Think-y things about zines and fic and all
Thursday, 26 February 2009 10:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
byslantedlightWandering around lj as you do, I came across some interesting discussions/thoughts about zines and fic and different types of access to such things, and I'm all curious now about what Pros-y people think about them, so... I thought I'd post here! Plus, coffee-break! Plus, I'm in a very think-y Pros-y mood this week, what with all the brilliant discussions etc going on at the moment. So here's another one! *g*
There's a poll here, which asks an interesting question: If I was to take all my fanfic off the internet, and offer it in downloadable e-zine form instead, available for $20 (US$ I presume, so about £14 at today's exchange rate) - would you buy it?. It's not specific to the poll-er, it's a hypothetical question - if people did that, would other people spend money on it?
There actually are sites offering downloadable Prosfic zines, which is all fab and good because I love the Oblique zines that are available online to print if I want, and I like having the Dialj Bound zines on my shelves ready to pull off and read while curled up in bed (little bairns that they are... *g*), but other people are charging money for downloadable zines (you have to click on "The Professionals" in the sidebar to see the Pros zines in question - some are downloadable, some aren't), which strikes me as a little different to selling/"distributing" paper zines, because there's presumably no overhead to letting people download a zine - at least no more than anyone else in Pros/fandom pays for their internet connections... *g* So where does that US$8.00 go? What are people actually paying that distributor for doing? Cos isn't the whole point that distributors of fandom don't actually make any profit from it, cos that would be illegal? Do the authors see any of that money? Artists? Wouldn't that be illegal too? Isn't it going against the whole spirit of fandom for distributors/publishers/authors etc to do that?
I can go with the idea that paper zine publishers are paying for printing etc costs (although... well, never mind that now, it's a whole other controversial discussion!) and that it would cost someone to print out a zine, and besides it's fab to have the cover and the art and the binding, and that's what the publisher has done for us - put it all together (presumably they don't get paid for this bit, that's fannish love like the rest of us) and had it printed and bound (the bit that they have to pay a professional printer for and thus are charging us for). But putting a fic/zine up online, which alot of people do for free - why are they charging for that? And in the case that I've linked to above, I don't believe that you can print off the e-zine even if you do pay for it, because they're security protected only to be available on screen. So..?
I dunno - what do other people think of this? Is there a difference between distributing things via paper publication and via e-fic publication? How are the authors affected by this (are any of you reading this? *g*)? I know there's at least one zine being sold at that website that I've hoped might "time out" and come online one day, because I really can't afford full-priced zines very often, but if it's now available for download, then will that ever happen? Did the authors give permission for their zines to be sold as downloads? What's going on..?
Obviously this must be happening in a much broader context in other fandoms, people charging money for downloadable fic, or else the poll presumably wouldn't have arisen, but... is this really the next trend? Just a glitch? Do people think it's okay?
And I know this is all a bit meta, so I'm pressing Post with due trepidation since I'm not locking this yet, but... I am curious about what people think in general...
There's a poll here, which asks an interesting question: If I was to take all my fanfic off the internet, and offer it in downloadable e-zine form instead, available for $20 (US$ I presume, so about £14 at today's exchange rate) - would you buy it?. It's not specific to the poll-er, it's a hypothetical question - if people did that, would other people spend money on it?
There actually are sites offering downloadable Prosfic zines, which is all fab and good because I love the Oblique zines that are available online to print if I want, and I like having the Dialj Bound zines on my shelves ready to pull off and read while curled up in bed (little bairns that they are... *g*), but other people are charging money for downloadable zines (you have to click on "The Professionals" in the sidebar to see the Pros zines in question - some are downloadable, some aren't), which strikes me as a little different to selling/"distributing" paper zines, because there's presumably no overhead to letting people download a zine - at least no more than anyone else in Pros/fandom pays for their internet connections... *g* So where does that US$8.00 go? What are people actually paying that distributor for doing? Cos isn't the whole point that distributors of fandom don't actually make any profit from it, cos that would be illegal? Do the authors see any of that money? Artists? Wouldn't that be illegal too? Isn't it going against the whole spirit of fandom for distributors/publishers/authors etc to do that?
I can go with the idea that paper zine publishers are paying for printing etc costs (although... well, never mind that now, it's a whole other controversial discussion!) and that it would cost someone to print out a zine, and besides it's fab to have the cover and the art and the binding, and that's what the publisher has done for us - put it all together (presumably they don't get paid for this bit, that's fannish love like the rest of us) and had it printed and bound (the bit that they have to pay a professional printer for and thus are charging us for). But putting a fic/zine up online, which alot of people do for free - why are they charging for that? And in the case that I've linked to above, I don't believe that you can print off the e-zine even if you do pay for it, because they're security protected only to be available on screen. So..?
I dunno - what do other people think of this? Is there a difference between distributing things via paper publication and via e-fic publication? How are the authors affected by this (are any of you reading this? *g*)? I know there's at least one zine being sold at that website that I've hoped might "time out" and come online one day, because I really can't afford full-priced zines very often, but if it's now available for download, then will that ever happen? Did the authors give permission for their zines to be sold as downloads? What's going on..?
Obviously this must be happening in a much broader context in other fandoms, people charging money for downloadable fic, or else the poll presumably wouldn't have arisen, but... is this really the next trend? Just a glitch? Do people think it's okay?
And I know this is all a bit meta, so I'm pressing Post with due trepidation since I'm not locking this yet, but... I am curious about what people think in general...
no subject
Date: Thursday, 26 February 2009 01:33 pm (UTC)Ahem, you can - it´s all a matter of certain (legal) programmes. Just because Adobe delivers a copy protection for their product doesn´t mean you can´t cancel it.
As to buying zines and coming from a fandom who basically exists without paper zines (the few available are mostly online by now) I swore to myself that I would never buy a zine, ever. Coming to Pros I had to revise that as I got hooked on Kate McLeans stories. I bought and borrowed all zines with her stories, because I HAD to read them (or go insane). She´s the only writer from whom I´d buy a zine at the moment though.
I hope that was on topic ;).
no subject
Date: Thursday, 26 February 2009 08:54 pm (UTC)See, Kate MacLean isn't an author who's online though - I think she's got one story online, and she's chosen not to go in that direction, and I don't have a problem with that.
I adore paper zines, and although I frown at what's charged for some of them, I do and have and will buy them - because I much prefer to read from paper. I won't buy from zine sellers who seem to be charging very high prices though...
So... what about paying approx £15.00 (based on the price of another novel-length e-zine being sold) for a novel-length fanfic that isn't available any other way? Would it depend on who it was by? What about the whole copyright issue, and the idea that fanfic is morally supposed to be available for free/without profit (because otherwise royalties should be due to the original creator of the character/series)?
no subject
Date: Thursday, 26 February 2009 10:11 pm (UTC)Gonna email you tomorrow about it, promised!
See, Kate MacLean isn't an author who's online though - I think she's got one story online, and she's chosen not to go in that direction, and I don't have a problem with that.
I hope no X Filer reads this, but I believe Kate is better than anyone I have ever read in either fandom. Her writing is simply outstanding, thought-through and clever. And what´s most impressive is that she manages to keep you on the edge of your seat from the beginning till the end. And that´s what makes a good storyteller. And the emotions - she lets you feel deeply with Bodie and Doyle and you can´t help but getting sucked into her created story universe. So yes, her stories are worth buying for me!
So... what about paying approx £15.00 (based on the price of another novel-length e-zine being sold) for a novel-length fanfic that isn't available any other way? Would it depend on who it was by? What about the whole copyright issue, and the idea that fanfic is morally supposed to be available for free/without profit (because otherwise royalties should be due to the original creator of the character/series)?
Hmmm... can´t go to bed without answering your questions first or I´ll be thinking about them when I actually should be sleeping :-). As my preferred kind of stories revolve around h/c, physically and/or emotionally there are certain authors who repeatedly if not constantly write this kind of stories, see Kate McLean. Now if a zine would contain a certain theme like h/c I would be very tempted to buy it, no doubt about that. But as I have literally dozens of zines standing in my shelf right now I know that they are usually not about a theme, not even always slash only. So that won´t work.
The second way for me would be if a preferred author fills a zine all alone with their story/or stories. Kate McLean comes to mind again, although I found some good authors in zines lately like Maiden Wyoming (and I don´t mean her novellength zine as AUs don´t work for me) but her other, much shorter stuff.
So yes, if I want a zine I´ll pay the price, but there´s really, really hardly anything that could tempt me right now. And like I said earlier I am used to free online reading and that makes it hard for me to accept that some people don´t like to see their stories online/or want to make money off them via paper zines.
And still I believe everyone should do what they see fit. It´s also very much a fandom thing. The older fandoms couldn´t exist without zines, whereas the newer ones founded in the internet era went almost completely online right from the start. So if you would ask my fellow X Filers about fanfic and if it should be available for free they would say "of course, what else!"
no subject
Date: Friday, 27 February 2009 12:42 pm (UTC)But e-zines seem to me to be completely different to print zines. The only reason I can see to charge money for them, is to make a profit from them, which is something that fandom traditionally doesn't do. For me fandom is all about sharing what we enjoy and love, and I adore that part of it - so much nicer than the commercialised "real world"! Oh, actually another suggested reason for charging for e-zines is to subsidise the print zines, but that doesn't seem fair to me...
And of course it's all about people doing what they see fit - like anything else, if people don't like it, they won't support it, and hopefully it will vanish (although that's not always the case with things, unfortunately...) I just wondered what people thought of the new trend... *g* Oh, and I completely agree with you about Kate MacLean! *vbg*
no subject
Date: Friday, 27 February 2009 10:40 pm (UTC)For me zine distributing is money making and this is not something I support when in other fandoms I can get ALL the stories online for free.
no subject
Date: Monday, 2 March 2009 09:15 pm (UTC)Hmmn - for me there's a big difference between printed zines and e-zines, because the former began (as you said) when that was the best way to share stories, and they were about sharing - ultimately that's where online fandom came from, really. And e-zines could be wonderful - like the Oblique zines, nicely laid out and ready for printing if you want that, and not if you don't - or else just nicely laid out specific collections of stories - either novels, or anthologies of various types. But it seems to me that this practice of paying for e-zines takes the worst of both worlds - the exclusivity of zines to people who can afford them (then as well as now, really) as well as the fact that they're profit-making rather than shared-for-cost...
in other fandoms I can get ALL the stories online for free
Hmmn - so there are no X-Files stories in zines? Or if there are, they're also online?
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 3 March 2009 11:46 am (UTC)There are a handful zines, mostly published around the Millennium or earlier and I believe most of the stories have long gone online. I too own two or three XF zines I swapped for something else, but they were written by mostly unknown people. The best writers usually didn´t participate in zines.
So I probably exaggerated with ALL of the stories being online, but it´s certainly 99,9 % of them ;).
Btw, do you know where to swap zines? I´d like to get rid of my XF ones and get some Pros instead.
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 3 March 2009 12:41 pm (UTC)Ah, I'd say it was the other way around in Pros, probably because of it's origins and history - some of the best writers are exclusively in zines, even some who write now...
You could always just ask on your flist, or at Safehouse or CI5hq if anyone would like to swap... There's a couple of Yahoo Groups, although I've not read them for ages so I'm not sure how they're currently operating. One is SlashSwap and the other is Zinelist, which both are multifandom. Hope those links work, I can never seem to find Yahoo groups just by searching for them... They're members only, of course...
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 3 March 2009 12:49 pm (UTC)