Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with zine

How does my alt-weekly get to my cafe?

the christopher hundreds — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:08:31 -0800

How do free alt-weeklies and zines get access to their distribution points? Is it as simple as asking or do they pay rent/barter some ad space in return for a place to put their magazine?

What is an editorial plan?

divabat — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:35:38 -0800

What's an editorial plan? Do topic-focused weblogs (like the Gawker Media ones) have one? How do they work out what sort of content goes on their blog? I revisited my past question on magazines because I've got the beginnings of a web magazine but need some help on focusing my content. The comments there mention editorial plans, but I can't seem to find concrete examples of such.

I have a stronger idea of whom my webzine is targeted towards, and some ideas of what content I want in there. However, my idea can easily devolve into tangents, and I'm looking for ways to better structure the content of my webzine. (What categories? What can go in and what can't? Who contributes? What are the guiding principles?)

I tend to work best by example, so any examples or suggestions for this would be greatly appreciated. I'm also working on the more business-y side of things, but I feel I need to get this aspect down pat before I work on the rest. Or should I just start up the site, do a few entries, and run with it?

Help me get bought out.

cusack — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:11:13 -0800

What should we do with our remaining inventory of art books? So a friend and I published this limited-edition book with a run of 1000 about a year ago. The book is a fairly upscale 'zine featuring work we solicited from friends and associates.

We've been selling the book for about a year now and have come to realize that we aren't going to turn a profit on it and will have a tough time making our money back. That is OK with us, but we're moving on to our next project and don't know what to do with the 500+ extra books we've got in storage. We keep saying "Yeah, we just need to find somebody to buy us out..." but then after that there's a long pause as we have no idea how to find that person.

I think what we're looking for is a liquidator or maybe a buyer for a chain of "cool" stores that could buy the lot for a wholesale price.

Does anyone have any advice on this?

Thanks!

Zine publishing software?

pallen123 — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 16:45:28 -0800

We're starting a zine covering technology innovation. Anyone know of a zine or blogging application that offers ecommerce transaction support for subscription payments? There don't seem to be many (any) CMS solutions designed out-of-the-box to support zine publishing with paid subscriptions. Does anyone have suggestions? We're already familiar with most of the CMS apps. -- open source and otherwise -- Plone, Drupal, Mambo, Joomla, Wordpress, etc.

Ideally we're looking for something that includes user profiles, user groups/roles to manage contributors/commenters, and previews or articles available to subscribers only -- with support for paid subscriptions.

Any suggestions are *greatly* appreciated!!!

fastest rejections in short literature

shownomercy — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 11:00:48 -0800

What magazines have the best slush turnaround times? This is a question for submitters and editorial assistants alike about average response times for unsolicited works. I editorial-assist and often get queries along the lines of "why are you taking so long" a month or so after a submission. This has me wondering, where are these people submitting that 6 months+ isn't the norm, where the response time isn't 2-4x as long as stated in the submission guidelines?

Alternatively, there could be a resource online that tracks this sort of thing IRT but if I can't find it, it must be somewhat hidden.

I can only think of one magazine so far: Shimmer (got back to me in about a week [!!])

Where can I find a zine called Parlez-vous Codefucker?

Marquis — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 13:40:01 -0800

Trying to find a copy of the Huggy Bear-related british zine Parlez-vous Codefucker. Anyone have any ideas for finding copy/ies (or even just primary versions which could be photocopied) of the zine Parlez-vous Codefucker? Written, I think, by Huggy Bear's Chris Namor, ca. 1993ish. Googling is very sparse indeed, and to be honest I'm not familiar with zine networks or where things like this might be findable. Anyone more familiar with that scene able to help me out? Oh my heart would burst with gladness if someone could point me in the right direction...

help me locate this underground comix/zine artist who spent time in jail

psychobum — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 17:02:37 -0800

help me locate this underground comix/zine artist who spent time in jail I heard about and read some zines/comic books by an artist from florida who went to jail for his zines. He drew like bloody jesuses getting aborted and really sick demented stuff. Might have been in the early 90's or late 80's.

Between thought and expression (black & white, stapled and folded)

airguitar — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 17:46:44 -0800

Getting a zine printed. Have you any experience with this? Having settled on a page size, I'm wondering which file types a printshop will be able to go directly to print with. If PDF is an acceptable format, which design program is best to use: Acrobat Pro, iWork Pages, Ragtime Solo, something else?

Much of the information currently online explaining the steps to getting a zine printed has aged a few years. Software in 2006 is different than it was in 1998.

Any comments about the pros and methods of a more hands-on approach would also be welcome. i.e. paper, scissors, glue, photocopy machines, long-arm staplers...

Old Doris Zine Issues?

mai — Sun, 03 Apr 2005 13:32:19 -0800

Does anyone have issues of the punk 'zine "Doris" #1-6 or #9 that they would be willing to look through for a quote for me? I'm writing a paper and would like to include a quote from an old issue where she talks about punk and what it means to her. Something about metal in skin. I think the illustration is of a girl sitting down on the sidewalk, with lots of piercings and tatoos and probably a mohawk. It's not in any of the ones I have and I think it's from way back so I'm guessing it's in issues 1-6 or issue number 9. I'd appreciate it if anyone who can find this could just write down the article verbatim. It's not very long. I need it today or I'd buy the Anthology.

Dishwasher Pete

drezdn — Tue, 25 May 2004 09:37:55 -0800

Did Dishwasher Pete ever reach his goal of washing dishes in all fifty states?

Free or cheap CMS options?

ringmaster — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 13:03:31 -0800

I'm thinking of establishing a new personal web site for the risque/opinionated stuff that I don't want on my family-oriented site. The thing is, I'm not convinced that MT and it's bloggerific ilk nor Nuke and it's bastard children can maintain the stylized newspaper/-zine site that I want to erect. What other styles of free or dirt-cheap CMS software are out there that I should consider for the new site?

Recommend a zine

drezdn — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 15:45:40 -0800

What are some good zines?

Does anyone remember the name of a movie where the main character was tired of zines because it seemed like everyone had a zine about themselves?

drezdn — Sun, 28 Dec 2003 20:44:52 -0800

Does anyone remember the name of a movie where the main character was tired of zines because it seemed like everyone had a zine about themselves. I believe one of the words in the title began with an "H."