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I'm once again preparing to mail out an issue of The Inner Swine, the zine you must tolerate on some level if you're here reading this. Four times a year I gather my strength and stuff envelopes to mail issues out to reviewers, distributors, and individual subscribers. This process begins about a month or more before the ‘street date' of the issue; I produced a proofreading copy of the September issue in mid-July, and I'm just beginning to photocopy in the first week of August. It's time consuming, especially since for proofreading and cover art I am relying on volunteers who have other, more important things to do with their time, so I often end up waiting for them to come through–this is not a slam against the wonderful people I count on, like Karen Accavallo and Jeof Vita, they're fucking fantastic–which always makes it interesting getting the issue out on time. As I sit here labeling envelopes, I once again contemplate the TIS mailing list. I never really cull it. If an issue gets bounced by the Postal Service for a bad address, or if someone specifically asks me to remove them I'll delete that address from the list. Otherwise, people pretty much stay on there forever. There are people on my mailing list I haven't really spoken to in years, there are people on there who I'm not sure ever wanted to be on the TIS mailing list. For all I know, they throw away each issue, cursing my name. I can only hope that some enterprising waste disposal technician plucks TIS from a steaming pile of trash and reads it cover to cover. Some of the names on the mailing list amaze me, bringing back memories. Other disturb me. But one thing will never change: all of those names are going to stay right there, because no one gets off the TIS Mailing List alive, Bubba. There are several reasons for this. One, I've never been very organized. Ask anyone. It's a wonder I don't lose everything, and any attempt by me to clarify my files and collections of random scraps of paper is doomed from the start. If I tried to cull the driftwood from my mailing list, I'd screw everything up and probably end up deleting all of the wrong addresses–and naturally I don't have those addresses written down anywhere except the Mailing List, so I'd be screwed. No, it's safer to just leave everyone there, and mail the damn things out blindly in the hope that people still read them, even if I haven't heard from them since 1996, when they requested one issue and were probably not impressed with it. Two, I figure it's better to have the magazine out there, causing mischief, than sitting here at home with me, gathering dust. So maybe someone on my list doesn't really want their issue of TIS. Maybe they give to some friend. Maybe they donate it to a zine library. Maybe they just leave it lying on a pile of crap and people from time to time notice it and take it from them. Who knows? I imagine that anyone sufficiently into zines to go through the trouble of asking for an issue of TIS will likely not throw it into the garbage, so any issue mailed probably finds a home somewhere, even if it isn't the one intended. Finally, I like to pad my numbers. From time to time people ask me how many subscribers I have. This is a misleading question. First of all, the assumption is that everyone on my mailing list is a paid subscriber. That's not true. A lot of people get comp copies, and a lot of people who were initially subscribers have discovered that even if they don't re-up their subscriptions (and I have no subscription tracking system whatsoever–none) they still get issues in the mail. I do have actual real-live subscribers, but they make up a small number of the names on the mailing list. But when people ask me about subscribers, I choose to willfully misinterpret them and instead give them the number of people on the mailing list. It sounds more impressive. The Inner Swine has never been about Truth, you know. You can look it up. What's really fascinating is that there are people on my list that I've had fights with, and with whom I no longer communicate, yet they receive my zine every three months without registering a complaint. My enemies are rarely quiet, peace-loving folk, so the fact that I don't get the issues returned to me, postage due, wrapped around huge dead rats is surprising. So on the mailing list they remain, like unexploded bombs. Perhaps they know I will someday be famous, and are saving everything in order to make millions when I finally ‘break', so they can mail me their bank statements as revenge.
BUT, basically, it's because I'm lazy as hell. Someday, the TIS mailing list will serve as a living history of the zine, when I collate all addresses into a definitive time line, showing who my first subscribers were, who my oldest readers are. What purpose will that serve? None, probably. It would also require that I kick myself in the ass and organize the damn list in a database or spreadsheet, which will happen some moments after hell freezes over. Sure, it's inefficient. Sure, it's a burden on me to be so disorganized. It's also part of The Inner Swine's charm, dammit. If you're marooned on my mailing list and want off, for god's sake contact me, because I will never remove you otherwise. Never. Consider that soberly, my friend, and act accordingly. And send your complaints about this column to the usual place. Jeff |
August 15, 2002