that important to you, you must be
>willing to acknowledge the changes and adjust to them, even if it means
>you no longer get to do it the way you prefer. If doing so would take
>all the joy out of publishing for you, then you should acknowledge
>*that,* fold up your tent and leave, comforting yourself with the
>knowledge that you had a good run and it was fun while it lasted.
And, yes, we're considering that, too. Have been for some time. It's being
portrayed as "whining" by some, and, honestly, there's been a lot wailing
and gnashing of teeth on my part. I enjoy what I've done, and I think I've
served fandom well, but it may indeed be time for me to mosey on to the
old-fan's retirement home. :)
Randy Landers
ORION PRESS
Jungle Kitty
> Most authors are selecting one story for publication and another for posting
> on the net. This seems to them as happy a compromise as they can get and I
> can offer.
This author shrugs at such an offer. IMO, it would be saying, "I want
feedback for this story" and "I don't care if I get any for this one."
> But how many of those stories published are acceptable/suitable for
> publication? ORION PRESS was founded in part as a backlash to slash fiction
> which permeated fanzines when we first debuted. We don't publish it. We also
> don't publish erotica. When you eliminate that, you've got considerably less
> material.
In that instance, I was looking at all zines. And many do publish
erotica and slash. There's more to the zine world than Orion Press, just
like there's more to net fanfic than ASC.
You may say that many of the stories would not be acceptable to Orion
Press from a quality standpoint (and I refuse to be drawn into such a
subjective and pointless discussion), but it looks like your readers may
not agree. Not if they're abandoning zines because they're getting what
they want from the web.
> > What exactly is your reason for publishing fan fic?
>
> I publish fanzines out of my love for Star Trek. I publish fanzines because
> I love reading them, writing them, editing them.
Ok. Hey, guess what? Maybe it's not a business, it's a hobby. (Yes, some
people do make money at the hobbies, but most don't.) Most of us are
here because ST is, in one form or another, our hobby. So let's look at
it from that perspective. <end of business school lecture>
In an earlier post, you said (I could have the numbers wrong) in the
past 20 years, you'd lost something like $20,000 publishing zines.
That's $1,000 per year. Randy, I easily spent that in the past 12 months
just attending 3 cons. Also signed up for digital cable as opposed to
regular (an extra $50 a month) so I could see TOS on Sci Fi and bought a
top-of-the-line VCR so I could tape it. Also have purchased trekabilia
and what I like to call my ST reference materials. I hate to even think
what jonk spends on Jiffy Poop to keep hir Trekkish buddies happy. My
Sig Alien would jump for joy if I said, "Hey, honey, guess what? I only
spent $1,000 on Star Trek last year!"
We both regard that as money well-spent, because I have a damn good time
with all those things. We are spending much more than that this year
while he pursues his current passion--bicycling in the California AIDS
Ride. BTW, I have a second, even more expensive hobby--acting. We pursue
these things because we love them. We don't worry about breaking even on
them.
So you say you can't afford to keep losing $1,000 a year?
Understandable. Then set a limit. Say, $750 a year. When you've lost
that, your spending on that hobby is over until next year.
Speaking of limits, over on eBay, they're bidding on a shirt worn by WS
in the first season of TOS. The bidding started at $2,000. Granted, a
lot of those folks are probably dealers who will resell it, but I'm sure
there are a couple of people who just want to own a shirt that still
bears Captain Kirk's sweat stains. The only reason I'm not there is *the
bidding started at $2,0000!* Over my limit. Although I have pointed out
to the Sig Alien the amazing coincidence that this item has come up for
auction just in time for my birthday...
You may say "They're nuts!" and maybe they are. But they're happy, and,
Randy, it sounds like you aren't. If you're doing it purely out of love,
just figure out how much you can afford to love it. Then spend that
money and enjoy it!
Laura Taylor
> So it isn't my imagination. I tried for three years to get artists for a
> Q zine I was working on. No luck. I wonder what's causing the art dearth?
For one thing, artists get even less feedback than the writers do. For
another (more on this below), how many 'zine editors and publishers
include art for art's sake rather than art for a story's sake? I know
that nearly all the art I included in Outpost 9 & 10 was created to
support a story.
I think, too, that there's a far stronger, and more visceral, reaction
to bad art than to bad writing. I've seen people veer into the ballistic
range of emotions when discussing bad art they've come across and how
much they want *all* art eliminated from 'zines because of the
possibility more may be lurking behind the next page.
> Do you think people would buy an art zine? Maybe if you and other fanzine
> pubs specifically promoted art, there'd be more of a market to encourage
> people to do it...
I toyed with the idea of a 'zine in which writers contributed stories in
support of 'original' artwork (rather than the far more common
alternative). Call me stubborn, but I still think it's a cool idea <G>
> It must be really tough to find good artists..
Very tough. I have 2 that I rely heavily on--Anja Gruber and Lauren
Francis (who also illo'd a story I wrote for Delta Quadrant 9)--and,
after Outpost 10, I'm afraid I may have burned them out. Anyone out
there interested in doing some DS9 artwork for me? <G>
Laura
--
=====
"When I grow up, I'm gonna be an aardvark."
--Drew Taylor
Laura Taylor
>
> Jungle Kitty wrote
> >You might also consider running with Gabrielle's idea of just-in-time
> >printing. Customize the product to your customer's needs. Instead of
> >posting 40+MB of old stories, post excerpts for them. Let readers pick
> >the stories they want and order that as a custom zine. You'd print only
> >one--you'd probably have to charge more but you could base that on size
> >(charge more for a large zine than a small one), and the customer would
> >have a unique zine that contained only the stories s/he wanted to read.
>
> The idea of a custom zine does not work in a print media. Otherwise you'd
> have around a $40.00 fanzine instead of $15.00.
How do you figure?
I dunno, I kind of like this idea. I think it's worth further exploration.
> >And, Randy, I'll point out that, with the exception of a hot tub (where
> >I usually have company and therefore have little interest in *reading*
> ><g>), I can do all those things with my laptop.
>
> I have a lap top, too. I don't use it to read zines. Heck, I don't use it at
> all unless I'm traveling and need to do work for my RL job.
Then there are those of us who don't have laptops. I love my G3, but I'm
not about to take it to bed with me, nor am I going to shell out
$1,500-$2,000 so I can stay online while snuggled up in my favorite
jammies. I spend too much time on the computer as it is.
> >And what are the readers' reasons for buying zines?
>
> They read zines because they're one of several outlets that allow one to
> read Trek fiction.
Then maybe this should be the focal point. Stop trying to compete with
the 'Net and focus on the niche market. My mother and sister will be
opening a bookstore dedicated to mystery, science fiction and fantasy
novels this fall. They know there's no way they can compete with Barnes
& Noble and Borders, so instead they're directing their energies toward
meeting the needs and demands of a specific niche.
Randy Landers
>So it isn't my imagination. I tried for three years to get artists
for a
>Q zine I was working on. No luck. I wonder what's causing the art
dearth?
I dunno. Part of it stems from the fact that they can no longer sell
their works at a convention for what is to them a reasonable price.
Part of it stems to the fact that no one ever writes much about
artwork. Part of it has to do with attrition to other genres.
>Do you think people would buy an art zine? Maybe if you and other
fanzine
>pubs specifically promoted art, there'd be more of a market to
encourage
>people to do it...
Actually, I'm aware of two of these, and both failed miserably. It
seems that while artwork is a plus, it is not the reason why people
buy zines.
>Simplenet (www.simplenet.com) is the host of the gossamer archive of
>X-Files fanfic. Interspeed, I've heard about from a friend who hosts
>there. Both have a flat rate for absurd amounts of space and
bandwidth.
>Basically, unless you are one of their 10% top users (and you'd have
to
>be the size of gossamer or the ASC archive to be), you pay a flat,
low
>rate-- when I priced Simplenet is was $20 a month; Interspeed is $10
a
>month. And because they are pay sites, not free sites, they do not
>require a logo or anything like that.
I will check into that. Thanks. But...
>Yes, in your case I think it would be a waste of time. I personally
would
>like to create something which combines the best of the net-- fast,
easy
>access, and free-- with the best of zines-- nice layout, editing, and
a
>guarantee that, if you like a specific editor's taste, you'll like
most
>of the stories he or she chooses. I believe that creating such a
thing
>could be done for less money than fanzine editors currently lose
trying
>to support their zines in a shrinking market. So I'm not actually
>suggesting that you move over, Randy, not unless you wanted to give
up
>printing zines entirely (and we all know they'll be skiing in hell,
>right? :-)) But you argued earlier that because a web site has no way
to
>pay for itself, unlike a zine you can charge for, no zine publisher
could
>move to a webzine-only format without paying through the nose,
whereas
>individual authors can use the free sites. I'm saying that a zine
>publisher who wanted to move to a webzine format *could* get away
with it
>without charging the readership any money, or having clickthrough
ads, or
>anything like that-- because the cost is a lot less than you
estimated.
>Like I said, I pay $23.95 a month for a 70 meg web site at
dreamhost.com.
>No content restrictions (if I wanted hardcore visual porn I'd have to
buy
>an adult site from them for oodles of money, but since my site is all
>text I don't have that problem), no logos, no nothing. If I didn't
have
>adult material, I could get more bandwidth and storage for less money
at
>interspeed.net.
Then our current scaled down website at $19.95 suffices. The major
bandwidth hogs were the TNG and VOY sites, both of which were triple
the bandwidth of the TOS site. The DS9 site had fewer hits (only 13%)
of any of our pages.
>It must be really tough to find good artists.. I always thought of
art as
>something very mysterious and difficult to do well, but then I suck
at
>it. :-)
Well, I can draw ships. LOL A whole zine full of them, if you want.
But that's not what people are reading the zine for. *chuckle*
Randy Landers
>> Randy wrote
>> The idea of a custom zine does not work in a print media. Otherwise
you'd
>> have around a $40.00 fanzine instead of $15.00.
>
>
>I dunno, I kind of like this idea. I think it's worth further
exploration.
The set up charge of printing (ripping) a zine from a formatted disk
to a digitally networked printer plus the per copy rate would be
higher than you imagine and higher than the readership would want to
pay.
I've always preferred the CD-ROM idea myself, and like I've said,
we're looking at this one. We could burn CD-ROMS with the requested
stories in Adobe PDF format. But as one person pointed out, the
technology is changing so much. Who would want a CD-ROM that won't be
usuable in, say, five years?
R
Aleph Press
: True enough. The scanned artwork on our sites takes up a lot of space unless
: we sacrifice quality (which we do).
Yup. That's one area where print still has web beat. But then, I'm a dino
who browses with the graphics off.
: Thank you. I'm very pleased with the caliber of artists we have. But many of
: them are leaving. In the past ten years, fandom has lost a lot of talented
: artists to the dread GAFIAtion.
So it isn't my imagination. I tried for three years to get artists for a
Q zine I was working on. No luck. I wonder what's causing the art dearth?
Do you think people would buy an art zine? Maybe if you and other fanzine
pubs specifically promoted art, there'd be more of a market to encourage
people to do it...
: Actually, some of the material on our website has been classified as adult.
: I've not heard of either of these ISPs. How reliable are they? What do they
: charge for bandwidth? Do they stick their icon on each screen? (such as the
: GeoCities logo in the lower right hand corner of their websites)
Simplenet (www.simplenet.com) is the host of the gossamer archive of
X-Files fanfic. Interspeed, I've heard about from a friend who hosts
there. Both have a flat rate for absurd amounts of space and bandwidth.
Basically, unless you are one of their 10% top users (and you'd have to
be the size of gossamer or the ASC archive to be), you pay a flat, low
rate-- when I priced Simplenet is was $20 a month; Interspeed is $10 a
month. And because they are pay sites, not free sites, they do not
require a logo or anything like that.
: But will the website help build sales? Otherwise, it's compounding our
: losses.
Yes, in your case I think it would be a waste of time. I personally would
like to create something which combines the best of the net-- fast, easy
access, and free-- with the best of zines-- nice layout, editing, and a
guarantee that, if you like a specific editor's taste, you'll like most
of the stories he or she chooses. I believe that creating such a thing
could be done for less money than fanzine editors currently lose trying
to support their zines in a shrinking market. So I'm not actually
suggesting that you move over, Randy, not unless you wanted to give up
printing zines entirely (and we all know they'll be skiing in hell,
right? :-)) But you argued earlier that because a web site has no way to
pay for itself, unlike a zine you can charge for, no zine publisher could
move to a webzine-only format without paying through the nose, whereas
individual authors can use the free sites. I'm saying that a zine
publisher who wanted to move to a webzine format *could* get away with it
without charging the readership any money, or having clickthrough ads, or
anything like that-- because the cost is a lot less than you estimated.
Like I said, I pay $23.95 a month for a 70 meg web site at dreamhost.com.
No content restrictions (if I wanted hardcore visual porn I'd have to buy
an adult site from them for oodles of money, but since my site is all
text I don't have that problem), no logos, no nothing. If I didn't have
adult material, I could get more bandwidth and storage for less money at
interspeed.net.
: Laura has some beautiful artwork in her zine, OUTPOST 10. As does Sandra
: Hunger in IMZADI. With the departure of the talented Zaquia Tarhuntassa, we
: no longer have any interior artists for ANTARES, and Christine Myers whose
: beautiful cover art graces many of our TOS zines is not interested in
: interior artwork. BEKi continues to provide her beautiful work for our VOY
: zines, but she's not interested in interior artwork. Bev Chick has taken on
: some of this, thankfully, and her work is wonderful as well. I think you're
: right, Alara, and I may address this again with the editors in the coming
: weeks.
It must be really tough to find good artists.. I always thought of art as
something very mysterious and difficult to do well, but then I suck at
it. :-)
--
Katie Redshoes
al...@netcom.com (Aleph Press) wrote:
>randylanders (randyl...@mindspring.com) wrote:
[snip]
>
>Simplenet (www.simplenet.com) is the host of the gossamer archive of
>X-Files fanfic. Interspeed, I've heard about from a friend who hosts
>there. Both have a flat rate for absurd amounts of space and bandwidth.
>Basically, unless you are one of their 10% top users (and you'd have to
>be the size of gossamer or the ASC archive to be), you pay a flat, low
>rate-- when I priced Simplenet is was $20 a month; Interspeed is $10 a
>month. And because they are pay sites, not free sites, they do not
>require a logo or anything like that.
Gossamer is no longer hosted at Simplenet -- Gossamer's bandwidth went
through the roof (I believe they were up in the top 2 percent of
bandwidth consumption there) and when Simplenet jacked up their
monthly rate by about 200 percent, Gossamer found a new home.
--
Constable Katie Collecter/Formatter, ASC* Archive team
ASC* archive: http://archive.nu or http://www.cs.runet.edu/~sratliff/ascindex
ASC FAQs: http://www.runet.edu/~sratliff/FAQs
Submissions: submissions# webamused.com
Corrections: r.lerret# usa.net Remove "NOJUNK" or replace # to reply
For archive updates: ASC-Archive-a...@onelist.com
MissElise
>opening a bookstore dedicated to mystery, science fiction and fantasy
>novels this fall.
I'll be right over to spend my inheritance. >:)
MissElise ~ remove the ELY to REply
FIRST LIGHT: http://www.purplepens.com
Sydvick
a fantasy and sci-fi book store that sold zines. I really wanted a fix and I
couldn't find one. I have to waitttttt for snail mail and the ones I order from
my pushers. I would buy a zine a week, if they were in a book store and less
hassle for me to procure. Why not go to a small sci-fi and fantasy bookstore in
major and small markets and license them to sell your zines?
Randy Landers
Most are afraid of PocketBooks coming after THEM.
To be honest, we've tried it unsuccessfully a few times.
Laura Taylor
>
> >My mother and sister will be
> >opening a bookstore dedicated to mystery, science fiction and fantasy
> >novels this fall.
>
> I'll be right over to spend my inheritance. >:)
::chortle::
Actually, what you could do--and this goes for anyone else who's
reading--is send my mom a list of absolutely-must-have books, especially
in science fiction. She's asked for my advice, but I tend to read
William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, not Isaac Asimov and Orson
Scott Card, so I haven't been much help. Mom's e-addy is ltt...@aol.com.
Tell her you're from the Trek fanfic gang and I sent you :-)
Laura Taylor
>
> I am sorry to jump in here, but I spent an off day a few weeks ago looking for
> a fantasy and sci-fi book store that sold zines. I really wanted a fix and I
> couldn't find one. I have to waitttttt for snail mail and the ones I order from
> my pushers. I would buy a zine a week, if they were in a book store and less
> hassle for me to procure. Why not go to a small sci-fi and fantasy bookstore in
> major and small markets and license them to sell your zines?
I would think the tax laws alone would make that a nightmare.
Marlissa Campbell
What a great idea! Actually, I've been meaning to have a word with
your mother anyway...
<cackle>
Marlissa
Return address above is altered to discourage spam.
To email me, remove SEESIG.
And now for something completely different...
*PythonTrek*: Star Trek fanfiction on a Monty Python
theme. Pythonesque and other parodies; links to
Star Trek humor sites!
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Network/6011/
Bet you weren't expecting that!
Pamela
Aleph Press wrote in message ...
>randylanders (randyl...@mindspring.com) wrote:
>So it isn't my imagination. I tried for three years to get artists
for a
>Q zine I was working on. No luck. I wonder what's causing the art
dearth?
>
>Do you think people would buy an art zine? Maybe if you and other
fanzine
>pubs specifically promoted art, there'd be more of a market to
encourage
>people to do it...
I would buy a zine for the art. In fact, that's what draws me to
them. I can read stories here on the web, I find tons of good ones,
and I do the artwork in my head. I'd love to see it on paper though,
someone else's artwork that is. I'm not a sketch artist, I'm a fabric
artist. So I say bring on the art zines.
Pam
Unzadi
>support of 'original' artwork (rather than the far more common
>alternative). Call me stubborn, but I still think it's a cool idea <G>
>
It's a *very* cool idea. If you ever go with it, you know where my e-mail is.
<G> It's also a nice nod to the great pulp SF writers of yesteryear. Like
"Far Beyond the Stars." I loved that scene.
Darkling
<randyl...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Thank you. I'm very pleased with the caliber of artists we have. But many of
>them are leaving. In the past ten years, fandom has lost a lot of talented
>artists to the dread GAFIAtion.
What is GAFIAtion?
>
>>Also, while this does not impact *your* decision to keep stuff off the
>>web, the fact that you have 40 megs and high bandwidth needs doesn't mean
>>you need to pay a lot of money. Interspeed and simplenet both offer
>>absurd amounts of bandwidth and storage for ridiculously low prices
>>($9.95/month in the case of Interspeed.) They won't allow adult material,
>>but that wouldn't have hurt something like Orion Press, or any other
>>fanzine publisher of gen stories who wished to switch to a web format.
>
And there are free space providers who offer a *lot* of free space.
Check out the listings at http://www.freewebspace.net.
Of course most of the free webspace providers do have rules you
have to abide by or they will yank your site.
Alara wrote:
>>I personally plan to launch web zines in the near future-- archives on
>>the web that are edited just like fanzines, that have "issues" like
>>fanzines, and if I can get it, artwork like fanzines, but that never go
>>out of print. I have a certain advantage in this regard in that I am
This sounds like an interesting idea.
>But will the website help build sales? Otherwise, it's compounding our
>losses.
I think the suggestions you've had to post small pieces of stories
that are going to be in your zines on the web or this newsgroup is
a good way to generate interest in the fanzines.
As for the feedback issue, perhaps it would help to have an email
where readers could send comments on the published fiction and
these comments could be forwarded to the author.
The idea posted earlier about a web site where people could
read reviews of fanzines is also an interesting idea.
Darkling
Calicia
Laura Taylor <dre...@roanoke.infi.net> wrote:
> I toyed with the idea of a 'zine in which writers contributed stories in
> support of 'original' artwork (rather than the far more common
> alternative). Call me stubborn, but I still think it's a cool idea <G>
I think it's a cool idea, too. If you ever go with that Laura, give me a
bell. I'd love to do something like that.
--
Calicia
--PARLIAMENT.SYS corrupted. Reboot Canberra(Y/N)?--
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Calicia
Jungle Kitty <jki...@accesscom.com> wrote:
> randylanders wrote:
>
> > Most authors are selecting one story for publication and another for posting
> > on the net. This seems to them as happy a compromise as they can get and I
> > can offer.
>
> feedback for this story" and "I don't care if I get any for this one."
That is your opinion and you're entitled to it. However, that is not any of
the reason (for me at least) that one story is submitted, while the same
author posts others to the 'Net.
I submitted one story for publication and posted my others to the 'Net. Not
because I didn't want feedback on the one I submitted, I like getting
feedback on all my stories. But I wanted to see one of my stories in print,
and even though I love getting feedback, I was willing to get less in order
to see my work in print.
I submitted the one I did not because of any preferences in my work, but
because it was the only one of my stories which had been betaed and redone to
my satisfaction at that time.
Biffan
>Fanzines must pay for themselves in order to continue. By doing so,
>they need to sell around 100 copies of an anthology, 50 copies of a
>novella, with a reasonable mark up to cover the expenses. An exchange
>of currency occurs, and the editor hopes to break even (which we've
>done two years out of twenty).
>
As I received my shipment of zines from MediaWest (a fan and zine con held in
Michigan every year; hey, Randy, you were missed this year!), I had a thought -
why aren't zines being created and distributed on disc? Granted, it's not a
paper copy that can be taken to the ball field, etc., but it would allow for
art, etc, while cutting back on paper cost and the slaughter of innocent trees.
My thought - if a zine, including art, could be set up as either a .pdf or HTML
file (the latter more likely; easier for the general public to create and more
accessable, as most computers come with a browser, and not all with Adobe
Reader), and copied to individual disc(s) - we would lose a lot of the cost of
"copying." Depending on the resolution art (even photos) were scanned in and
saved at, an entire zine could most likely fit on one 3.5" disc. Discs can be
bought at less than $.50 each, meaning that a zine, including all production
costs, could come in at, say, $5!
Someone who wanted to take a story with them would need only to show a little
foresight and print one or two stories out. You could easily distribute color
art this way, something definitely not fincially feasable now in print. Copies
are easily made - it takes only a few minutes to copy off a disc, without any
trip to Kinko's, etc. (Conceivably, the entire disc could be zipped, and sent
via the internet!) And, as CD-writers become more popular, and writable CDs
become even more inexpensive (they're close to the cost of discs now!), the
limit of a 1.44 MB 3.5" disc is eliminated. Imagine - your zine on disc! (This
could even include background music, etc!)
Yes, writing HTML is a pain. A major one. But many programs, including WORD 7
('97) and the full version of Netscape (what - $29.95?) have an HTML composer
function. Copy could be dropped in, art and layout accomplished, and even the
simple task of creating links from a table of contents to the stories could be
accomplished. (Stories could be individually set up as files, linked from a
master table of contents, etc. or the entire zine could be one master file.)
It would still have the "quality" of print zines (thoughtful selection of
stories, editing of said stories, accompanying artwork, etc.) without the time
to wait to get paper copies made, the waste of paper for zines that
won't/haven't been sold, eliminates the storage issue (store the master on your
hard drive, a Zip/Jaz/Ditto/CD-ROM, and even on floppies as backup, or as a few
you've already knocked off and have waiting for orders - that disc storage box
saves a lot of space over all those xerox paper boxes!)
This is even a serious option I am considering for my zine, as it's being
created. I'm not in this for money, I'm in it for the love of Fandom. Yes, I
want some creative control over what goes out under my "press" name. But will I
gouge my customer? If I can find an effective method to share the zine at the
least cost, I'll take it!
Biffan
Biffan
>ASSIMILATION, which received ecstatic reviews everywhere. She got like
>twelve total letters of comment for her effort. Twelve. Fortunately,
>the reviews made up for a lot of it, but she had to be disheartened by
>such a lack of comment from the over 300 folks who've bought and read
>this fanzine.
Having been one of those who DID comment on BEKi's ASSIMILATION (and if you
haven't read it, GO AND GET IT NOW!) I will make this comment - in this day of
internet communication, I hope authors will make their e-mail address (even if
it's a Hotmail or Yahoo one specifically for this purpose!) available for
comment. I don't do much paper letterwriting in my leisure, even in typing and
printing out letters, and I do so much of it at work. But I e-mail .Boy, do I
e-mail! This would really allow for rapid comments! One of the print zines I
just received took that exact idea and listed e-mail addys for several of the
authors. I have every intention of writing to one of them and expressing my
thoughts on his stories - not just the ones in that zine, but in several others
I got!
Biffan
Biffan
>: But will the website help build sales? Otherwise, it's compounding our
>: losses.
>
If done right. I know that ORION keeps back issues available for several years.
But some of them are out of print. I'd suggest posting stories from the out of
print zines, maybe with a link by author's name to a list of the currently
in-print zines his/her work is in.
Example: I first read BEKi in Number One #1, which I bought on a whim, as I'm a
Riker fan. I found how good her work is. Based on my knowledge of her work, I
bought ASSIMILATION and CODE OF HONOR without a blink - what's that, $35 in
zines? I knew the work was of quality. If the old, out-of-print stuff is used
to show the quality of the writers and editing, then it is a valuable tool.
Kinda like a free sample. Once people know how good it is, they buy it. (Maybe
use this along with the "sample of stories" link concept we talked about for
advertsing!) Yes, some will use the free sample and never buy, But many will.
Biffan
Biffan
>we're looking at this one. We could burn CD-ROMS with the requested
>stories in Adobe PDF format. But as one person pointed out, the
>technology is changing so much. Who would want a CD-ROM that won't be
>usuable in, say, five years?
I'm glad to see that time travel is working, and my ideas are being taken
seriously! (<G!>
In true seriousness, while CD-ROMS are getting faster, it doesn't necessarily
mean that reading a PDF file will be gone in 5 years. Things that were long
expected to be gone - AM radio, Vinyl Records, even the movie theatre - are all
still there. Granted, under utilized and a little harder to service, but there.
(You can still buy an AM radio, find a turntable and needles, and television
HASN'T killed the cinema yet!) Rumor has it that you can even still get your
8-Track deck repaired, if you look in the right places. (Granted, this is
dying, much as BETA did against VHS, but CD-ROM has become so much of a
standard, it isn't likely to disappear that quickly!)
What's more likely to disappear is the 3.5" disc, as CD-W and Zips and
Superdiscs become more prevelant. Who still has a 5.25" disc drive in their
system anymore? Better yet - who remembers the 8" discs?
Biffan
Biffan
>major and small markets and license them to sell your zines?
(A) We don't have the license. Paramount, etc. owns TREK - we're essentially
"stealing" from them when we print fan fiction. Studios tend to turn a blind
eye to small printers who don't make money on zines, and some of the smart ones
realize that fandom, and zines, keep the market for their product alive.
(B) Many cities don't have a sci-fi store. Yes, many have comic stores, but
they don't have the market for zine stories. Remember - most zines don't sell
more than 200-300 copies. Spread that over the US and beyond - that's an
average of 6 copies per state, max, not counting international. The store isn't
going to make any profit on it, so why should they give up shelf space? (I do
know of one store in this country who has a few zines by local printers - but
it's very rare. And not in a fandom I have interest in. )
MY suggestion to all zine buyers - to get your zines faster, use a money order.
As a zine printer, I used to trust all checks, and send zines out immediately.
I've been burned. These days, many zine publishers are waiting a few weeks to
make sure the check clears before sending said zine. A money order (from your
bank, the PO, etc.) means that you've coughed up the money up front, and the
zine publisher is guaranteed payment.
Biffan
JWinterCNA
>Superdiscs become more prevelant. Who still has a 5.25" disc drive in their
>system anymore? Better yet - who remembers the 8" discs?
Vinyl is still available. You can even go to Circuit City and find two or
three models of turntable.
CD ROM? Not going anywhere for the same reason Microsoft has a monopoly on
operating systems but can't seem to take over the networking market completely:
Install base. Most users have Windows or their Macs are Windows compatible
(IT'S ABOUT FRIGGIN' TIME!!!), and Microsoft has had to bow to the Great God of
Novell over and over again to make any dent in the networking market.
Now, why am I spoiling your Saturday morning by mentioning the Antichrist in
Redmond? Simple. Virtually all new PC's and Macs (and Amiga's? They are
back.) have CD ROMs. Look how long it took for the 3.5" floppy to start
disappearing. Every machine still has one, except the iMac, where it's an
accessory. CD's will be a part of personal computing for a very long time.
Their cheap, read-only, which prevents damage to data, and it's unlikely they
will be pushed into extinction with the same zeal the recording industry tried
to destroy vinyl (and failed).
As for the pdf format, it's a lot like the humble txt file. That's been around
since they started using ASCII on computers, and even before. Virtually
everything on the early mainframes was an ancestor of the humble text file.
The bottom line of this long, boring dissertation on the state of computing is
that CD's with pdf files would be a viable alternative to print: Cheaper, once
the startup phase was over, since data costs little to backup, almost nothing
to store, and the CD's (if you know where to get them) are anywhere from $1 to
$5 a piece.
And you can use the equipment for other stuff to boot. Gotta love that deal.
J Winter,
Backup FAQ Maintainer
Alliance author
Troll stalker
SPAM slayer
Subversive element of the radical centrist movement
Jungle Kitty
> > This author shrugs at such an offer. IMO, it would be saying, "I want
> > feedback for this story" and "I don't care if I get any for this one."
>
> That is your opinion and you're entitled to it.
That's what IMO stands for. "In my opinion." I wasn't saying that all
authors would or do shrug at such an offer.
Randy Landers
<<What is GAFIAtion?>>
Gotten Away From It All -- it's a process by which a fan chooses to
leave fandom.
FAFIAtion is
Forced Away From It All -- it's a process by which a fan is forced to
leave fandom, usually by real life considerations such as a job or a
spouse or bankruptcy
<<I think the suggestions you've had to post small pieces of stories
that are going to be in your zines on the web or this newsgroup is
a good way to generate interest in the fanzines. >>
And I think this IS a good suggestion, so I implemented it several
days ago.
<<As for the feedback issue, perhaps it would help to have an email
where readers could send comments on the published fiction and
these comments could be forwarded to the author.>>
We do this all the time. We got a nice review for FIRE AND ICE 1 that
we're forwarding to the editor and contributors. We got a nice letter
of comment on WAYFARERS and OUTPOST 9 in today's mail that we'll be
forwarding to the editors and contributors on Monday. Most of the
email locs are of the "loved your story" variety. Many of our authors
don't want their email addresses posted, and editors do that for them.
For those that don't (and interestingly enough, they're primarily TOS
writers), we won't. We do pass along all comments received, good or
bad.
<<The idea posted earlier about a web site where people could read
reviews of fanzines is also an interesting idea.>>
I agree completely.
Randy Landers
<<As I received my shipment of zines from MediaWest (a fan and zine
con held in
Michigan every year; hey, Randy, you were missed this year!), I had a
thought -
why aren't zines being created and distributed on disc? Granted, it's
not a
paper copy that can be taken to the ball field, etc., but it would
allow for
art, etc, while cutting back on paper cost and the slaughter of
innocent trees.>>
We've been considering burning CD-ROMS for a while, but the technology
is such that it's constantly changing. Adobe's PDF format is trying to
become an industry standard, but there isn't one yet.
<<My thought - if a zine, including art, could be set up as either a
.pdf or HTML
file (the latter more likely; easier for the general public to create
and more
accessable, as most computers come with a browser, and not all with
Adobe
Reader), and copied to individual disc(s) - we would lose a lot of the
cost of
"copying." Depending on the resolution art (even photos) were scanned
in and
saved at, an entire zine could most likely fit on one 3.5" disc. Discs
can be
bought at less than $.50 each, meaning that a zine, including all
production
costs, could come in at, say, $5!>>
Like I said, we've been considering it, but I'm not going to pursue it
yet. I still prefer a hand-held zine to an e-generated one.
<<Someone who wanted to take a story with them would need only to show
a little
foresight and print one or two stories out. You could easily
distribute color
art this way, something definitely not fincially feasable now in
print. Copies
are easily made - it takes only a few minutes to copy off a disc,
without any
trip to Kinko's, etc. (Conceivably, the entire disc could be zipped,
and sent
via the internet!)>>
But you're working on bandwidth again. Further, many ISPs have size
limits on emails. Case in point, I had to download IMZADI from a
website then spent like six to eight hours reformatting it. Once a
universal printer driver is accepted and once a universal file format
is accepted, THEN there's going to be changes.
<<And, as CD-writers become more popular, and writable CDs
become even more inexpensive (they're close to the cost of discs
now!), the
limit of a 1.44 MB 3.5" disc is eliminated. Imagine - your zine on
disc! (This
could even include background music, etc!)>>
Uh, no. Still no music unless originally composed by contributors.
Still, an intriguing idea, and the technology is getting there. But
I'd guess we're five years away from that. Once completely feasible,
we'll be moving to CD, I assure you.
<<This is even a serious option I am considering for my zine, as it's
being
created. I'm not in this for money, I'm in it for the love of Fandom.
Yes, I
want some creative control over what goes out under my "press" name.
But will I
gouge my customer? If I can find an effective method to share the zine
at the
least cost, I'll take it!>>
Good luck with it! I'll be curious to see how it goes!
Randy Landers
<<Having been one of those who DID comment on BEKi's ASSIMILATION (and
if you
haven't read it, GO AND GET IT NOW!) I will make this comment - in
this day of
internet communication, I hope authors will make their e-mail address
(even if
it's a Hotmail or Yahoo one specifically for this purpose!) available
for
comment.>>
BEKi is one of those contributors who DEMANDS COMPLETE and TOTAL
anonymity. She doesn't want her email out there. She doesn't want her
address out there. She doesn't want her name out there. She wants her
fiction and artwork out there, and that's about all.
<<I don't do much paper letterwriting in my leisure, even in typing
and
printing out letters, and I do so much of it at work. But I e-mail
.Boy, do I
e-mail! This would really allow for rapid comments! One of the print
zines I
just received took that exact idea and listed e-mail addys for several
of the
authors. I have every intention of writing to one of them and
expressing my
thoughts on his stories - not just the ones in that zine, but in
several others
I got!>>
I think both OUTPOST 10 and IMZADI featured email addresses for folks
to contact the authors directly.
Randy Landers
<<If done right. I know that ORION keeps back issues available for
several years.
But some of them are out of print. I'd suggest posting stories from
the out of
print zines, maybe with a link by author's name to a list of the
currently
in-print zines his/her work is in.>>
Actually, that's what we were doing when sales plummeted. The
rationale as told to me by several was that they were willing to wait
three years for the stories. So, our sales were hurt by it. And we
still have 11MB of Classic Star Trek fanfiction from our zines,
literally the best of the best available. We've made sure that the
works of writers like Ann Zewen, Rick Endres, Linda McInnis, Chris
Dickenson, and others are preserved.
<<Example: I first read BEKi in Number One #1, which I bought on a
whim, as I'm a
Riker fan. I found how good her work is. Based on my knowledge of her
work, I
bought ASSIMILATION and CODE OF HONOR without a blink - what's that,
$35 in
zines? I knew the work was of quality.>>
Quite so. ASSIMILATION and CODE OF HONOR are top-notch.
<<If the old, out-of-print stuff is used to show the quality
of the writers and editing, then it is a valuable tool. Kinda
like a free sample. Once people know how good it is,
they buy it. (Maybe use this along with the "sample of
stories" link concept we talked about for advertsing!)
Yes, some will use the free sample and never buy,
But many will.>>
Actually, they didn't, and so we had to close the sites. Been there,
done that, didn't work. :(
Randy Landers
<<In true seriousness, while CD-ROMS are getting faster, it doesn't
necessarily
mean that reading a PDF file will be gone in 5 years.>>
But in five years, who's to say what the standard is? Let's see, in
five years, the 5-1/4" floppy has disappeared. And some of the older
stories our press published were preserved using a disk compression
system that is now out of business and no support is available.
>>Things that were long expected to be gone - AM radio,
Vinyl Records, even the movie theatre - are all still there.
Granted, under utilized and a little harder to service, but
there. (You can still buy an AM radio, find a turntable and
needles, and television HASN'T killed the cinema yet!)
Rumor has it that you can even still get your
8-Track deck repaired, if you look in the right places.
(Granted, this is dying, much as BETA did against VHS,
but CD-ROM has become so much of a
standard, it isn't likely to disappear that quickly!)>>
Actually, I'm not convinced. I've been looking at DVD technology and
wondering if that's the direction CD technology will go.
<<What's more likely to disappear is the 3.5" disc, as CD-W and Zips
and
Superdiscs become more prevelant. Who still has a 5.25" disc drive in
their
system anymore? Better yet - who remembers the 8" discs?>>
Well, I still have a 5-1/4" floppy, but I remember the 8" disks well.
I also remember CPM and my ol' KAYPRO 8 from only fifteen years ago.
LOL
Unzadi
>to contact the authors directly.
I haven't seen OUTPOST 10 yet, but IMZADI does feature email addys for the
authors. I've recieved comment that way, and think it's a wonderful tool for
feedback.
Gamin Davis
<7j3crk$enp$1...@nntp5.atl.mindspring.net>:
>Now, there's a new paradigm shift away from print into the
electronic
>realms of this newsgroup and personal websites. Printed zines are
Hmm. I've thought for some time that there are too many of
these. It's getting so anybody with Internet access can set up a
website, and I think it's being overdone. But maybe that's just
me...
>What's being lost is the artwork (in April, we made the decision
to
>minimize if not eliminate interior artwork--cover art will
remain, but
>the illustrations for the stories are being phased out). What's
Well, I will continue illustrating my zines until I start
getting multiple responses at my snail-mail or E-mail address
saying my artwork isn't getting any better and it should all go in
the trash (or something like that). Or until my publisher tells
me she can no longer afford interior art in the zines she sells,
whichever comes first. (So far, neither have happened.)
also
>being lost is the esprit de fandom of the authors, editors and
>publishers as they face what literally may be the extinction of
an art
>form. I certainly am guilty of my lamentations about this. I've
This is NOT a good time for this to happen. Zine producers,
editors, writers, etc. ought to be *pulling together* on this.
>And with THAT, I am in COMPLETE AND TOTAL AGREEMENT. We used to
get
>over 40 letters of comment per month, even on zines which I'd be
>embarrassed to publish today. I can only speak for myself and my
zines
>(the other ORION PRESS editors may be receiving letters as well--
I
>don't know), but I receive only 3 or 4 letters of comment per
month
>these days. To me, this lack of feedback from printed zine
readers is
>incredibly detrimental to the morale of the author who has slaved
over
>a work.
*Sigh*--This IS the one drawback of printed zines. I took to
printing both my regular address AND my E-mail address in my zines
as of last year, because I just don't hear much of anything. I
wouldn't hear anything at all, possibly, if I didn't actively
encourage reader response in my prefaces. I have a feeling that a
lot of zine readers are just not letter writers, even if they
write fan-fiction themselves.
>the reviews made up for a lot of it, but she had to be
disheartened by
>such a lack of comment from the over 300 folks who've bought and
read
>this fanzine.
Hmm, 12--that's comparable to what I got (total) on my two
S/C novels, from '90-97.
>I would consider myself in the same role as the ISP. We provide
access
>for fan fiction through our operations.
Exactly.
>Neither do I know what that something is. That's why I'm here
>soliciting comments and ideas. And it may boil down to the fact
that I
>can take a zine to bed with me, that I can read it in a car, in a
>plane, in a hottub, that I can hold it in my hands. (LOL -- I
keep
>seeing Samuel T. Cogley waving a book around saying, "What's the
>matter? Don't you like books?")
Yes! That's it exactly (at least a major factor)! You don't
have to sit in front of a computer or expend a lot of printer ink
to print it out in order to read it--IT'S THERE, ready-made,
complete with cover, binding and (in my case, at least) artwork!
To me, the web can't compete. But for people who don't mind
that...it's there.
Gamin
Randy Landers
<<This is NOT a good time for this to happen. Zine producers,
editors, writers, etc. ought to be *pulling together* on this.>>
Agreed. We exchange flyers with other fanzine presses. Most recently
Gloria Fry's works, as a matter of fact. We send a flyer, they send a
flyer, and we print them and include them with orders. It helps
publicize zines and build good relations.
We've got a special event planned for February for the ORION PRESS
family and friends, too. We're inviting other Star Trek zine editors
and contributors and the like. It should help cement those relations
further.
JWinterCNA
leave fandom.>>>
You mean why I quit being K'tol, quit running Heart of Glory, and settled into
quiet anonymity as J? Well, I guess I didn't get away from it all, just got
away from a couple, and I emphasize only two, of people who thought I was
spending too much time chaising that crazy dream of getting a real job.
Of course, as J, I pretty much am the same person I am at work (That wacky real
job my two so-called friends said detracted from my Klingon obligations). The
only difference is that folks here are amused. Folks at work are demanding a
transfer for me. <G>
J
Lyric
Lyric
who had GAFIA'ted for awhile, but has gotten a little better...<g>
Darkling wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Jun 1999 12:11:08 -0400, "randylanders"
> <randyl...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> >Thank you. I'm very pleased with the caliber of artists we have. But many of
> >them are leaving. In the past ten years, fandom has lost a lot of talented
> >artists to the dread GAFIAtion.
>
> What is GAFIAtion?
>
> >
> >>Also, while this does not impact *your* decision to keep stuff off the
> >>web, the fact that you have 40 megs and high bandwidth needs doesn't mean
> >>you need to pay a lot of money. Interspeed and simplenet both offer
> >>absurd amounts of bandwidth and storage for ridiculously low prices
> >>($9.95/month in the case of Interspeed.) They won't allow adult material,
> >>but that wouldn't have hurt something like Orion Press, or any other
> >>fanzine publisher of gen stories who wished to switch to a web format.
> >
>
> And there are free space providers who offer a *lot* of free space.
> Check out the listings at http://www.freewebspace.net.
> Of course most of the free webspace providers do have rules you
> have to abide by or they will yank your site.
>
> Alara wrote:
> >>I personally plan to launch web zines in the near future-- archives on
> >>the web that are edited just like fanzines, that have "issues" like
> >>fanzines, and if I can get it, artwork like fanzines, but that never go
> >>out of print. I have a certain advantage in this regard in that I am
>
> This sounds like an interesting idea.
>
> >But will the website help build sales? Otherwise, it's compounding our
> >losses.
>
> I think the suggestions you've had to post small pieces of stories
> that are going to be in your zines on the web or this newsgroup is
> a good way to generate interest in the fanzines.
>
> As for the feedback issue, perhaps it would help to have an email
> where readers could send comments on the published fiction and
> these comments could be forwarded to the author.
>
> The idea posted earlier about a web site where people could
> read reviews of fanzines is also an interesting idea.
>
> Darkling
Lyric
Media*West Lansing MI on Memorial Day weekend (the
Grand Dame of zine conventions)
Eclecticon NJ in Nov.
Shore Leave Baltimore in July
FarPoint Baltimore
in Oct.
Links can be found on the Fanzine & Convention page of the Definitive Guide to ST Fanfic at http://www.bitbase.cnchost.com/st_fanfic/home.htm
If you know of additional fannish/zine conventions and/or additional ST zine publishers who have a web site, let me know and I'll add them to the guide.
Lyric
The Great and Mighty HeeHoo
>conventions)
I used to get mail from Bill Hupe trying to get me to time HoG for MediaWest.
It wasn't a big seller, but it sure did move at MW.
J
To respond, remove "killspam" from email address.
Come read the adventures of the starships Alliance.
http://w3.one.net/~tribeguy/alliance/allhome.htm
Greywolf the Wanderer
<randyl...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Jungle Kitty wrote
>>You might also consider running with Gabrielle's idea of just-in-time
>>printing. Customize the product to your customer's needs. Instead of
>>posting 40+MB of old stories, post excerpts for them. Let readers pick
>>the stories they want and order that as a custom zine. You'd print only
>>one--you'd probably have to charge more but you could base that on size
>>(charge more for a large zine than a small one), and the customer would
>>have a unique zine that contained only the stories s/he wanted to read.
>
>
>The idea of a custom zine does not work in a print media. Otherwise you'd
>have around a $40.00 fanzine instead of $15.00. Were zines on CD-ROM (and
>this is an area we've been considering lately), then a customizable zine
>would be childs' play. However, with a CD-ROM, you might as well put all the
>stories available at a given time on one rather than like one of the music
>companies that offers customizable CDs and audiotapes.
Say what?? Randy me lad, you seem woefully unaware of the state of
the art of desktop publishing. I believe Alara and Kitty can both
back me on this, and have, more than once. Your numbers here do not
add up. Given any reasonably up to date computer and printer,
assmbling custom zines would be *easy* -- and unless you are printing
the bugger on real parchment, or vellum, or some such, the cost *at
most* for an average (~150 pages...) zine might be around $20. My
mate does this shit for a living, I know whereof I speak. And I for
one would love to purchase such zines -- nothing annoys me more than
to fork over money because I know a new story by my favourite author
is in a zine, only to find most of the rest is anything from so-so to
downright bloody awful.
>>Really? Have you (or any zine publisher) ever published at a rate equal
>>to the web's? On ASC, it frequently looks like a zine's worth of stories
>>a day if you were doing a mixed-series zine. In series-specific, it
>>looks like VOY gets about a zine's worth of stories every week.
>
>But how many of those stories published are acceptable/suitable for
>publication? ORION PRESS was founded in part as a backlash to slash fiction
>which permeated fanzines when we first debuted. We don't publish it. We also
>don't publish erotica. When you eliminate that, you've got considerably less
>material.
Your loss, laddy. And I must point out that some of the worst-edited
stories I've ever seen were in some older zines. There is one
particular K/S zined who just slap stuff together any old how and
sends it out -- and it *shows*. And also -- acceptable, suitable,
even excellent for publication are all highly subjective judgements.
Much of what you deem High Art would probably bore me shitless, and
you've made your opinion of slash quite clear. Now you've a perfect
right to that opinion -- but hey, a lot of us don;t want to read much
gen, and we sure as hell don;t want to fork over our limited cash for
it. I'll read gen online -- I've seen some great stuff, Gabrielle's
comes to mind, "Summer Camp" by ?? Syl? Damn. You-all know the
story, it kicked ass. JWinter's Alliance stuff. Woo!
But I have very little money, and this is not likely to change any
time soon. So my money is reserved for what *I* like to read, and
that, dear fellow, is slash. I'll wager I'm far from alone in this.
I will also recommend, along with Alara and JK, that instead of losing
the art you emphasize it more. It's definitely one of my favourite
things about printzines.
>>> Neither do I know what that something is. That's why I'm here
>>> soliciting comments and ideas. And it may boil down to the fact that I
>>> can take a zine to bed with me, that I can read it in a car, in a
>>> plane, in a hottub, that I can hold it in my hands.
>
>>But that's *you*. You are not your market. Apparently, the people who
>>really value those aspects of a zine are a small number. If you want to
>>attract other readers, don't try to make them accept your reasons for
>>loving zines as theirs. Find out what they want. And deliver it.
>
>Actually, that paragraph really defines the difference between those readers
>who want their zines in print and those who want it in an electronic media.
>Perhaps that's where the future of fanzines is heading for: a smaller market
>that enjoys having a physical product to read and cherish. Again, Samuel T.
>Cogley rears his ugly head.
Or, more likely, that is *your* opinion and you've no intention of
doing the recommended market research. Well, hey. It's your
business, not mine. I hate market research -- but dammit, sometimes
ya have to use the stuff, if ya don't want to go tits-up.
Sam Cogley is a personal favourite; my book collection takes up much
of my available room. But if you want to be a *publisher* -- you need
to adapt, or die. "Nal khomerex khesterex" -- what does not grow,
dies.
>>And, Randy, I'll point out that, with the exception of a hot tub (where
>>I usually have company and therefore have little interest in *reading*
>><g>), I can do all those things with my laptop.
>
>I have a lap top, too. I don't use it to read zines. Heck, I don't use it at
>all unless I'm traveling and need to do work for my RL job.
None of which means that other people feel the same way. The newer
laptops are a marvel to behold; bright, clear, full-colour screens,
full-size keyboards, decent hard-drives, etc. Could I but afford one,
it would never leave my side.
>>, or start doing things you would rather not do,
>>such as institute money-making features on your web page. So how badly
>>do you want to continue publishing fanfic? Is your dislike of banners
>>and hit counters greater than your love of publishing?
>
>Our legal advisor has said no to them. Given our traffic, I would be
>receiving payment in excess of the fees charged by the website provider.
>That would be making money on fan fiction, and that would be in violation of
>the very definition of fan fiction.
Suppose the money in excess of costs were donated back to aq charity
-- say, the motion picture actor's hospital? Betcha that would change
the picture. Ask the guy, see what he says. In business as long as
you are, I am sure you keep adequate documentation...
>Were I into this for the money (and
>willing to flaunt the legalities of the situation), there are all sorts of
>things I could do with the website and the zines (including selling
>advertisements and that sort of thing) to make money. I'd be publishing LOTS
>of adult zines, and SLASH zines, too. But that's not what I'm interested in
>doing. Like Biffan points out, I'm in this to break even, not to make money
>and not to lose money.
Then you need to adapt, to find how you *can* break even. Face it,
what you're doing now, by your own admission, is not working.
>> What exactly is your reason for publishing fan fic?
>
>I publish fanzines out of my love for Star Trek. I publish fanzines because
>I love reading them, writing them, editing them.
>
>>And what are the readers' reasons for buying zines?
>
>They read zines because they're one of several outlets that allow one to
>read Trek fiction.
Is that it? Have you actually surveyed your readers and *asked* them?
You might be right -- or you might be surprise. My guess is there's
damn near as many different reasons as there are readers.
>
>>If meeting their needs would make it impossible to
>>meet yours, you're facing a basic and almost insurmountable obstacle.
>
>But see, I don't think of it in those terms. I don't see this as an
>insurmountable obstacle. I see it as a problem that needs to be explored.
Then explore it fully, not in half measures. Keep an open mind, sir,
it can do ye nought but good in the end.
>
>>So do you love publishing zines *more* than you hate the measures you
>>would have to institute in order to continue publishing zines?
>
>I am willing to consider *anything* within certain restrictions as listed
>above. In fact, we started offering excerpts of our zines on our website
>last night, and we posted advertisements to this newgroup as well. We are
>considering Alara Rogers' advice not to lose the artwork. We're considering
>offering a discount to LoCers.
All sound tactics, IMHO.
>
>>If continuing to publish zines is that important to you, you must be
>>willing to acknowledge the changes and adjust to them, even if it means
>>you no longer get to do it the way you prefer. If doing so would take
>>all the joy out of publishing for you, then you should acknowledge
>>*that,* fold up your tent and leave, comforting yourself with the
>>knowledge that you had a good run and it was fun while it lasted.
>
>And, yes, we're considering that, too. Have been for some time. It's being
>portrayed as "whining" by some, and, honestly, there's been a lot wailing
>and gnashing of teeth on my part. I enjoy what I've done, and I think I've
>served fandom well, but it may indeed be time for me to mosey on to the
>old-fan's retirement home. :)
>
>Randy Landers
>ORION PRESS
Obviously one hopes ye dinna do so -- but if ye do, well, like said
above, 'twas good while it lasted eh? Certes were I a gen writer I
might well send thee a story now and then. I do write the occasional
story which has no sex in it. But I'm afraid that even those qualify
as slash, in that the relationships depicted therein, be it ever so
discreetly, are same-sex. No biggie. I'm queer, you're not, IDIC,
life goes on. I wish ye well.
Greywolf the Wanderer
LeoprdLver
there will always be someone out there publishing
real, honest-to-goodness paper fanzines.
Yes, it's nice for those of us without a laptop to sit in the yard and read, or
the
bathtub, whatever. My own personal reason for loving zines is the fan art. I
love Teegar Taylor's character interpretations
and Warren Oddsson's illustrations take my breath away( The cover of Second to
None by LRH Balzar looks absolutely kissably life-like::wipes lip prints off of
Chekov's face::.) Also, isn't it a thrill as a
writer to actually SEE your words in print?
To feel the weight of them in your hands?
I dunno..share your thoughts on this:-)
Keep on Trekkin'
Glenice