September 23, 2002
And Leo's Getting Larger!
How Big is Too Big for a Zine?

PIGS, as many of you know, there are a couple of basic philosophical debates that have plagues zinedom since the beginning of time. Questions like, what is a zine? Or, Was Factsheet Five a Good Thing or a Bad Thing for zines? Or, how do you get copier toner stains out of your clothes? These topics and hundreds of others are endlessly debated, with different opinions never resolving into a cohesive whole. I usually don't bother arguing about any of these points, because they're never settled, and because they don't matter much.

One classic zine debate I have been contemplating recently is the old chestnut, when does a zine stop being a

This is a concern because it goes against my natural inclination to self-promote until I drop dead, TIS flyers clutched in my gnarled hands.

zine–otherwise known as the Bust Dilemma. Some people argue that zinedom is a state of mind, a certain DIY spirit, and can apply to all sorts of publications–even things like McSweeny's. Others maintain that a zine is a small publication done totally DIY, with no distro, no bar codes, no nothin'. A clear-cut definition is difficult because you have things like Negative Capability, which looks as professional as any mainstream magazine but is still totally DIY and personal, or maximumrocknroll or Punk Planet with deep zine roots but large circulation figures or ‘professional' packaging. The grey areas in the ‘what is a zine' debate are huge and ruled over by angry, ignorant mobs. It's best to not get into the argument, because there is no winning, only degrees of losing.

But I've been pondering it, recently. Not because The Inner Swine has thousands of subscribers, or is going four-color offset with a glossy cover any time soon. TIS is still tiny, and is still done 100% by my grimy, ink-stained hands. I've been thinking about this issue because a main component of the argument is how big can a zine get and still be a zine? Once again, I'm in no danger of outgrowing, say, The Zine Yearbook's requirement of a circulation of 1200 or less for consideration–I'm small. I'm only thinking about this because, while I'm small, I'm starting to scratch at the glass ceiling of what I can do by myself. I'm only one man, and there's only so many office supplies one man can steal in a day.

This is a concern because it goes against my natural inclination to self-promote until I drop dead, TIS flyers clutched in my gnarled hands. On the one hand, every store I convince to carry TIS, every new distro that takes five copies, is one more step towards a world where Jeff Somers gets free drinks in every bar he stumbles into, and that has always been the main goal of my sadly self-interested life. On the other hand, every five extra copies I gotta cough up to distros is literally 160 more photocopies to make, gather, and staple together–not to mention purchase postage for and mail out. Winged Monkeys and Oompa Loompas don't come cheap, and aside from selling blood I have only a miserable salary as a Wage Slave to manage all this on. Sure, I steal much of what eventually becomes TIS. I steal like a goddamn mafia soldier. Still: resources are limited to whatever I can personally manage. There's a breaking point, and I'm there.

Past this point, I'd have to consider a few unsavory changes: offset printing, advertising, bringing in someone to take on some of the chores. None of these appeal to a lazy, anal control freak such as myself, who seeks to maintain complete control over his little ego trip without having to put any more effort into it than absolutely necessary. Plus, venturing into those hazy, grey worlds would also bring me into that questionable status as a zine, and I don't need the PETZ people (People for the Ethical Treatment of Zines) stalking me and throwing black paint on me everywhere I go for selling out the zine ethic and graduating to magazine. It's enough to make me appreciate e-zines, those bastard stepdaughters of zines, because their economies of scale are pretty good. If your site is relatively lightweight and you have a good hosting deal, you can usually serve thousands of unique visitors daily without incurring any additional costs. Too bad reading on a computer monitor is like eating rubber cement.

At this stage of being tiny but still about as big as I can get, I have three basic choices:

1. Sell out and let the Universe have its way and become a huge literary celebrity, quickly degenerating into one of those paralyzed-by-fame celebs who are famous simply for being famous, since I won't write another thing, ever, once the free cocktails take my soul.

2. Stop publishing and move into the mountains, from which I will issue instant-classic screeds against technology and government and self-pitying demands that I be left alone...oh, wait, that's all been done? Jesus CHRIST, why am I always the last to know? Heads will roll.

3. Just start shipping old, unsold issues from previous years instead of actually producing new stuff, until the piles of unsold back issues are gone, and hope no one notices.

I guess I could try culling the mailing list of people who don't really want TIS and demanding that distros send me back unsold issues after a certain point. But these tactics would quickly reduce my circulation to about fifty, leaving me with a whole new problem. If you got anything to say about this, you can email me in the usual place.

Jeff