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>> WHO IS THIS
I'm Kelly. I'm 22, I work the counter at a copy shop four days a week (which is
relevant, keep reading), and since the summer of '97 I've put out a quarterly zine
called THUMBTACK. Half-size, 24 pages, photocopied, stapled twice, a dollar
or a trade. Issue #7 came out in August. Issue #8 is in a shoebox on my floor in
pieces.
Somebody wrote me last month and said "I want to make a zine but I don't know
how." Nobody knows how. That's the whole point. You just do it and it comes out
crooked and that's a zine. But okay, here is literally everything I know, for free,
because somebody did the same for me in 1996 and it changed my life a little.
This page is NOT about "e-zines." I have nothing against your web
page (I mean, look, here I am) but a zine is paper. You can hold it. You can leave it
on a bus. Somebody can find it in a used bookstore in 2010 and wonder who you were.
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>> THUMBTACK #7 (August 1999) — what's in it
24 pages, half-letter, cover on goldenrod cardstock. Contents: "The Parking
Garage Roof Is the Best Place in This Town" (essay, 4 pages), an interview with
the guy who runs the Tuesday all-ages shows in the church basement, six pages of
letters and trade reviews, my column "Register Tape" about working
retail, a comic by my friend Dee, and a two-page spread of found grocery lists.
Here's a bit from "Register Tape" so you know what you're getting:
A woman came in today with a single sheet of paper and asked for one copy. One.
I said sure, that's five cents. She said she didn't have a nickel, could she owe me.
I said it's a nickel, don't worry about it. She said no, she'd be back, and she
wrote down "5 cents, Thursday" on the corner of the copy, and tore the
corner off, and put it in her purse. She came back Thursday. She put a nickel on
the counter and said "there." I have been thinking about that nickel for
two weeks. I think it's the most honest transaction I've ever been part of. I
think about the corner of paper in her purse. I think that's what a zine is,
actually: one copy, five cents, I'll be back Thursday.
And from the parking garage essay:
Level 6 is open to the sky and nobody parks there because it's the farthest from
the elevator, so at 11 p.m. it's yours. You can see the grain elevator and the
water tower and the highway, which from up there is just a string of Christmas
lights going somewhere else. Take a lawn chair. Take a friend. Take the last two
sodas from the machine on 3, which is the only one in the building that isn't
broken. This is the closest thing to a rooftop this town is ever going to give
you and you should use it before they put up a gate.
How to get one: $1 and two stamps, or a trade (your zine for mine, always).
See the bottom of this page. Back issues #3 through #6 are
still around. #1 and #2 are gone and honestly that's for the best.
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>> STEP 1: PASTE-UP (scissors, glue stick, no computer required)
You can lay a zine out on a computer. Lots of people do. I don't, because (a) my
computer is a 486 with a broken floppy drive and (b) paste-up looks better. It looks
like a person made it. Here's the method:
1. Pick your size. Almost everybody does half-size: take a regular 8.5x11
sheet, fold it in half, and that's your page, 5.5x8.5. Each sheet of paper gives
you FOUR pages (front left, front right, back left, back right). So your page count
has to be a multiple of four. 16, 20, 24, 28. If you've got 22 pages of stuff,
cut two or add two. There's no such thing as a 22-page zine.
2. Make your master sheets. These are the originals you'll copy from. Take
blank 8.5x11 sheets, landscape (sideways), and draw a light pencil line down the
middle. Each side is one page.
3. Figure out which pages go together. This is the part that makes people
cry. For a 24-page zine, page 1 (the cover) shares a sheet with page 24 (the back
cover). Page 2 shares with page 23. Page 3 with 22, and so on, until 12 and 13 sit
next to each other in the middle. The rule: the two page numbers on each side
of a sheet always add up to 25 (your page count plus one). Write the page
numbers in pencil on every master before you glue anything down. I've ruined an
entire issue by skipping this.
4. Write your stuff. Typewriter, handwriting, a word processor printout, a
rubber stamp, whatever. Mix it up. Cut the columns out with scissors or an X-acto
knife.
5. Glue it down. Glue stick, not liquid glue (it wrinkles). Lay everything
out on the master BEFORE you glue, move it around, then commit. Leave at least a
quarter inch of margin on every edge or the copier will eat your words. Add
pictures from old magazines, your own drawings, clip art, ticket stubs, whatever.
Black and white copies best; halftone photos come out muddy unless you photocopy
them once first at a light setting.
6. Clean the edges. Cut-out edges leave gray shadow lines on the copies.
Either paint them out with correction fluid on the master or on a test copy, or
embrace them. I embrace about half of mine.
7. Make a test copy of every master and read the whole thing through as if
you were a stranger. Fix the typos now. After 100 copies it's too late.
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>> STEP 2: COPY SHOP MATH (from someone who works at one)
A 24-page half-size zine is 6 sheets of 8.5x11, copied on both sides.
That's 12 "impressions" per copy. If your copy shop charges 5 cents a
side (ours does for self-serve; some are 4, some are 7, shop around), that's:
12 sides x $0.05 = $0.60 per zine
100 zines = $60.00
Want a colored cardstock cover? That's usually one extra sheet at 15 to 25 cents
a side, so add maybe $0.30 to $0.50 a copy. Colored paper for the inside runs a
couple cents more a side than white. I do goldenrod covers, white inside, and
100 copies of THUMBTACK cost me about $85 all in. I sell them for a dollar, trade
half of them, and lose money on every issue. That's the business plan. It's fine.
Tips from behind the counter:
* Self-serve is cheaper than handing it to us. But if you want double-sided
done RIGHT, and you've never used the machine, ask. We'll show you once. Half the
zines that come out of our shop have page 3 upside down on the back of page 2
because somebody guessed.
* Come on a weeknight after 8. The machines are free and the person at the
counter is bored and might help you for a long time.
* Run ONE complete copy first. Check it. THEN run the other 99.
* Ask if the shop has a "collate" setting. The good machines will spit
out your six sheets already in order. Otherwise you'll be sorting six stacks on
your bedroom floor for an hour.
* Copiers jam. Bring something to read.
* Some shops give you a discount card after so many copies. Ask. Use it.
* Be nice to the copy shop person. I cannot stress this enough. We know where the
toner is.
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>> STEP 3: FOLD & STAPLE
Stack your six sheets in order (the cover sheet on the OUTSIDE, the 12/13 sheet in
the middle). Fold the whole stack in half at once and crease it hard with the
back of a spoon or a ruler. Then staple through the fold, twice, about two inches
from the top and bottom.
A regular desk stapler doesn't reach the middle of a page. You need a
long-reach stapler (about $20 at an office store, or your copy shop has one
and will let you use it if you're nice, see above) OR the trick: open a regular
stapler flat, put the zine face-down on a piece of corrugated cardboard, staple
through the fold so the prongs stick out the back, and fold the prongs down with
your thumbnail. Slower. Works. That's how I did #1 through #4 and my thumbs
remember.
Put on a movie. It takes about two hours to fold and staple 100. Get a friend to
help and it's one hour and a better night.
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>> STEP 4: GETTING RID OF THEM
You now have 100 zines on your floor. Now what.
Trades by mail. This is 90% of it. Every zine has an address in it. Send
yours to them with a note and they'll send theirs back. Your zine goes out, other
zines come in, and in six months your mailbox is the best thing in your life. A
half-size 24-pager in a plain envelope mails for one first-class stamp, or two if
you stuffed it with a letter and stickers, which you should. Always put your
address inside the zine, not just on the envelope. A P.O. box if you can
swing it ($40-ish a year at my post office); I use one and I sleep better.
The record store. Our local independent record shop keeps a zine rack by
the door. I bring 15 copies every issue, on consignment: they take a quarter of
every dollar, I pick up the money and restock whenever. Ask your record store,
your comic shop, your coffeehouse, the punk bookstore two towns over. Bring a
copy, ask who to talk to, don't be weird about it. Worst case they say no.
Shows. All-ages shows, the merch table, the floor by the door. Leave a
stack with a "$1 or free if you're broke" sign. You'll get about $6 and
that's a great night.
Distros. There are people who run little mail-order catalogs of zines,
sort of a zine store by mail. They usually take copies on consignment or buy a few
outright at a discount. You find them by reading other zines. That's how you find
everything.
Leave them places. Laundromats. The free-paper rack at the library. The
bus. Somebody's going to pick it up and it's going to be the best thing that
happened to them that Tuesday.
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>> ZINE ETIQUETTE (the unwritten rules, written down)
1. If someone sends you a trade, send one back. Within a month. If you're
out of copies, send a note saying so and send one when the next issue is out. Not
trading back is the one truly unforgivable thing.
2. Write a note. Even two lines. "Here's mine, liked your thing about
the bus, write back." A zine that shows up with no note is a catalog.
3. Review honestly but not meanly. It's somebody's floor and somebody's
$85. You can say "the layout is hard to read" without saying "this
is garbage."
4. Don't rip off other zines. Reprinting somebody's thing without asking
is stealing, even if it's just a photocopy. Ask. Almost everybody says yes.
5. Say what it costs. "$1 or trade" on the back cover. Don't
make people guess. And "free if you're broke" is always classy.
6. Put a date and a number on it. Issue #7, August 1999. Somebody's
going to want to know in 20 years.
7. Don't wait until it's perfect. It will never be perfect. #1 is always
bad. Make #1 so you can make #2.
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>> REVIEWS: stuff that came in the mail this summer
PARKING LOT WEATHER #3 (half-size, 20 pp., $1/trade)
A guy in Ohio who works overnights at a gas station writes down everything that
happens between midnight and 6. Regulars, weird purchases, the coffee machine, the
sky. Nothing happens and it's riveting. Typewritten with a ribbon that's dying,
which adds to it. My favorite thing I got this year. Read it in one sitting on
the parking garage roof, appropriately.
GROCERY LIST #4 (quarter-size, 16 pp., 50 cents/trade)
Exactly what it says: found grocery lists, one per page, with a paragraph
imagining who wrote it. Tiny (it's a quarter-page, folded twice) and totally
charming. "eggs, milk, bread, DON'T FORGET" got me. Photocopy quality is
rough; the lists themselves are sometimes hard to read. Doesn't matter.
TUESDAYS ARE FOR CRYING #1 (half-size, 28 pp., $1.50/trade)
A first issue and it reads like one, in a good way: too much stuff, crammed in,
can't stop talking. Personal essays about a breakup, a bad job at a daycare, and
learning to drive at 20. The daycare piece is really good. The layout is cluttered
and the type gets tiny in places (leave your margins!) but I'd trade for #2 in a
second. Somebody's going to be great.
THE SCOTCH TAPE GAZETTE #11 (half-size, 24 pp., $1/trade)
Eleven issues in and it shows: clean, funny, confident. Reviews of church rummage
sales (yes), a comic about a cat who is a landlord, and a long essay about the
author's grandmother's button jar that I'm not going to pretend I didn't read
twice. This is what a zine looks like when you keep making them.
STATIC ROOM #2 (half-size, 12 pp., free/trade)
A short one about a college radio show. Playlists, a rant about the transmitter,
a page of listener calls. Kind of thin, but 12 pages for free with a good rant is
a fair deal, and the transmitter rant is inspired.
Send me yours and I'll review it in #8. I review everything I get. I'm not
always nice but I'm always fair.
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>> MAIL ME
To get THUMBTACK, trade, or ask something: e-mail me at
[email protected]
and I'll send you the P.O. box address. (I don't put the box number on the
web. Paper gets paper, that's the deal.)
Coming whenever: a page of my favorite cut-and-paste layouts, scanned. The scanner
at work is off-limits for "personal use," so, working on it.
Visitors since October 1998:
    
(that's more than have ever read the zine, which is hilarious)
Last updated 9/22/99 · no copyright, this is a zine page, just credit me
© nothing, 1999, Kelly Tran, but seriously, ask first
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