How to create a zine in 2023

The Forgotten World’s zine is live. You can purchase it online. Which you should do...

Meanwhile, here’s an overview of the production process, costs, and issues encountered - in case you wanna do the same.

So, you produced a zine?

I did. It’s been far too long. I used to publish a magazine called Team Evil back in the day, wrote a zine called Neo Tech in high school, and have published various bits and pieces over the years (including a book about my time in Qatar), but this is the first zine I’ve put out in probably a decade. It’s nice to be back.

Oh, if you don’t know, a zine is a “small-circulation self-published work,”

Why would you do that in 2023? Print is dead. 

I’ve always loved the tactile feel of print. The internet is great, but it’s fleeting. Giving something a physical form makes it feel more real. That being said, I’m pushing 40, so I’m old and was raised on physical media.

More specifically, I think there’s a real chance that Elon will inadvertently flush Twitter down the toilet, and if that happens it would be nice to have a physical reminder of this account and the good times we’ve had.

Still, seems like an odd thing to do…

See, the original plan was to make a magazine about video game magazines. Very meta. 

So I interviewed a bunch of people, wrote articles, launched a website and yada, yada. But I quickly realised you need to build up an audience if you want to sell a magazine. You know, the whole tree in a forest thing…

So that’s where the Twitter account came in – it’s a chance to connect with like-minded folks and make sure there’s an actual audience for the magazine before I blow all my money on it. The Twitter zine is a way to test the waters in a smaller, budget conscious way. If it sells I can go ahead with the magazine (and some other related zines).

Fair enough, so what’s the format of the zine? What’s actually inside?

It’s meant to be a greatest-hits-package of the Twitter account. I guess you could call it a tribute to the aesthetic of retro gaming in all its forms - screenshots, ads, promos, reviews, photos, random tidbits. 

I spent several years working in the arts sector (see my book about Qatar), so in that context you can call it curation if you want to be pretentious about it.

Let’s talk specifics, what’s involved in getting a zine ready and how much does it cost?

Glad you asked. Here are the gory details…

Design / layout

I’m not a graphic designer, and I don’t have the time to learn. But I know what I like, and how I wanted this thing to look. Having spoken to a few people, I knew that hiring a local graphic designer was out of the question – it’s just too expensive for a project like this.

The thing is, I always wanted the zine to be super minimal and stripped back. The images are doing all the heavy lifting, adding more design elements around them is redundant (and counter-productive).

Knowing all that, and knowing I wanted to use a strict template throughout, I approached designers on Fiverr. They’re all based overseas in places like Pakistan, Indian, etc, and far more affordable than anyone in the UK, US, Australian, etc. I found a guy with good feedback, provided him with extensive diagrams, briefing notes, copy, images, etc. He put it all together for about $250. Which is probably a quarter of the price of a local designer.

Printing

A friend in the industry recommended a print shop to me – Eplot in South Melbourne for anyone interested. I knew I wanted nice paper stock and professional binding, but I didn’t really know what that meant, or how to describe it. So I found another magazine that I liked the look of, took that in, and asked them to quote me on doing something similar.

Ultimately, I settled on the following specs, which ran me about $850 for 100 copies.

Finish Size: A4 Portrait
High Quality Indigo Print: CMYK throughout
Pages including cover: 48pp
Cover stock: 250GSM Arcoprint uncoated
Text stock: 100GSM uncoated
Finishing: collated & perfect bind,

I’m sure you could do it for less. It really just comes down to the paper stock, binding, and print number that you’re after. Technically, you could also do this on the office photocopier after work hours, it just depends on what you’re after. It’s your zine.

Sales

The plan was to set 20 aside for media and promo and sell the other 80. I set the price at $15 AUS + postage. Which means that if I sell all 80 I’ll make $1200… Which will just about cover the cost of printing, designing, postage, etc. In other words, I’m not making any money on this. If I sell out I break even.

That’s actually a really shitty business model. But obviously this ain’t about the money – I have a day job.

Here are the numbers:

Costs:
Design - $250
Printing - $850
Misc stationary - $50
Total cost = $1150

Sales:
80 x $15 = $1200 (Assuming they all sell)

Profit:
$50 (Maybe, if I’m lucky)

You’re using Shopify to sell these, yes?

Yeah, I had a look at some different options but Shopify is widely known and trusted, and they have a basic plan that starts at only $1 per month for the first three months. For that price you get a basic page you can set up in minutes and start selling online. 

It really is super easy, and allows you to upload images, set pricing options and shipping rates around the world. Sales are also paid out really quickly (Whereas PayPal likes to sit on your money for weeks before making payment). 

So yeah, Shopify has been great. No complaints from me on that front. 

What about those inlay-cards? What’s that about? 

This was a last-minute addition. The zine was always supposed to be a visual piece. I’m saving the words for the magazine proper. But I liked how A Profound Waste of Time had a single page inlay in their last issue so I wanted to replicate that and give a bit more context to the zine and what it was about.

Are you going to make another zine?

That really depends on whether these sell. If there’s an audience I have three follow-up zines basically ready to go.

There’s also the magazine proper. The idea there is to profile a few different classic video game magazines in each issue with articles, interviews, visuals, etc. For the debut issue I’m thinking; Mean Machines, Super Play, Hyper, and Sega Pro.

Any other advice?

Handwriting people’s weird overseas addresses on envelopes sucks. Next time round I’m just going to print the labels directly via Shopify (I’m assuming someone in the office at my day job knows how to set all that up…)

Oh, thanks for reading. Please buy a copy of the zine if you haven’t already done so.

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Follow-us on Twitter via @American80s

Forgotten Worlds is back! With two new magazines...

Issues 2 and 3 come packaged together as a limited edition bundle. Pre-orders come with additional gifts and insets.