Don't Buy the Zines!

[byslantedlight]

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*

Comments

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh charming - so she's absolutely out to buy cheap from genuine sellers, and sell for big bucks to people who don't have other sources. Nice, very nice. And presumably this continues because people at cons like Media West will sell to her to get their own cut of the wedge. *sigh* See, this is where principles come need to come into it all!

[towerbridge2006.livejournal.com]

I didn't know she wasn't a fan. When I don't want certain zines any more I sell them through the orphan zine table at Media West. Most of the people who go there are looking for used zines in their fandoms.

The woman who runs the table knows the appropriate prices for the zines. That price is generally the same as or less than paid originally for them.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Ah, I was assuming that people would know who she was, if she/they was a regular...

[towerbridge2006.livejournal.com]

When she first started coming to the con I assumed she was new to fandom and grabbing everything she could. I've since heard a story or two that fit in with this whole Ebay thing. I think she said she was buying some of them for her mother who attends the con.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that makes sense. So when did she first start going to Media West? I recognise her name on ebay from when I was first in fandom, nearly four years ago...

[towerbridge2006.livejournal.com]

I think she's been attending for about 4 or 5 years, but that could be when I noticed her.