How and Why to Start Your Own Print or Web Zine

March 6, 2005 by John Hewitt

By Bob Sassone

If I was forced to pick the one aspect of my early writing career that I felt was most important to my success and progression as a writer, it wouldn’t be my work on my college paper, or the work I did for my local community newspaper, and it wouldn’t even be getting my own weekly column in a newspaper chain when I was only 22. It wouldn’t even be getting a sales job at a top music magazine, and sneaking in some writing for special editions and the company newsletter.

No, the smartest thing I did early on in my writing career was to start my OWN magazine. Why do I say this, when I didn’t get paid for it, I had to handle the tedious business end of things, and ended up spending a ton of money? For several reasons…

A BASE TO WORK FROM

When I started my music zine in early 1990, I had a few freelance writing credits and a stint in sales/research at a top music mag under my belt, but nothing really major that screamed “writer!” Creating and editing my own zine changed all that. It no only got my name and my writing out to editors and readers, it gave me a base to work from. Now I wasn’t just another writer trying to break into a writing career, having his clips and resume lumped into the 100 others sitting on an editors desk. I was an EDITOR and ENTREPRENEUR from his OWN MAGAZINE, with a business card, letterhead, a subscription base, employees, and a good product. This makes you stand out more. Get their attention, THEN wow them with your writing.

YOU’LL MAKE CONTACTS EASIER AND FASTER

When you head your own zine, you’re an instant “insider,” able to talk with other editors and publishers without being afraid they don’t have time for “some writer.” Of course, it helps to send a copy of your zine to them first, or the URL to your web zine. Just make sure the product is good before you let them see it. That makes the follow-up call easier.

ACCESS TO PLACES YOU WOULDN’T USUALLY GET INTO

When I started my music zine, I sent out press releases and media kits to a ton of music labels, record stores, and other magazines (this was in the days before the Internet, though my art director did have a cute little 2600 modem on top of his Mac to dial into the local college). I could not believe the response I got. Now, obviously, the record biz is different from what you probably want to do (the promotion departments are really eager to get their bands heard and interviewed), but if you send out press releases to the right people, you’ll become known, and you’ll probably get invited to events, parties, get-togethers, maybe even a concert or two. It all ties into that old clich� of networking. Get to know people who share the same interests as you do or can help you in your career and you’ll be better off.

And you’ll be amazed at what having your own zine can get you. My music zine got me into concerts for free and got me a ton of free CDs. My TV zine, which started out as a print-only zine then switched to web-only for the last year, not only got me in contact with other TV critics, it led to a job at a major newspaper, writing about television, and to my current job as editor for a TV web site.

IF YOU’RE GONNA WRITE FOR FREE, WHY NOT WRITE FOR YOURSELF?

There’s no way around it: when you are starting out, you are going to have to write for free. We all go through it. You have to build up your clips some how, and you do it by writing for your high school paper, your college paper, and interning at a local newspaper or maybe a magazine while you’re in college. And now with the Web, there are many places to showcase your writing, but be warned that most of them do not pay, especially if you are an unknown writer.

So, if you’re gonna write for free, why not start your own zine and write for free for that? Not to the exclusion of all other writing (which might get you better exposure), but as an addition to that. The more you write, the better writer you are. Besides, with your own zine, you control the topic, the style, and the length. And you just might be able to sell some of the articles from your zine to other print and web zines (though here’s a tip: if you try to sell an article to a publication, and the article has already run somewhere else, don’t put it up on your web site. A web or print zine might not want to run it if it’s already been available for free on the web already).

PRINT COSTS

Are you just doing a nice little personal zine to give to friends, a few subscribers, and maybe editors who want to see your clips? Then go with a Xeroxed zine, either 8 1/2 x 11 stapled in the corner, or a smaller digest size folded and stapled. Today, with so many publishing software programs available and print costs coming down, you can get professional, clean copies made at a good price. If it’s your first zine, don’t do what I do: I went with heavy stock, glossy paper, and had photos too. Thank God for those free CDs I got in the mail (shhhhhh…). Advertising helped too, but if and when I do another zine, I’m going the cheaper route. Look into the many print and web options that are available.

ADVERTISING

Obviously, the easiest way to pay for a print zine is to accept advertising, but it’s not always easy. You have to convince potential advertisers that the zine will be seen by enough potential customers. And if you’re doing your own little zine, with a print run of less than 1,000, this might be hard to do. The best bet is to go with local companies that might buy more than one month of advertising. But advertising, whether it’s on your personal zine or web zine, might be something you are not interested in. Not only from the aesthetic standpoint, but you also are of the mindset that you just want to get your writing out into the world and advertising is not only unnecessary, it’s distracting and too much work. If you are attempting to create a professional magazine though, with a large print run, subscribers, newsstand sales, etc, then you should at least think about advertising to help with the costs (especially if you go with color and/or glossy or want to pay your contributors).

PROMOTION

Keep people abreast of what’s going on by setting up an e-mail list through one of the list groups, such as egroups (http://www.egroups.com) or Topica (http://www.topica.com). And don’t forget the old-fashioned way too: printing out flyers, mailing out press releases, and getting on the phone to target people who might be interested in your zine.

GETTING OTHER WRITERS/STAFF

I had 4 or 5 people (who just happened to be my roommates plus the girl my best friend was dating) help me with the zine for free. Yours will probably do the same thing, especially if you give them a byline, free reign on what they write about, copies of the zine, some free stuff like CDs or magazines or a six-pack of beer once in a while. The good thing about zines is that if you’re a writer interested in working hard for free, then your friends will want to as well. Remember to have some fun with it. Of course, if you want to do a zine that is just your writing, a staff is unnecessary.

WEB SITES:

Nowadays, getting your own web site is not only easy, it’s becoming an almost necessary component of being a writer in the 21st century. And what a great promotional tool! Money-saving and time-saving. You can get a web site through many local and national ISPs. You can buy handy web-site making software (such as PageMill) that make web-site creating seem less daunting. You keep all the pages on the hard drive of your computer, and upload them to your ISP, who “hosts” your site. Of course, you might have to pay for this service. Though many ISPs give you a certain amount of space for a web site included in their monthly dial-up cost.

There are also many excellent sites that will not only host your site for free, but also give you all the free tools to create the site. These include Tripod (http://www.tripod.com), Angelfire (http://www.angelfire.com), Xoom (http://www.xoom.com). Just be careful of the wording on some of the contracts. Some sites actually have contracts that say that they own the content you put on your site! GeoCities got in trouble for this and was forced to change their wording.

As for domain names, it’s easy to get one. Either make it “nameofmagazine.com” or perhaps “yourlastname.com.” Tripod and other sites will actually handle the registration of a domain name for you, if you don’t want to use the usually longer URL that you get when you sign up for these free sites. Either way is fine, though your own domain name will be easier for readers to remember.

MAKING MONEY WHILE PURSUING YOUR WRITING CAREER

I went through a bad, depressing time when I thought that to be a “real” writer, I had to do it full-time, and if that meant not having any food to eat (except maybe pasta or soup every night of the week), then so be it. Don’t fall into this trap. Who cares what type of job you get to pay the bills, as long as you keep writing? My mantra for several years was “support your writing until it can support you.” Just because you’re not doing writing full-time doesn’t mean you can’t “call yourself a writer.”

One note: if you do a web site, make sure you get hard copies of all your issues. And if you do a print zine, make sure you keep some issues for yourself, so you can look at them again, years later, when you are writing full-time, and you can say “this is how I started.” Showing people something that you and your friends have created is a fantastic feeling, and can really propel your writing career.

Bob Sassone currently writes for tvsquad.com

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