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SFReader Forums > SFReader > Ask The Expert > Zines again - distribution

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UnclePete
Weasel Overlord

Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 309

Posted 6/1/2007 11:23 PM (GMT -4)

Hey editors -- so, gabe asked about zine printing, and I got some great info -- what about distribution? How does one get one's zine on store shelves? Recommendations for specific companies?

____________
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
http://www.creativeguypublishing.com

MysticWino
anarchist fringe monkey boddhisatva

Date Joined May 2007
Total Posts : 1607

Posted 6/3/2007 8:30 PM (GMT -4)

My first question would be: DO you want them on store shelves?
Push your own, carry your own fulfillment. Returns kill you. Dead. No question about it. Well, maybe if some pervert comes up with the idea of auto-erotic asphyxiation when they find your body swaying from your ceiling fan - if the stupid thing doesn't fall out and simply leave you with rewiring and home repairs on top of your raspberry rump from the returns. Unless you are paying as much in marketing as you are for production, then you may as well shove a post up your hoo-hoo and play scarecrow for the summer.

But that's just my experience . . .

Exile of my own dull vice. . .

erazmus
Master

Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4496

Posted 6/4/2007 5:18 AM (GMT -4)

First, get a zine going. Build a subscriber base, get a rep, learn what works in the production end and how to handle crisis in putting out the magazine. You don't want distribution right away unless you're damn sure you can handle it. Missed issues and late issues kills news stand sales, so iron that end out first.
Then come back and ask again. Even the magazines with long time distribution make their money off the subscribers. Get those first. Put out a good 'zine, take out ads, make convention appearances, talk up your mag on the web, mail out a damn fine product. On time. Do that for a year, maybe two, and then see if you have more subscribers at the end of the second year than you did in the first year, and see if that number is in four figures. If you do and it is, then get distribution. At that point you'll be ready for it and it will benifit your magazine, instead of push it over the edge. Maybe.

Mike

Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm

"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php

UnclePete
Weasel Overlord

Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 309

Posted 6/5/2007 11:51 PM (GMT -4)

thanks, folks. good info.

____________
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
http://www.creativeguypublishing.com

Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy

Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 4515

Posted 6/7/2007 11:58 AM (GMT -4)

Unclepete, if you decide you want a distributor just contact Ingram or IPG or Lightning or Diamond or any of the other distributors that are out there and, as long as you are willing to take returns and your pub is of a decent print quality, you should find an interested party or two. However,as I and others have pointed out on these boards numerous times, obviously, distribution can be a killer for a small press venue.

Otherwise yo can get your pub stocked at many online sellers all by yourself without a distributor and that is more legwork but in the long run maybe a better strategy?

Daniel

Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy

Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 4515

Posted 6/7/2007 11:59 AM (GMT -4)

Unless you are paying as much in marketing as you are for production, then you may as well shove a post up your hoo-hoo and play scarecrow for the summer.

But that's just my experience . .

***

Mine, too!

Daniel

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