The Zine Scene

The History and Characteristics of Zines by Fred Wright goes into detail about what a zine technically is, why they're published and how they're viewed by the people who publish them. The idea that zines are published to go against the commercial magazines is a very valid one. It seems that people who produce zines are publishing them for a very specific audience, dealing with singular topics such as Sci-Fi or Punk. Many of these publishers aren't making any money off of their zines but the fact still remains that they are important to the readers who subscribe to them or randomly purchase one.

Many of the zines I've seen at Quimby's are crudely made and are merely put out there to give an audience to their content. Whoever produces a zine needs to have a real passion for whatever they are producing or it will just fold. It seems that there is no profit in zine production at all, but these people still put the material out there for a small but significant audience.

This passed semester I was introduced to the world of literary magazines as well as the hierarchy of which literary magazines are the best and which are just starting out but are still producing quality work. I assume that the editors of these magazines produce them because they feel there is a need for more literary short fiction in the world and so they create a market where literary writers can submit their work and have it get out into the open. Even though mostly writers read these zines the idea is to somehow get the work to a broader audience.

This article didn't deal with lit mags, but mostly fanzines. Fanzines seem to me to be more of a place for genre-type things to have a home. I don't read sci-fi stories or fantasy but I'm sure there are many people out there who do and who know of what zines have the best. There is a market for that type of material and so I don't understand how zines of that nature aren't making a profit. Truthfully I feel like those zines, or zines that only deal with a specific topic, are more profitable than literary magazines, just because they apply to a more specific audience.

My opinion on the idea that producers of these magazines don't want a profit but would rather just exchange different zines is that it's bullshit. I think whenever someone produces something that they truly care about, they want it to do well, they want to see a profit. That doesn't mean that they want to make millions off of it, but that they want to gain enough funds to keep the damn thing going. Not wanting a profit seems ridiculous to me. How else would these people keep their zines going? There needs to be some sort of money coming in or else the zine will fold.