#fanzine market

[pom12art]

Hello!! I was supposed to be posting this on Monday but I was trying to get the fanzines printed for the Hidden Gems Art Market which is happening tomorrow and I will be there as a stall holder yaaaaayy!! :DD

Event Info

I'll be selling five art prints and three zines, one of them being the Madoka Magica fanzine which mayblyth and I have been working on for the past few weeks. Another one (which I don't have pictures of) being maybylth's old zines. And the last one is a mini artbook zine that features what I drew last year.

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A post shared by Amy Blyth N. (@mayblyth)

Here's what my mayblyth posted today :DD

[madzillus]

First Louis sketch of many more oh boy

[cyranoaimaitleshommes]

Extraits.

[hesitationss]

whenever i see a "zine" especially if it's a "fan zine" be more than like 15-20 MAX i go insane. zines should like $5-10 that you self print... that is a self published artbook for ... $30-sometimes $100+ USD for a full merch package... like zinesters are allowed to be unhappy that high production "fan zines" have essentially taken over most peoples understanding of what a zine is.

[ilustradorakittybathory]

Introduction of a Gothic Hungarian Artis

Hi all! :)

I am a Gothic Hungarian illustartor /grapich designer, studing and working in Budapest at the moment. I 've just created my account recently. I believe the importance of self expression , self growth, and the equality between woman and men. Also if we work a little extra, we can make a better world. I am working on FANZINE at the moment. Later on I will share some of my art, please welcome it here

[thatmooncake]

DCA Fan Zine - Organisers needed

(Please help boost this even if you can’t personally sign up as we very much need a mod team in order to make a zine happen - especially a physical zine which I know a lot of people were interested in! <3 Thank you :>)

Sooo the results of the initial interest check are IN and it seems like people are incredibly interested in the making of a DCA fan zine for artists and writers (thanks for all the DMs so far too, I will get back to everyone)!

Now me and @flinxypie are looking for proactive mods who are happy to actively contribute to the zine’s organisation and production!

(Note: Please bear in mind a fan zine will take several months to organise and put together so these will be ongoing roles requiring active participation and joint decision making as a team throughout this time period. We are only accepting applicants for moderator positions who are 18+ due to the responsibilities involved.)

Mods will be required to help pitch in and check details, review and approve contributor applications, and offer insight and suggestions to help with the schedule and organisation of the zine where necessary.

We are specifically looking for:

- Graphic designers who can help with arranging the zine layout, editing, and providing advertising materials for the zine

- A Social media mod who can help run our social media accounts and assist with marketing

- A Finance mod who can help with bookkeeping and shop running (this will be absolutely mandatory if we will be making a physical zine)

- A Shipping/printing mod who will be responsible for the printing and shipping of the physical zine as well as any merchandise if this is produced, including sourcing a supplier we can trust to make high quality products (US-based preferred - this will also be absolutely mandatory for making a physical zine)

Previous zine experience would be great but isn’t vital for all roles. It is vital however that we have a strong active mod team pitching in in order for this zine to work!

Please apply using the linked form if you are interested: https://forms.gle/Pvj3n2DXB8dsvGg57

Applications will close on March 5th at 10pm GMT/4pm CST!

[thebibliosphere]

I saw your post about ingram, and out of curiosity, is there some advantage to going through the whole self-publishing thing with retailers when you're just starting out? like I mean the way that fandom zines work is that they don't even bother going through ingram or amazon or whatever. they just set up a social media site (usually twitter) to gain followers, open preorders (usually 1-2 months in length) to generate the costs of printing upfront, and then sell anywhere from a few dozen to several hundred copies of their books (usually artbooks, but anthologies exist too). I've seen some zines generate over a thousand orders. they're kind of like pop-up shops, except for books. maybe the sales numbers aren't so impressive to a real author, but the profit generated is typically waaaay more than the $75+ apparently needed for Ingram Spark, so I still feel like new authors could benefit from this method too, especially if they just need some start-up cash to eventually move to ingram if they want to for subsequent runs of their book. I think authors would also have to set aside some of the pre-order money to buy an ISBN number to have printed on their book, and I'm not really sure what other differences there are, but I just wanted to ask about it in case there's some huge disadvantage I'm missing!

So, popup zines work well for some people, and I know some authors who kickstart their work successfully. But for a lot, it's just not feasible as a long-term stratedy. Or even as a means to get off the ground.

Fanzines succeed primarily because an existing fanbase is willing and ready to throw money at something they love. They’ve got a favorite writer or artist they want to support. Supporting all the others is just a happy by-product. They also take a HUGE amount of short-term but intense planning that just doesn’t always jive with how some of us work.

I, for one, would never offer to organize a fanzine. I’ll take part in them as a creator, but I’d rather throw myself off a cliff than subject myself to wrangling that many people and dealing with the legal logistics.

When it comes to authors doing anthologies, it'svery much the same. The success of the funding often hinges on having other big-name authors involved whose existing fans will prop up the project. Or having a huge marketing budget.

Most self-pub authors have zero marketing budget. I’m one of them, and I’m under no illusions that my work would not be as popular and self-sustaining as it is if I didn’t have a large Tumblr blog.

When I thank Tumblr in my forewards, I am utterly sincere. Tumblr brought fandom levels of enthusiasm to an unknown work and broke the Amazon algorithm so hard, that Amazon thought I was bot sniping my way to multiple #1 spots and froze my sales rankings.

That’s not the norm. And while I could probably kickstart my own work as an indie creator, that’s because I’ve put literal decades into building up a readership. I’ve been doing this since I was 16 and realized people thought I was funny. I didn’t know what to do with it or if I’d ever actually write anything, but it meant the groundwork was already there (thank you, past-me). I basically fell upward into my success by virtue of never being able to shut the fuck up and wanting to make people laugh. Clown instincts too strong.

New or first-time authors trying to sell their work without that will find it infinitely harder.

All of that aside, even if an unknown author somehow gets lucky and manages to fund their work, there’s still the question of shipping and distribution logistics. Are you shipping everything yourself? Better hope you’re able-bodied and have the time for it. (for reference, it took me months to ship out 300 patreon hardbacks because of my disabilites. It damaged my back and hands. I couldn’t type for several weeks after I was done.)

Are you going to sell primarily at conventions? Better hope you’re able-bodied, have the time and don’t have cripling anxiety about being in large groups...

Also, will selling a dozen to a few thousand copies in one burst be sustainable in the long run as a career? Not for me. Doing things via Ingram and Amazon means I earn a steady trickle of sales for the rest of my life provided the platforms remain and so long as I keep working and can generate interest in the series, not just when I have funds to pay for physical copies to sell. The one-time (in theory) cost of $75 to distribute through Ingram gets paid off pretty quick that way. And it doesn't require the same logistics as doing the popup/crowdfund.

Ultimately, it comes down to what you are capable of but also the type of work you’re doing. If you’ve got an extended network of fellow creatives who will back you or you’ve got a large following elsewhere, doing it like a popup might work for you.

If you’re an exhausted burnout who can’t fathom the short but intense amount of organization that sort of thing requires, not to mention doing it over and over and over... Ehhhhh. No thank you.

[creatives-argentines]

New August Masterpost

If you are unaware of the situation in our country, the argentinean government is fucking up the economy with their "chainsaw" plan, and getting rid of human rights in the process, among other things. The prices are up, including public transport, and the salaries aren't rising with them.

This masterpost was made in order give our artists the opportunity to enter the international market since our currency is plummeting, so if you like what you see please consider commissioning us. If you aren't able to, reblog this post please, WE NEED THE VISIBILITY. Alt texts are in English and Spanish. ____________________________ Si no conocés la situación en nuestro país, el gobierno argentino esta haciendo mierda la economía con su plan "motosierra", y deshaciéndose de derechos humanos en el proceso, entre otras cosas. Los precios suben, incluído el transporte público, y los salarios no suben con ellos. Este masterpost se hizo para darles a nuestres artistas la oportunidad de entrar en el mercado internacional ya que nuestra divisa va cayendo en picada, así que si te gusta lo que ves considera comisionarnos. Si no podés, rebloguea el post por favor, NECESITAMOS VISIBILIDAD. Textos alternativos (alt text) están en inglés y español.

@lucianinsanity (he/they - él)

An is an artist that works primarily on character design, including small sprites in pixel art. They can also paint backgrounds or landscapes and scenes. They work with watercolors, acrylics, pencils and digitally. ________________________________ An es un artista que se dedica principalmente al diseño de personajes, incluidos pequeños sprites en pixel art. También puede pintar fondos o paisajes y escenas. Trabaja con acuarelas, acrílicos, lápices y en digital. Contacts/Links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lucianinsanity/ Tumblr: https://lucianinsanity-only-art.tumblr.com/ https://lucianinsanity.tumblr.com/ Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/lucianinsanity YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lucianinsanity

@aifastic (they/she/he - ella/él)

Aifas is an artist whose work revolves primarily around characters, backgrounds and animals (generally pets). They like making goofy art, cartoons, animations and pictures where colors pop! They have worked on several fanzines, including the TF2 Sona Zine and Rocket Science! A TF2 Helmet Party Zine as an artist, and Wanted - An A Way Out Zine as both an artist and graphic designer. ________________________________ Aifas es una artista cuyo trabajo se concentra principalmente en personajes, escenarios y animales (generalmente mascotas). Le gusta hacer arte gracioso, caricaturas, animaciones y piezas en los que los colores saltan a la vista. Trabajó en numerosas fanzines, incluyendo TF2 Sona Zine y Rocket Science! A TF2 Helmet Party Zine como artista, y Wanted - An A Way Out Zine como artista y diseñadora gráfica. Contacts/Links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aifastic/ Tumblr: https://aifastic.tumblr.com/ Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/aifastic E-mail: aifasticpatreon@gmail.com

@denwenai (they/them - elle)

Denwenai’s areas of expertise are multimedia design, photography and art; therefore, their pieces are a living example of the convergence of these disciplines. They work on both digital and physical media, and although their pieces are often inspired by film, literature & popular culture, many are a product of their restless imagination. Among the services they provide are illustration, vectoring, editorial layout, branding video & photo editing and motion graphics. ________________________________ Denwenai se dedica al diseño multimedia, la fotografía y el arte; por lo que sus piezas son ejemplo de la convergencia de estas disciplinas. Trabaja sobre soportes tanto físicos como digitales, y sus piezas a menudo encuentran inspiración en el cine, la literatura y la cultura popular, aunque muchas son producto de su inquieta imaginación. Entre los servicios que puede brindar se incluyen: ilustración, vectorizado, maquetado editorial, branding, edición de foto/video y motion graphics. Contacts/Links: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/denwenai

@tomicaleto (she/her - ella)

On the internet, I go by the pseud Tomicaleto and I'm mostly called Tomi. I'm currently studying Philosophy and Visual arts in university. On my Tumblr I share mostly fanarts from different fandoms and my digital artwork. I've participated in fanzines along with other artists and on weekly and monthly events as well (such as the bingo format events, for example). I've also begun to sell my drawings as stickers, illustrations and t-shirts, participating in local events when possible (Currently only in Argentina). ________________________________ En internet me muevo bajo el pseudónimo Tomicaleto y muchas veces me dicen Tomi. Estoy estudiando Filosofía y Artes Visuales en la universidad. En mi Tumblr comparto mayormente fanarts de diferentes fandoms y mi trabajo digital. Participé en fanzines junto con otros artistas y también en eventos semanales y mensuales (el formato bingo, por ejemplo). También comencé a vender mis dibujos como stickers, ilustraciones y remeras, participando en eventos locales cuando es posible (Solo en Argentina por el momento). Contacts/Links: Tumblr: https://tomicaleto.tumblr.com/ ->Art tag: Tomi's art

@palluniskillas (she/he, ella/él.)

Pallu is an artist that focuses on the creation of illustrations and portraits, as well as character creation. She mostly Works digitally. Her primary pallete is made up of warm colors and tones. ________________________________ Pallu es un artista que se enfoca en la creación de ilustraciones y retratos, como también la creación de personajes. Mayormente ella trabaja digitalmente. Su paleta principal está compuesta de colores y tonos cálidos. Contacts/Links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pallunis_killas/ Tumblr: https://palluniskillas.tumblr.com/

If you want to support the admin, go to @artzover

[ampreh]

[TRF] Norma II

• Related to this : The Rust Factory - Norma (<- comics)

• Related to this : The Rust Factory - Norma (<- comics) I had SO much fun doing the vintage style of flash backs and imagination: I would have kicked myself for ignoring this very impactful style for its time.

Audrey pic: Context - Extract from the 2022 RP "It was the story of a corporate that had made a great scientific revolutionary invention! It was called D-Sire, a simple, medicated, fabulous everyday object that people couldn't live without. But during the process of improving the product, which was intended to target wider markets to make more profit, the D-Sire had unfortunately gone awry, causing a great catastrophe unparalleled among mankind. All cities had been wiped off the map, leaving only willless mutant humans and animals. The heroine had to flee her city, survive and fight her way back to the creator of the D-sire, who had abandoned his company and changed his identity. Coal was terrified of this cheap soap opera with its terrible special effects made of modelling clay and the saturated offbeat sound of the black-and-white picture on the small TV screen." A more than obvious reference to the AU Truffula Flu. And a huge reference to @audtreegrace, @miru667 's character. So of course, I don't have all the context since it's a vast AU with lots and lots of details, but I've got enough of a basis for my friends to recognize and that's good enough for me :> Nathan has already confused Audrey Grace with Audrey, the actress from their series HAHA. Alas, the Audrey and Ted of his world won't be born for several years. He didn't find the actress, but he did find a good friend with whom to talk for hours about anything and everything ♥

Norma Bellini pic: Well, Norma pin-up, because why not! In vintage calendar mode, because I love vintage aesthetics. And yes, those are the right dates I went to check on good old calendars haha. At first I wanted to do it in a swimsuit, but then I preferred the picnic. I love picnics.

Too big to fail pic: I had to do it! Of course I had to! The only time I've redone such an iconic portrait was for the first version of Cashtea-ler in the Let It Flow fanzine, in 2022 (I should do a new one with his new head). Nathan Cole (@1940s-onceler | @nalak-bel 's), in black and white in his best soot-colored suit!

Compilation : Just Normaler, to appreciate Normaler. On a more serious note, I like the idea that Nathan was guided throughout his first times by ladies, and not the reverse. I love this not-so-little whining man.

[glitterfandomweirdo]

Please please help! All you Rise fans! We can do something to help! We can do SOMETHING. And if nothing comes of it, we will have united as a fandom to create something amazing and worthwhile. Tell people who might be interested! Reblog, repost, share and talk about this to anyone who might care or be interested! If anything else? Join to be able to have fun creating something for the Hamato brothers. Maybe they'll get their ending.

Currently calling ALL ROTTMNT FANS

I'm working on fundraising for ads to bring back Rise to the public eye, so if any of you are artists, writers, or know your way around a zine and other sellable products, please leave a comment here or send me a dm if you'd like to know more

Please keep in mind this is on a volunteer basis, as all funds will be directed towards production and advertising, but if you love Rise and would like to see it plastered in people's faces, I'd appreciate any and all help

[atlafanzine]

Mod Applications Now Open.

We are in the process of creating an ATLA fanzine where all the proceeds go to Care for Gaza. As of now, we are recruiting mods to help run the project. Undercut you will find links to each application form as well as a brief description on the responsibilities of each mod. The application period ends on the 29th of May, meaning you have 2 weeks to apply.

hyperlink to application form on the bold text

Co-Head Mod - keeping everyone else on schedule, ensuring future tasks are covered ahead of time, having an overall vision of what the project can become. Think project management!

Graphics Mod - Creating the graphics, icons, headers, edits and carrd for social media. Working closely with the communications and marketing mods.

Social Media/External Communications Mod - Managing the different social media sites, answering any questions by applicants and buyers via social media and email.

Discord/Internal Communications Mod - Setting up discord, discord posts and managing contributor emails.

Marketing Mod - Coming up with new ideas to keep the zine at the top of people's minds during periods where there is not a lot of activity, works closely with the external communications mod and graphic mod.

Supplier Mod - Sourcing quotes, negotiating prices, evaluating suppliers, and staying on top of your chosen suppliers for both merch and the zine itself.

Fulfilment Mod - Receiving, inspecting, and packing all the products for shipment. Someone who has the time to spare.

Finance Mod - Co-managing the PayPal account, budgeting, help guide prices, keeping track of expense.

Artists/Writer Admin - Managing artist/writer contributors, managing their details and check-ins. This is a two person position, one admin will be looking after the artists and one the writers. Both admins should work together to keep track of buyers orders when the time comes.

[duckprintspress]

How We Plan, Implement, and Publish Anthologies: A Step-by-Step Guide

On Saturday, Duck Prints Press hosted a Patreon panel in which I and two other members of the press with experience serving as lead editor on projects discussed how we go about doing that (Max Jason Peterson and Alex Bauer). To prepare for my role in the panel, I wrote a long, looooong document on roughly the steps I follow in roughly the order I do them for all the Press’s anthology projects. The other folks in the panel each had different sets of experiences and different procedures they’ve followed, so if you’re curious what the others do, I highly recommend watching the panel – the recording is available to all our backers at the $7/month, $10/month, and $25/month levels, as are all our old panel recordings, and for this panel, well, Max, Alex, and I were having so much fun talking about lead editing that we went almost 30 minutes over-length. I’d like to think folks who watch it stand to learn a lot about running anthologies (as I have done), lead-editing an association journal (as Max has done), and/or coordinating fanzines (as Alex has done). Max has also written a blog post about his approach, and I expect to post that for y’all once it’s been edited.

For the types of anthologies I coordinate for Duck Prints Press, the actual editing stage is only one part of planning and implementing projects that typically take us a bit over a year to take from “glimmer of an idea” to “completed book in our hands.” What follows in this blog post are the steps I go through – though some, I did the first time and haven’t done, or haven’t done as much, since, because I don’t need to reinvent the wheel. If you’re looking to run a project, you may not need to do them all, and it may make more sense for some projects to do these steps in a different order or skip some entirely. This guide is focused on how we do our story-only anthologies, though for projects that include art like our Queer Fanworks Inspired By… series, it’s fairly similar, just add “and art” and “and artists” to almost every place we talk about just stories or authors.

One thing that was very clear during our panel conversation is that finding a set of steps that worked for us each as individual creators was really important to our success, so look at what follows more as one way to handle project coordination, not as any suggestion that my approach is any way superior to any other approach. It’s just…how I do it, it’s worked for me and been refined to meet my personal and my press’s needs across dozen anthologies we’ve completed or have in progress.

(read more - this post is so long)

Project Concept. Figure out the core concept for the anthology. For DPP, this generally means picking two to three key “every story must” concepts, in addition to “queer,” which is a given. So we might pick a genre (such as we did in Aether Beyond the Binary ��� stories must be in the aetherpunk genre) or a setting (such as magical coffee shops for Add Magic to Taste) or a type of relationship (such as the mlm/wlw themes for the Masquerade anthologies) or a vibe (such as fluff for Add Magic to Taste) or a “characters must be this” (such as monsters for Monsterotica). We usually pick no more than 5 “must includes” – combined, they have to result in a overarching concept narrow enough that readers will know what kinds of stories to expect and broad enough to still allow for variety. When we do five, one is always queer and another is always happy ending.

Market Research. At this stage, I do market research to see what other people are doing similar to the concept we’ve come up with. If the proposed project is too similar to others that exist, it could cause drama, reduce sales, or it might demonstrate viability (because similar projects have done well!). There are many approaches to doing this research and which makes most sense will depend on the nature of the project – for example, for a fandom zine, dig into the fandom and see what other zines are in the works, such as by searching for “fandom name” + “zine” in your preferred search engine. For a fiction project, try searching popular book retailers, past Kickstarter projects, or joining groups on Facebook, Discord, or other platforms and seeing what people there are involved in. Some questions to consider while doing this research:

Are there any books with similar concepts?

How parallel is this idea to what other people are doing?

Is this different enough to be distinct?

Will this step on toes?

Do similar projects appear to have been successful?

How long ago were similar projects completed?

If there are no similar projects, are there any indications as to why not (such as attempts being made and failing due to lack of interest)?

Scope. Having picked a concept and assessed its viability, it’s time to figure out the nuts and bolts of what the book will contain and who you’re looking to recruit to contribute to it. I generally do scope AFTER concept because the answers to some of the following questions will depend on what kinds of stories we’re looking for, and also on the results of market research into projects with similar concepts. Some questions to consider at this stage are:

How many stories will be in the anthology?

How long will the stories be?

How long will that result in the book being, and roughly how much will that cost to print?

How much will authors be paid?

How much money do we expect to be able to raise?

How many copies do we think we’ll be able to sell?

Will there be non-stories such as art or graphics or maps? If so, where will those come from and who is making them?

Budget. At least a basic budget is necessary to figure out the scope, as the questions just above should make clear. It’s not enough to say “it’ll cost this much,” “we’ll pay that much,” there needs to be a baseline idea of how similar projects have performed and a realistic guess of earning potential. It’s often necessary to go back to revise step 3, “Scope,” based on the results of figuring out a budget. Some of these questions, you may have answered in the first round of market research, but if not, go back and do more market research. You don’t need to have all the answers yet, but having a vague idea of them is essential to creating a realistic project that can actually be accomplished. To help answer some of the questions proposed in Scope, consider:

How have similar projects performed?

How much did they cost to make?

How much did they charge buyers?

What vendors do this kind of work, and how much do they cost, and do they have good reviews?

Feasibility. Having done all the above research and planning, establish the feasibility of the propose project aligned with all the above, then greenlight the project. Plans may need to be scaled down, or it may be discovered one has been too conservative and ideas can be scaled up.

Timeline. At this point, making the project go forward means having an idea of how long you intend to work on each step of the process – both an internal timeline (for production and such) and an external one (for contributors to consider). How to structure a timeline will depend on how you are structuring your project, of course. Because timelines for any individual project are so long, we generally have four or more projects at some stage of this process at all times (for example, right now, we are in the Planning stage for our next Queer Fanworks Inspired By project, in the Submission Review period for Monsterotica, in the Editing Period for Scholarly Pursuits, and in the Production stage for A Truth Universally Acknowledged: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.” Duck Prints Press projects use a model in which we recruit contributors to write stories after they are selected, this is what we’re currently doing:

Planning: one to three months, usually done in the background in bits and pieces while working on other projects. This includes all the above steps and many steps that follow, such as drafting the rules. All the steps after this, I’ll be getting into more below.

Recruitment: up to a month, including time for pre-announcements before submissions actually open.

Submission Review: roughly a month, though when we get a lot of applications, we may need longer. This includes several days set aside for anonymizing entries and preparing review materials.

Writing Period: two months.

Editing Period: six months. During this time, we also plan the entire rest of the book and campaign – cover art, interior appearance, accompanying merchandise, etc., are all prepared while we’re editing.

Crowdfunding: around one month, including pre-announcements, cover reveals, etc.

Production: around three months, including the time it takes funding to clear, the book and all merchandise to be finalized, orders to be placed, proofs to be reviewed, manufacturing to be done, etc. During this period, we also do preparation on received merchandise, such as putting pins on backers and individually packaging small merchandise for distribution.

Campaign Fulfillment: one week.

Publication: this doesn’t take more than a few days, but we generally take a few weeks off intentionally; we aim to publish our crowdfunded books roughly six weeks after campaign fulfillment, so that campaign backers get their rewards first and have some time with them before the books are available to the general public and any extra merchandise is offered for sale.

Total: sixteen to twenty months from “okay, let’s plan an anthology” to “okay, put that book in the books.”

Title. We always aim to have a title before going public with a project, as a solid title is part of the hook. While it’s not absolutely necessary, having a title gives a project a certain degree of reality and credibility. It’s hard to convince stakeholders (potential contributors, customers, advertisers, collaborators, etc.) that the person/people putting the project together have really thought things through if the planners can’t even say “I’m working on a project and it’s called This.”

Create Recruitment Guidelines. There are a lot of considerations when figuring out who is contributing to the project, and final decisions will depend on variables such as whether the project is a fan-project or original works, who the target audience is, what contacts the planners have and networking the intend to do, and more. For example, if someone who already is embedded in author communities is planning an anthology, they may be looking at recruiting a handful of high-profile anchor authors from among their known circle of acquaintances and friends-of-friends, or the planner may have enough name recognition to reach out to fellow authors they don’t know and say, “I’m doing this, are you interested?” On the other hand, a fandom project will look toward who is involved in the fandom, and a project planned by relatively unknown people will likely only be able to pull other relatively unknown people to be the creators (though you never know!). Some questions to consider at this stage:

Who will be the creators for the project?

How will they be recruited?

If the project takes applications, how will the final contributor list be selected from among applicants?

If you’re using a rubric like DPP is, you’ll need the rubric written, including leaving enough time for co-runners/other stakeholders to offer feedback to conclude with a tool that everyone can agree on.

Prepare Recruitment Materials. Getting the word out requires at least one catchy graphic and (obviously) you’ll need rules, rules, rules. Check out the rules and guidelines for other similar projects, they’re often a great place to start. Calls for submissions for zine projects, indie publishers, even big presses, can often be found with simple web searches. You’ll also need to figure out where you’re posting these rules – social media? a wiki? a project web page? – and how you’re disseminating these materials, and how you’ll be accepting applications.

Deciding on a recruiting approach may require making new social media accounts, creating a webpage and/or wiki, doing preliminary audience building, researching how certain groups of writers usually find out about projects, outreaching to contacts, recruiting “anchor” creators, etc. There is absolutely no “if you build it, they will come” philosophy applicable to collaborative projects. While sometimes it’s possible to get a leg-up by working in a known fandom or recruiting popular anchor creators, there’s never a guarantee, and having some online presence established before hand will be necessary for most any project. Even a project that’s locally based – for example, “poetry anthology of local poets I recruit with help from the library” – can benefit from an online presence, as it helps establish credibility and gives people a place to get more information.

A strong set of rules should include:

What applicants the project will continue.

What the applicants must submit.

What rules the applicants must follow, and what will happen if they don’t follow them.

What applicants should expect from the post-acceptance process.

How much and how selected contributors will be paid.

Contracts and rights transparency for contributor’s submitted pieces.

Relevant scheduling and deadlines.

How to apply.

Detailed, clear information on what types of stories/art/etc. the project is seeking.

When and from where applicants should expect follow-up communication, and which communication methods they must have access to/must check regularly to ensure smooth communication throughout the project.

Transparency on the selection process.

Information about the entity soliciting the applications.

Recruitment. Once everything is set up, open the flood gates!

Be prepared for people to send in questions, and give clear and consistent answers.

Be prepared for people to ask the same questions eight times, and continue to give clear and consistent answers. Don’t let it get under your skin that you’re repeating yourself. It takes a lot of patience to do this kind of work in a way that doesn’t alienate people. Always remember that while you, as the planner, are neck-deep in this so it seems really big and important, for most people it’ll be one of eleventy billion things they are doing, and they will absolutely miss details.

Be sure you know how you’ll handle people who violate the rules or apply even though they aren’t eligible, because things like this will always happen.

Having some form letters and boilerplate pre-prepared can be helpful for handling the flood of communication that usually comes with a recruitment period.

Contributor Selection. Use whatever evaluation method you’ll be using to select contributors. How you’ll be doing this should be decided when you Prepared Recruitment Materials. This is what Duck Prints Press does:

Check eligibility; contact ineligible authors.

Anonymize eligible applications.

Review all applications using a rubric, minimum three reviewers per submission.

Do statistics to standardize results across reviewers.

Add up and average all standardized reviews.

The top rated people are accepted, because math.

Reviewer meeting to make sure there are no red flags or issues that can be identified at this point, and no one amazing who may be getting overlooked.

Identity “almost” people – people who almost made it but didn’t quite hit the cut off – and invite them to the Discord/encourage them to write with the Press on future projects.

Contact all applicants and send them messages as appropriate, whether that’s rejections, acceptances, conditional invitations, etc.

There are lots of other ways to handle, of course, not just how we do it. Many publishers have dedicated slush readers, for example. Whether selection involves getting full-story submissions, reading similar work the prospective contributors have done, reviewing art portfolios, etc., many variables will influence which selection process makes most sense. Some projects even accept all eligible applicants automatically!

Some venues will offer personalized feedback to accepted and/or non-accepted creators. Doing so is very time-consuming, so try to be realistic in what you’ll have time to do, and also understand that sending people (some of whom may be your friends) negative feedback on their work is really challenging and that some percentage of people will take it badly no matter how kind and gentle you are. Definitely weigh all that while considering who, and how often, to send personalized information.

Contracts. Every single person you work on a for-profit project with (even a for-profit zine) should have a contract. Make sure you use a good one – the sample contracts at SFWA are a good place to start – and make sure creators have time to review them, ask questions, and amend them. Make sure terms are clear and fair. Make sure that creators are working in ways legal for you to hire them (by which I mostly mean that you are working within the bounds of what legally counts as contract work/that contributors count as contractors – link is to US rules, this will vary by country), and that you have the fiscal framework – the necessary accounts and such – to transfer them the money. Pay attention to what countries they’re in, as this may impact hireability. Ideally, get a lawyer and a CPA involved.

Put Together the Anthology. With all the pre-production steps completed, you’re now finally at the fun part – actually putting together a book! Now, because Duck Prints Press doesn’t just accept stories, we diverge from a lot of other places at this stage. For the majority of anthology folks, this is the step where they take completed stories, edit them, and make them into an anthology, wham bam thank you ma’am. For us, this is the stage where the bulk of the work begins. Here’s what we do:

Writing Period. As we accept pitches/story concepts, once creators are accepted, they need to Make The Thing. During this period, which lasts two months as we currently handle scheduling, we have one mid-way check-in and one final check-in. We look over the mid-way check-ins to make sure nothing has gone radically off the rails (it rarely has) and the final check-in is when we ask contributors to submit their stories to the best of their ability. Because DPP deliberately is structured to accommodate people who may, for any number of reasons, have challenges meeting deadlines (family concerns, ADHD, unpredictable physical disabilities, etc., etc.), we don’t necessarily penalize people for missing these deadlines, as long as communication is maintained.

Editing Period. Once the final check-ins are submitted, we enter into an extended six-month editing period. Because we can’t possibly edit everything we receive at once, this long period means that creators who need more time have it, and we can get started immediately on the stories that are ready for review. For each of our anthologies, we have a team of editors we’ve recruited in the past from among previous contributors (how we do that is a topic for a whole other blog post), and that team divides the work and then, when each story is ready, they get passed to the lead editor (that’d be me) for the final review. Our editing steps are:

Concept Editing: review the work for issues at the paragraph-or-higher level. We do no sentence-level or spelling/punctuation/grammar (SPAG) edits at this stage, we only look for conceptual issues that’ll require rewriting of part of the story to fix. Roughly half the stories submitted to us do not need concept editing, and most of the rest don’t require much.

SPAG Editing: once the story is clear, conceptually, and contains everything it needs to effectively tell the author’s envisioned story, we get nuts-and-bolts on line edits. We may need several rounds of SPAG editing to get the manuscript fully polished and gleaming.

Final Editing: the story is passed to the lead editor (always me, so far) for final review.

Art Projects. When we include art, the process is a bit different. Artists usually need less time to complete their work, and because art has far fewer rules than fiction, we do not edit artworks for “content.” We do, however, do a review process to make sure that we think the colors will print true and that all technical specifications for printing are being met, such as size, bleed, etc.

Determine the Book’s Technical Specifications: To proceed with putting the book together, you’ll need to know it’s technical specifications. Some of this should have been considered during the earlier budgeting phase, but now that the actual anthology is taking shape with actual stories, it’s time to make the final decisions and stick with them. Some questions to consider at this point:

Will the book be printed?

What e-book formats will the book be produced in?

For printed books:

What size will the book be?

Will it be printed in color?

What kinds of paper will you be using?

Will the book have special features?

Softcover or hard cover?

This is a good step to start considering which printer you want to use and to get samples. What features the book will have has to go hand-in-hand in picking a printer: you need to know what features you want and then find a printer that provides them, and then you need to consider your printer options and get samples to pick which best suits your needs. For what it’s worth, Duck Prints Press currently uses Booklogix to print our books, and we do print-on-demand through draft2digital (which is Ingram distribution with a different hat). We make our own e-books, and distribute them with Ingram.

Cover Art. When basic technical specifications for the physical book or e-book have been established, it’s time to pick art. For e-book-only projects, following the guidelines given in something like the Smashwords Style Guide is a solid approach, as those are fairly universal. For a physical book, this is also when to decide what style of cover one wants, if there’ll be an artist hired, if the art is wrap around, how any text on the cover will be presented, etc. Don’t use genAI. It makes you look like a hack.

Merchandise. Obviously, many projects won’t be accompanied merchandise, but if you intend to make any merch, now is a good time to sort that out. Decide what, if any, non-book stuff you’ll be making, figure out what art is going on that stuff, and work out the cost and logistics of making it. Our full process for merch is really outside the scope of this blog post, but as a few references that might be helpful to folks, here are the vendors I’m currently using/have used and would use again if appropriate to the project:

Alchemy: we do all our enamel-ware with Alchemy. We’ve also done woven patches and custom fans.

AnyPromo and 4Imprint: both sources for more “general” merch, the sort you’d expect at, I don’t know, a corporate retreat – logoed shirts and water bottles and pens and the like. I’ve done a couple products with each.

Bookplate Ink: custom bookplates

EmpowerFantasy Plush: custom plushies!

Maryland China: did lovely custom-imprinted teaware for one of our projects.

Printkeg: a good source for paper goods, and I’ve also gotten banners from them.

Speculative Wicktion: custom candles! We’ve worked with him twice.

UPrinting: we do most of our paper goods with them, currently including bookmarks, note cards, postcards, and more.

Vistaprint: yet another good source for paper goods, though I’ve personally only used them for business cards.

Vograce: a popular fandom choice for a lot of merch. We’ve done stickers, magnets, acrylic key chains, lanyards, and more with them.

Papermart: not a merch vendor – this is my preferred packaging material vendor at the moment.

Whatever you order and wherever you order it from, make sure you get at least digital proofs and ideally physical ones, and fight for your right to the best they can make. Check reviews before you pick, and get samples if you can!

Typesetting. The cover and the interior of the book will look best if they have coordinate fonts and styles, so as the cover art comes together, it’s also good to considering how the interior of the book will look. If graphics or vectors are needed, make sure that all necessary licenses are appropriate for the project, or hire artists. At this point, you’ll also want to:

Figure out work order. I usually do this randomly and then tweak it a little. Other people do it meticulously. It’s up to you.

Front and back matter. Copyright notice, creator bios, table of contents, index, etc.

Assemble the entire manuscript. Depending on what format(s) are being made, what this will look like will vary – what’s necessary to prepare for print isn’t the same as what’s necessary to prepare for a PDF and neither is the same as what is necessary for an ePub.

Finalize all exterior and interior art.

Finalizing the cover will involve getting the blurb together as well.

Budget Redux. If the budget hasn’t already been updated since the initial tentative budget you made early in the project, this is a good time to do so. That initial tentative budget is now months old and out-of-date and unexpected expenses always come up. I usually maintain sheets with project expenses, actual earnings/sales, and actual expenditures. Keep your vendor list handy, and remember that economies of scale are your friend – ordering more will virtually always mean your per-unit cost is lower – but also remember that anything you have left over, you’ll need to do something with (store, sell, vend, dump (DON’T DUMP), whatever it is, you’ll have to deal with it).

Prepare to Sell the Book. Sales approaches will look very differentldepending on how the book is being sold. A more traditional sales model might mean making a listing for the book on Ingram Spark or draft2digital or a similar platform and opening pre-sales. For Duck Prints Press, selling books usually means crowdfunding. Getting into the nuts and bolts of a crowdfunding campaign is a whole other can of worms and outside the scope of this already over-length blog post, but needless to say, if the lead editor/project organizer is also responsible for the “actually selling the book” part, while wrapping up all the above is the moment to get on that, especially once the cover is complete and ready to be shared. Some places even open pre-orders sooner than that, with a temporary “front cover pending” graphic.

Last Checks. Before the book goes “live” in whatever way that’s happening (privately funded advance print run, print-on-demand, warehousing, whatever), I always take a a day or three before releasing a book into the wild and look over absolutely everything, all the aspects of the typeset, ever word of every single page from the text on the cover to the “About” page and the back blurb, and make sure I haven’t missed anything. I personally tend to think we’re “ready” if the average rate I spot errors at this stage is under 1 error per page. One-per-page would be too much for actually going to print, but those are the ones I’m fixing in the last read-through, and if I’m finding that few, even fewer will slip by my in the end.

Get a Physical Proof of Your Print Book. I know it’s expensive. I know it adds time to fulfillment. I know, I know. But you never know how wrong things can go until you’ve actually seen how wrong they can go. Review the proof carefully and fix anything that needs to be fixed before any books go out to backers/buyers! E-book distributors will often have a version of a proof too; if you’re able to review something before it officially goes to customers, do so. The time to find out that something has gone wrong is BEFORE any customers have it, not when you get a pile of complaints.

Hope like heck that everything is good ’cause that was it, that was the last chance.

Books! You have books! This may mean a shipment of your prints arrives on your, or may mean launch day comes on Ingram Spark or wherever you’re getting distribution from sends it out, or that all your zine pieces are ready to go, or any of a number of other end points depending on the nature of the project, but regardless…

Congratulations, you have a book!!

Pay Absolutely Everyone. When you pay contributors, vendors, artists, editors, and everyone else involved, will depend on how you’re raising money and the terms of your contracts. Regardless, when the moment comes, pay everyone promptly. The lead editor, the person in charge of the project, gets their cut last. For me, that means that across all these projects, I’ve never taken a paycheck (I’m going to take my first this month and I’m very excited even though it’s very little money). I never said this was a lucrative job. If you want piles of cash, don’t publish books. But truly, the most important thing about this kind of work is to be a person of your word, which means making sure customers get exactly what they paid for, and making sure contributors and vendors get exactly what they’re owed. A project that fails at these two key points has failed, so do your best!

Anyway, this is an overview of a huge process and even as an overview this blog post is 5,000 words long. I focused on the planning parts, as a strong, solid, well-thought-out plan is the foundation on which a successful, satisfying project is built.

Drilling down into the actual implementation of any of these steps is a topic for future posts. If there’s an area you want to know more about, drop me an ask!

[zarvasace]

Unofficial LU Fanzine: call for mods!

Hey everyone! The interest check (at this post) was a success—we got a whole 78 responses, which is actually way more than I expected! However, that IS more people than I can handle on my own, and from my experience, making decisions for stuff like this is easier with a small group of people with an aligned vision.

So, before we announce any final themes, specs, or timelines, I would like to gather a small team to work with on this! I have three main requirements: 18+, comfortable using discord, and trustworthy through the project's duration (likely about 1 year). Previous experience with zines/fan events, and familiarity with the fandom, is a plus but not a requirement. I've come up with a list of roles that I'd need help filling and a tentative scope of time, which you can find after the cut, along with the link to the form.

Please apply if you're interested! The more mods we have, the more contributors we can have, too, and the better this project will be. :)

This form is open until Wednesday, May 15th, 2024.

My Core Vision:

I want to put together a Linked Universe-themed physical book that contains passionate examples of art and writing and other crafts from the community, along with a PDF version of the same, all offered at a price designed to reach as many people as possible and potentially donate to a charity. The intention is to have preorders open in late 2024 or early 2025.

Roles I need filled:

Social presence/marketing manager (Will put together posts, graphics, tags, and schedule.)

Finances manager (I'm a bit lost on this.)

People manager (To help send emails and manage customer service issues.)

Group mom/creative partner (To fill in the gaps we find, and help me make some decisions.)

Process:

You send in your answer to the form. This form will accept responses until May 15, 2024, about two weeks.

I'll review responses and reach out to everyone who responded with either an acceptance or rejection. There's no specific rubric for this, I admit. I will look at concrete qualifications and try to pick people who work well together and with me. :)

I'll ask for an acceptance response from those I want to gather!

We gather in a discord server! My plan is to have a list of things to discuss and decide professionally, but hopefully friendly too.

Using the power of teamwork, we come up with details for the rest of the zine and announce it formally!

I do ask for a bit of personal information on this form (if you're over 18, time zone, etc.) All of the information here will stay private. I am not associated with any official LU channels. I am not in the discord server. You can DM me with more specific questions or concerns. :)

[eliasericson]

I will be selling prints, books and fanzines at Fijuk Marknad again! My very first screen print will be for sale, along with some fanzines, prints and Diana & Charlie books in Swedish, French and Spansh. Take a break from the intensity of the Gothenburg book fair and visit this cozy art market!!

Longest night, Dagjämningsgatan 14, Gothenburg Closest tram stop: Kortedala torg Saturday September 30th, 3 PM - 6 PM

See you there! <3

[rosethornewrites]

T & G reading since 7/25

Finished

Teen:

Fact Check (出面辟谣, 以正视听), by dragongirlG (🔒)

出面辟谣, 以正视听: to come forth and refute rumors so that the truth may be revealed

In an effort to preserve Wei Wuxian's reputation, Lan Wangji writes pointed reviews of shoddy cultivation tools which use the Yiling Laozu's name for marketing.

Written for Bearer of Light: a Lan Wangji fanzine.

A tapestry of us, by jalpari

Lan Wangji and Sizhui, through different eyes over the years.

Good Fortune Lies Within Bad, by ereshai

Whatever had happened must have been recent - the child, who they had discovered crying all alone outside the house, was scared and probably hungry, but otherwise unhurt.

Crimson leaves, by barisan (3 chapters)

There is a world where Wei Wuxian could not take another word of slander towards a mother whose smile he couldn’t even remember, a father whose embrace he couldn’t recall the warmth of.

A world where he could not take another beating, another misplaced punishment, another thoughtless insult.

Perhaps he grows tired of fooling himself into thinking that he has a place in Lotus Pier.

That he belongs.

That he is wanted.

Loved.

A Better Lie, by nirejseki

Wait.

This wasn't the Lan sect, with all its strict rules and stricter morality.

This was the Nie.

(Meng Yao identifies an opportunity.)

Descent, by nirejseki

Lan Qiren was old. Lan Qiren was tired.

General:

tiny gentians, by humancorn

Lan Wangji scolds five year old Wei Wuxian and deals with the consequences.

Taking Responsibility, by bavariansugarcookie

Lan Zhan is doing his best to ignore Wei Ying while he's supervising Wei Ying's punishment in the library - but even Lan Zhan's patience isn't infinite.

Or what would happen if Lan Zhan kissed Wei Ying in the Gusu Lan library.

Unfinished

Teen:

A Fire in Your Heart, by Whichie

Cangse Sanren was wild and untamable, playfull and carefree, a kitsune down to her very core. Her son was no different.

Wei Wuxian was not meant to be caged, but when Madam Yu locked his kitsune nature inside himself, he found out quickly that the world will never want someone like him. Better to hide away. Better to pretend to be a normal human than face the consequences of being a fox spirit among cultivators trained to take you out.

That is, until he goes to Gusulan for the lectures, and finds someone who sees past every twisted chain.

A Songbird at Dawn, by mondengel (🔒)

At a discussion conference, Wen Ruohan discovers something he hadn't known he'd lost. As it happens, being a grandfather suits him rather well.

General:

but I figured it out, then made my way back, by MichelleFeather

It was an extreme, a desperate decision fueled by anger towards the entire cultivation world, a grief deeper than the deepest trenches in the ocean. The realization that Lan Wangji would now have to continue on living a second time without his beloved, where Wei Wuxian had died once again. Where, once more, his love had been taken from him by cruel, unrighteous men who thought they knew better, that they were doing the world a justice.

Lan Qiren had seen the state that his nephew had been in after Wei Wuxian’s first death, what Lan Wangji had done in his grief then, and he feared what Lan Wangji would do to himself if he was left alone with this repeated grief.

I Have Arranged to Tie You to Me, by xxxMiaHikarixxx

Lan Wangji is bedridden after receiving the thirty-three strikes as his punishment. He has just been informed of Wei Ying's death. He is convinced he'll never see his beloved again and his soul mourns the loss of him. But something happens in the Jingshi that forces Lan Wangji back to the past, almost three years before Wei Ying visits Cloud Recesses. Lan Wangji is determined to change the past and make sure his beloved is safe and treated with the respect he deserves this time.

[frozen10fanzine]

Meet the members of the Water Has Memory team! First up:

PR Ambassador @bigfrozenfan

Illustration by @magentacravat

“I joined the Water Has Memory team on 17 October 2023 and was chosen to be in charge of our marketing, i.e. I was responsible for advertising and sharing our posts on other fan platforms. After some designs and discussions, I created most of the ‘WE WANT YOU’ posters on Arendelle's stationery, first with Uncle Sam and later with Frozen characters. I also created the mood boards for each year.

It was great fun being part of the team and helping to plan everything. Since I've been a big Frozen fan for years, it was something special for me to help put together a fanzine on the occasion of Frozen's 10th anniversary.”

Stay Tuned For More

❄️

Email: frozen10fans@gmail.com Tumblr: frozen10fanzine.tumblr.com TikTok: @water.has.memory