Produce & Share a Zine Round III - Complete (Nov - April 21)

When can you NOT attend a proposed 7.30pm Zoom meeting of 40 minutes to chat about these Zines?


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How do folks feel about the amount of entrants for the next Round IV?

I've just paid postage on all mine. 2nd class large letter >100g = £1.53 which when multiplied by 14 people starts to stack up. If we have 20 entrants next time that's £30 in postage, say £10 in envelopes and £40 in zine printing makes an overall cost of £80.

With it being every 6 months, I can manage the cost but wouldn't want to start getting over £100 for a go. How do you all feel about this?

My suggestion would be to do one of three things for round IV

a) Set an entrant cap. When we hit it, we close it to further people.
b) Set an entrant cap. When we hit it, we continue to let people enter, but divide the final total into (for example) 2 random groups. This would probably mean you might not get a zine from your favourite photographer and you also wouldn't get (or send out) as many zines as option a. [Unless this challenge goes viral and we get a massive influx of entrants]
c) Don't do anything, but make a decision towards the end when people can see the interest generated.

I guess my main concern is forcing people to pay more money than they'd like because a ton of people entered. Obviously people can back out during "commit week" if it's going to cost them more than they are comfortable with.
 
How about make it once a year, possibly over the winter months and finishing again by end of May
Personally speaking I'm not much for sitting indoors on a computer during the summer.
It would also give people a chance to get a good selection of photos to choose from.

Meeting up for an exchange would be much more costly for me with rail fares, beer and food.
 
I suspect the numbers this time are due to lock down and it would tail off under normal circumstances. If people only want to enter once-a-year then they can just do that, just skip one of the two in the year. I'd be happy to wait and see how many entrants but it might be good to have a mid-period check in where people confirm if they are still in, no confirmation, no guarantee of getting a zine but still allowed to drop out if circumstances change.
 
Crikey things are moving, One arrived this morning, and thanks to the pictures in this thread, I know who from :LOL: :LOL:

I guess I'd better export mine from affinity pro now then......

envelopes, I've no bloody envelopes (cunning plan - hold off and re-purpose all the ones you keen people send me)

Alternatively, ebay here I come
 
Just posted my lot off, content scored much higher then presentation.
 
Crikey things are moving, One arrived this morning, and thanks to the pictures in this thread, I know who from :LOL: :LOL:

I guess I'd better export mine from affinity pro now then......

envelopes, I've no bloody envelopes (cunning plan - hold off and re-purpose all the ones you keen people send me)

Alternatively, ebay here I come
Tesco do A5 "Do not bend" envelopes for 50p each I think.
 
How do folks feel about the amount of entrants for the next Round IV?

I've just paid postage on all mine. 2nd class large letter >100g = £1.53 which when multiplied by 14 people starts to stack up. If we have 20 entrants next time that's £30 in postage, say £10 in envelopes and £40 in zine printing makes an overall cost of £80.

With it being every 6 months, I can manage the cost but wouldn't want to start getting over £100 for a go. How do you all feel about this?

My suggestion would be to do one of three things for round IV

a) Set an entrant cap. When we hit it, we close it to further people.
b) Set an entrant cap. When we hit it, we continue to let people enter, but divide the final total into (for example) 2 random groups. This would probably mean you might not get a zine from your favourite photographer and you also wouldn't get (or send out) as many zines as option a. [Unless this challenge goes viral and we get a massive influx of entrants]
c) Don't do anything, but make a decision towards the end when people can see the interest generated.

I guess my main concern is forcing people to pay more money than they'd like because a ton of people entered. Obviously people can back out during "commit week" if it's going to cost them more than they are comfortable with.
I would go for option c
As you say not all who sign up would commit at the end
As for cost 20 entrants myself included would probably be the max for me
I home printed this time and all in all probably spent over £100 on materials and ink mainly due to reprints and rejigs
 
I would go for option c
As you say not all who sign up would commit at the end
As for cost 20 entrants myself included would probably be the max for me
I home printed this time and all in all probably spent over £100 on materials and ink mainly due to reprints and rejigs

Think i'm going down the once a year route, gets a bit pricey otherwise.
Retired 7 years ago and still got over 4 years until state pension time so have to be a little bit more careful than I once was
 
Mine arrived from @richardhall . Thanks Richard - it's fab!

I think I'd quite like to know how you did it (which companies you used etc) because it really is a great idea. Perhaps when everyone has opened it you could give some tips away.
 
Mine arrived from @richardhall . Thanks Richard - it's fab!

I think I'd quite like to know how you did it (which companies you used etc) because it really is a great idea. Perhaps when everyone has opened it you could give some tips away.
Glad you like it. Happy to share what I did, companies used etc.
Doing this zine has given me an idea for a collaborative project that might be fun...
 
A nice little package from @richardhall arrived this afternoon. (y) That's a format I've looked into but the prices I found were off-putting.

My 'interactive' bits arrived too, but I don't think the plan is going to work. :(

I am hastily compiling a new zine. If I select the pics tonight and cobble it together tomorrow there's still time to get it printed. :exit:

Only kidding folks. Like it or not you're getting the rubbish one! :D
 
One of the great things about the zine swap, is the wide variety of zines that you receive, from homespun to quite slick publications. For me, this always opens up new ideas, and ways of working that I hadn't considered. I don't think I've ever received a zine were I thought 'meh', they all have had their own merits, and usually the subject matter is the star of the show. I buy a lot of photo zines, and the TP one's have stood up against professional publications very well.

Don't put yourselves down, making a zine is a lot of fun, and should be treated as such, and if you get a publication at the end that you are happy with then happy days, but for most of us photographers, we are very critical of ourselves, and could always do better.

I do understand the costs are starting to creep up, personally this doesn't bother me greatly, but we could make savings by sending our box of zines to one person, who then sends in return a box of zines back to you with a copy of everybody's zine in it. This would reduce the postage costs to 2 boxes, and the box could be re-used!! But this has several disadvantages:-

1) Someone will have to do it (though I would be up for it, and I could do this in conjunction with @Harlequin565 as we live about 2 miles apart, and since my village post office has shut, I am using the one a couple of hundred yards from his house!!)
2) Everybody would have to send their zines in a timely manner - possibly challenging :)
3) Money has to change hands (postage)
4) I think receiving a box of assorted zines doesn't have the excitement level of being drip fed zines through your letterbox over a few weeks

I'm happy to go with the flow for the zine swap, if the numbers are to be limited then so be it, I don't have a problem if we want to have more, I see value in the zines that I get back and am happy to front up the cost of publication and postage of my zine, hopefully others feel the same way.

I like the twice yearly approach, this keeps the project on the boil and generates interest in the TP thread
 
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Good lord. Only posted yesterday 2nd class!

The weight was 108 grams so I put enough postage for 250. I wonder if they did it 1st class?
 
Good lord. Only posted yesterday 2nd class!

The weight was 108 grams so I put enough postage for 250. I wonder if they did it 1st class?

Maybe. I'm not sure if prices have increased but my last set (which were A5 size in board-backed envelopes) all went out via standard 2nd class and cost less than a pound each to post.
 
Maybe. I'm not sure if prices have increased but my last set (which were A5 size in board-backed envelopes) all went out via standard 2nd class and cost less than a pound each to post.

Most of mine were 2nd class large letter for £1.53 which I think goes from 101g up to 251g
I had a selection of recycled envelopes and a couple did go under 100g for 96p
Added at least 10% on to allow for scales discrepancy, wanted to make sure postage was well covered.
 
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@Harlequin565

Sending however many Zine's to one parson to ship out again won't work out any cheaper I don't think.

It could work if the Zine's went right from the printers. But that has the draw back that you won't be able to check it and if you have printed more copies you'd still need them shipped to you.
 
we could make savings by sending our box of zines to one person, who then sends in return a box of zines back to you with a copy of everybody's zine in it. This would reduce the postage costs to 2 boxes, and the box could be re-used!! But this has several disadvantages:-

Sending however many Zine's to one parson to ship out again won't work out any cheaper I don't think.

It would be quite a bit cheaper unless my maths is broken...

According to my very quick research, 20 zines would weigh in at under 2kg and qualify for "small parcel" meaning it would cost £3/box.

If we assume 20 people.

- Posting one to each person (what we do now) would cost the individual £1.53 x 20 = £30 + packaging. Total cost to everyone for the postage = £30 x 20 people = £600 (yikes!)

- Getting Mixam to deliver all their zines to one location, then that (lucky!) person makes up a single package of 20 zines and sends them out would be a total cost of £3 x 20 people = £60!! Divide that by the 20 people taking part = £3 each! Presumably packaging would be more expensive because of a bigger parcel but a quick Google indicates £1/box wouldn't be unreasonable to someone buying in bulk.

This works only when you have a lot of people entering, and has quite a few disadvantages as David has pointed out above. The one I thought of was that if you order 30 magazines because you want some for yourself, then the "poster" will have to put the spares in your box too which might start to push postage up.

"It's complicated" is the summary I think, and as we've done before, I'm feeling that the best thing to do is cross that bridge when we get there. Everyone might be disheartened after this effort and we might only get 3 or 4 for the next round which will mean worrying over nothing.

Although I can't believe I didn't think that with David being so close we could literally have put our zines in the same envelope and halved our postage costs!

Edit - there's nothing to stop us offering it as an option to people as we get close to the final date. Order for yourself and post yourself and pay more but get flexibility (as we do now). Or order and get it sent to one person (or two, as David and I could do this over a coffee on a Saturday afternoon) and pay less.
 
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@Harlequin565

Sending however many Zine's to one parson to ship out again won't work out any cheaper I don't think.

It could work if the Zine's went right from the printers. But that has the draw back that you won't be able to check it and if you have printed more copies you'd still need them shipped to you.

I'm not sending anything of mine to a parson or vicar or priest or rabbi or iman, in fact no religious geezers at all
 
I'm not sending anything of mine to a parson or vicar or priest or rabbi or iman, in fact no religious geezers at all
I don't think Iman would appreciate a load of zines dropping on her doorstep. :exit:
 
I don't think Iman would appreciate a load of zines dropping on her doorstep. :exit:

Guessing i've cocked that up then, meant the religious bloke not the late Mr Bowie's missus
That's what happens when you take the p***, serves me right.
 
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Three more arrived here just now. (y)
 
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