MediaWestCon

[Aquarius]

Just got back from MediaWestCon in Lansing yesterday and had a great time. It's not a big pro con with pro dealers or anything like that; it's a smaller fan-driven con where the panel subjects are determined by the attendees and most of the dealers are either selling zines or making money off their hobbies or whatever.

We debuted our Shipped First Class zine there and it was a huge success. We almost sold out our print run, and it was met with much enthusiasm. Though two of the editorial staff have published zines before, this was our first effort as a group, and it was so validating to hear that we knocked one right out of the park on our first try! We still have a couple left, so if anyone's interested, let me know.

I was pretty busy while I was there. I moderated something like four panels, and the rest of the time I was riding our dealer's table. When the dealer's room closed, we stayed up until what my friend Skye calls "stupid o'clock in the morning" and hung out and had cocktails with people and stuff. Big Ridiculous Fun!

Oh, and I absolutely fell in LOVE with the Mexican restaurant down the street from the hotel. It reminded me of this place my mom and I went to in Roswell, NM. The food was good, and they had pineapple chimichangas!! YUMMY!!

I can't believe it's over and I miss my friends because this is the only time I see this particular group, but it's also good to sleep in my own bed and snuggle my kitties now that I'm home.

[WarpGirl]

I am slightly confused how can you sell a fan magazine if Fanfic has to be non-profit? OK I bet it's the absolute most stupid question I can ask but my dad is always saying... "You post stories on the net and you don't get paid! That's a waste." So just so I can get dad's voice out of my head please explain. Oh and what are you trying to do torture me? This NY girl can't get good Mexican food down south!!!

[Aquarius]

Just because you're charging money for a zine it doesn't mean you're making a profit. We charge what we need to cover our expenses, nothing more. This is how fanfic and fanart got shared in the old days before the internet, and zine culture is still alive and well.

And remember, just because it's on the internet, it isn't "free." SOMEONE is paying for the web space it's on, whether it be a private individual like Elessar, or like my SW forum that's advertiser-supported...not to mention that most people pay for their web access as well. I am constantly baffled at the common misconception that it's somehow "more" illegal to print it on paper... Generally these days most Powers That Be don't mess with fans who write fic, whether they publish on the web or in a printed zine, even if it's merely for the reason of not wanting the bad press that comes from harshing on an enthused fan. George Lucas learned that the hard way after his Witch Hunts in the 90s--and those were mostly internet publishers he went after then.

Trek, conversely, has always been very fan-friendly, and the House of Roddenberry was always encouraging the zine writers, because they understood that this keeps fans enthused, and enthused fans make them more money. In fact, many Trek profic writers started out as fanzine writers. I just saw one of Jean Lorrah's early fan works in a used zine box for $1.00. Jean herself moderated a panel with my friend Sue on Saturday.

[WarpGirl]

Oh cool sorry child of the eightes just when PC's started to pour into every home. I don't remember not using a computer, and yet I still feel old. Huh? Thanks for the education and hey we can all use extra cash right!

[Aquarius]

Well, that's the thing, though: there IS NO "extra cash." Usually you're lucky if you break even, and breaking even is the goal, nothing beyond that. Remember, it has to stay non-profit. You run it like a business and track your every expense, be it flyers for promotion, postage, whatever--and then there's the printing costs themselves, and the free copies you give out to contributors, etc. So you factor all that in and figure out what you need to charge per copy to make all your money back. Most zines operate at a loss because they don't sell through their print runs. We're pretty close to breaking even because we only have a few left, so if we can get rid of those, then the publishers get their hard-earned money back. I repeat, no one is making any money off of this; it's just as much a labor of love alone as internet publishing is. The difference is, we pass on the publishing costs to the reader.

[pookha]

different studioes actually have different policies on how they see things like fan fiction in fanzines ect..
except for a small period paramount was far more laid back then a lot of the other studios.
they mostly had people who saw it as a way of keeping the franchise alive.

really it could be argued that the popularity of fan fiction in the fanzines along with blish adaptations along with the growing popularity of the cons paved the way for trek lit.

heck one of the first things published was a collection of fan fiction.

[WarpGirl]

I'm sorry I didn't get it, chalk it up to my being sick. Still I'm glad it was such a success.

[Aquarius]

different studioes actually have different policies on how they see things like fan fiction in fanzines ect..

This is true, and we even had a panel about this at the con. Different studios do have different policies, however not too many hunt writers and publishers down with cease and desist orders any more. Generally you find the most anti-fanfic hostility from literary authors; Anne Rice, for example, is categorically against it and is more than happy to send a lawyer after you and has done it before, whether you're profiting from using her characters or not.

On the other hand, you've got writers and producers like Joss Whedon who think fanfic is one of the greatest things in the world because it keeps the fans excited. In fact, if you check out the Buffy communities at fanfiction.net, look at the ads and you'll see that he has gone so far as to advertise his Buffy Season Eight comics there--because he knows that people who go there to read and write Buffy's continuing adventures are also very likely to spend money on his comic books.

In general, people like Anne Rice are the exception. George Lucas was going after people with cease and desist orders like crazy in the 90s, but after realizing a couple of things like A) the people he was suing didn't have any money so there was financially no point to it, and B) the bad press and word of mouth among fans hurt more than it helped anything, he finally got a clue and backed off. Regardless of individual studios' policies, mostly they realize that it isn't worth it to bug us, and would only really launch a serious investigation if they thought money was being made. Zines have been around since the 1930s, so by now most of those studios understand how the whole thing works, and that fandom is generally pretty good at policing itself when it comes to this sort of thing. Think about it: in retail, in order to be "profitable", things are usually marked up around 100%, right? Well, no one is going to buy a zine for $50-$75; such a price point is way beyond what the average fan can afford in the first place, and higher prices also create the suspicion that a profit is somehow being made, at which point the fans take it upon themselves to dig up the necessary dirt and if they come to the conclusion that the dealer or publisher is being dishonest and ripping people off and profiting from the zne, they'll pretty much never sell another zine again because their reputations will be ruined and word will get around to never buy this person's work again. It's happened, but not recently, because of the few who had been made an example of by their peers.

[Alelou]

I don't know how it is anymore, but at Prentice Hall we wanted to be able to price a book a five times the unit cost on first editions and seven times the unit cost on reprints. That covered the cost of producing the book, paying the author royalties, our own sales and operations, plus a profit to return to the shareholders. If we couldn't make the P&L work out to a reasonable price on a book for the volume of sales we could reasonably expect, it just didn't get published. Of course, many books never made their projected sales, but others did better than expected. You just hoped it would work out profitable in the end and it usually did. But ultimately, for that division, the profit and growth numbers just weren't exciting enough for Wall Street, which wanted sexy double digits, and so the big shots at the top shut it down. They weren't satisfied with a steady 7 or 8% profit from a mature business.

I sure as hell wouldn't mind just making 7 or 8% a year.

[Linda]

Fanzine world, what a fascinating culture! Although I am old enough to have watched TOS in the 1960's I didn't get involved in fandom until VOY came along. I missed a lot of fan cultural history! After the turn of the century (20th to 21st, not 19th to 20th - I'm not THAT old, LOL), I started going to a couple of cons a year. But I didn't know the fanzines were still being produced. A lot of work, I would think. It's great they are still around. Thanks, Aquarius!

[Aquarius]

You're welcome, Linda.

It IS a lot of work...but in the hands of editors and publishers who care, the argument can be made that the zine itself is a work of art. The five of us literally went through painstaking means to craft this thing--this wasn't something we just typed up and ran off at the self-serve copier at the Kinko's. Every story was edited until it was the best it could be. We solicited art from talented people in fandom--no photomanips, it's all hand-drawn illustrations. Our art director, Laura, was the winner of the 2007 Best In Show at Media West's art show, and she did a hell of a job on our layout. Maybe it's bragging, but our premiere effort looked better than some zines I've seen that have been published by people with over ten years of experience. It was really validating to have random strangers come up to us and ask when the next one was coming out because they already stayed up all night reading the first one and want more. THAT'S why so many of us in the zine culture still do it, lol.

[WarpGirl]

WOW Where do you get the time?

[Aquarius]

Well, it isn't easy. It helps that there's five of us editors--one art director and the rest of us focus on the literature. One of the lit editors is also an artist, so she's Laura's de facto backup when needed, too.

The first issue was a learning process, and it was over a year and a half in the making. We hope to get the next one done in a much more reasonable timetable than that.

Right now, my editorial duties are focusing on getting the last copies sold, soliciting stories and art for the next issue, and finishing my own offerings for Volume Two.

[Alelou]

Maybe you should post that link again, in the interest of selling those remaining copies.

[Aquarius]

It's in my sig.