Don't Buy the Zines!
Saturday, 14 March 2009 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Can I just say - gaaaaaah!
Have just been wandering around on Ebay and found some of the most blatant rip-off prices for Pros zines that I have ever seen - please, please please don't pay these prices for zines, especially ones that are still in print!
Links are not to the ebay seller, but...
The Peerless Pair - a fab AU historical zine by HG - is being sold for US$50.00 +p&p. It's available for half that price, brand new, from the publisher! That's being sold by someone called bandit2142 - he's always been overpriced, he's a dealer, and he's totally making money from HG's writing here. Making a profit from someone else's hard work and generously given effort! Leech!
In the Public Interest III is being sold by "Doctor Beth2000" for - wait for this - US$100.00 +p&p! Three of the stories are available in the archives - and I bet the other two are on the UK paper circuit.
Where do these people get off charging prices like that? They're blatantly making money from fic that was given freely to fandom - bastards!
Another one - Bene Dictum: A Dickensian Christmas can be downloaded for free at the publisher's own website - printed off in exactly the zine format, and comb bound yourself if you want it - "DoctorBeth2000" wants US$45.00 for it! The stories are also available for free online at the Circuit, Hatstand and on the ProsLib CD! Gaaaaaargh! I've seen her around ever since I was in Pros, and always overpriced too. I hear that she claims to be selling off her own zine collection - at the risk of sounding cycnical, yeah, right...
You know I love zines - I adore zines, proper paper stories, so much more than reading from the internet and my computer screen, but... please, please, please don't be ripped off by these people! You can defend capitalism all you want to me, and tell me that people won't pay it if they don't want it, and if they do then that's a fair price, but... no. Selling fanfic like that, blatantly making a profit from selling other people's writing when those authors were careful enough to fly under the fandom radar themselves? Just... no!
Grr.
Now back to writing. Which will always be free to Pros fans! *g*
Have just been wandering around on Ebay and found some of the most blatant rip-off prices for Pros zines that I have ever seen - please, please please don't pay these prices for zines, especially ones that are still in print!
Links are not to the ebay seller, but...
The Peerless Pair - a fab AU historical zine by HG - is being sold for US$50.00 +p&p. It's available for half that price, brand new, from the publisher! That's being sold by someone called bandit2142 - he's always been overpriced, he's a dealer, and he's totally making money from HG's writing here. Making a profit from someone else's hard work and generously given effort! Leech!
In the Public Interest III is being sold by "Doctor Beth2000" for - wait for this - US$100.00 +p&p! Three of the stories are available in the archives - and I bet the other two are on the UK paper circuit.
Where do these people get off charging prices like that? They're blatantly making money from fic that was given freely to fandom - bastards!
Another one - Bene Dictum: A Dickensian Christmas can be downloaded for free at the publisher's own website - printed off in exactly the zine format, and comb bound yourself if you want it - "DoctorBeth2000" wants US$45.00 for it! The stories are also available for free online at the Circuit, Hatstand and on the ProsLib CD! Gaaaaaargh! I've seen her around ever since I was in Pros, and always overpriced too. I hear that she claims to be selling off her own zine collection - at the risk of sounding cycnical, yeah, right...
You know I love zines - I adore zines, proper paper stories, so much more than reading from the internet and my computer screen, but... please, please, please don't be ripped off by these people! You can defend capitalism all you want to me, and tell me that people won't pay it if they don't want it, and if they do then that's a fair price, but... no. Selling fanfic like that, blatantly making a profit from selling other people's writing when those authors were careful enough to fly under the fandom radar themselves? Just... no!
Grr.
Now back to writing. Which will always be free to Pros fans! *g*
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Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 05:45 pm (UTC)I guess the people who buy them will be fans who don't know - fans who are just starting out in fandom, or who don't know the communities yet. There's not that much discussion of zines for sale and prices in Pros, for instance, so how do you know, especially for secondhand zines... But those two dealers have been around for years - they should know, and be sodding ashamed of themselves... Grr!
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Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 07:36 pm (UTC)Media West a couple of years ago. She bought an S&H from me last year. I'd much rather sell to those who want to read them.
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Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 05:32 pm (UTC)It reminds me of the talk I went to by that faculty member on the slash community. Just as you don't go to YouTube to find the real fannish vid community; you don't go to ebay to find the fannish zine community. That's not our world.
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Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 05:50 pm (UTC)But - we only know better once we've been around a while, if we look into it. Remember discovering zines, and sitting down with your first copies to read the stories, and just being so in love with them? And wanting them? I worry that new fans won't know what to expect in the way of zines yet, will pay those prices in the rush of first love... I've never had that kind of money, so it was never an option, but...
Definitely not our world, out there in ebay-land - although you do get some things genuinely sold there (well, if you believe there is genuine selling of Pros merchandise - I suppose there is, of officially printed magazines and so on, but... not of fanzines!)
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Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 05:44 pm (UTC)We're all wet behind the ears when we enter fandom, and if somebody tells you that a certain zine is "rare" then you're inclined to believe them.
And it's not just zines, of course - Pros memorabilia appears regularly on Ebay at vastly inflated prices.
I realise that these dealers (which is what they are, despite what they say) have to make a living, but cashing in on people's innocence is just inexcusable IMHO.
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Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 05:54 pm (UTC)Making a living is one thing - making it honestly and in a way deserving of respect is something else entirely...
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Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 08:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 08:11 pm (UTC)There is a major difference between selling a zine starting at, say, £10 and people bidding on it until it goes over £100, and actually pricing something at $100!
Totally disgusting individual, IMHO. I dont this other person, but even so, to sell zines that can be bought direct from the publisher and for a lot less is terrible.
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Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 08:26 pm (UTC)Exactly... the one has, whether we like it or not, a market-based principle to it. If there are millionaires out there who can buy it, then they will. (I far prefer the fandom gift-economy myself, I think we have something of far higher value without any money being exchanged at all) - but at least it's starting out fairly...
Bandit has been around at least as long as DoctorBeth2000, and is at least as highly priced - I don't know whether he does the rounds of cons to buy zines cheaply, but even so... I mean, even given the UK-US exchange rate right now, US$50 =UK£35! Last I heard from the publisher's, it was barely £15.00 in brand new mint condition! Which you can still buy! Gaaaaagh!
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Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 08:42 pm (UTC)It's selling them on ebay that I don't care for (I didn't buy the $300 zines on ebay, I bot them privately) - I don't think fandom belongs on ebay.
I was just talking to a friend about our zines, etc., and what would happen to them should we die, and I have resolved to talk to my husband about it, and make sure that he knows what I would like done w/ my things when I pass.
Throwing them out or putting them on ebay is not what I have in mind.
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Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 08:45 pm (UTC)I dunno - I can live with ebay if things are being sold fairly. As
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Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 09:59 pm (UTC)I normally sell my zines through groups (it's easier in that you reach just those people who are fans of that particular pairing,) but if that fails, I have no problem at all trying to sell them on eBay. Of course, my start price is usually around what I tried selling them on the group. The fact that I've been able to sell zines on eBay after not finding a buyer within the fandom only affirms my belief that, for some, eBay is their only avenue for buying zines.
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Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 10:15 pm (UTC)Just had a google for "The Professionals zines" and "Bodie and Doyle zines" - I get AWS, Alijot, and that Fanlore site (is that the one by that awful woman who's also out to make money?) and then AWS, justacat's one zine, Knightwriter, links to various stories that are in zines... but nothing about how to find second-hand zines! Hmmn!
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Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 10:32 pm (UTC)That's blatant exploitation :(
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Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009 11:14 pm (UTC)To me that says that the seller is selling off old zines of their own and is not a dealer. And if the bids go sky-high - well, at least that's market forces, it's not the seller asking for silly money.
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Date: Sunday, 15 March 2009 12:27 am (UTC)I mean, I'm not mad-keen on Ebay as a general format for selling Pros fan stuff really, cos it becomes not market forces, exactly, but whoever has the most money available to buy something. "Market force" might mean that ten people are all prepared to pay a fair and reasonable price for something - individual wealth means that anyone able and prepared to bid more than a fair and reasonable price will always be able to buy the goods. In theory it's reasonable enough - but in practice it's the same old wealthy-end-up-stockpiling-goods, which I think is a shame. I think I prefer the type of sale list where it's simply this-is-the-price-first-come-first-served... But then that's a whole different debate. *g*
But either is preferable to what DrBeth2000 and Bandit2142 seem to be about...
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Date: Tuesday, 17 March 2009 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, 17 March 2009 08:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
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