November 10, 2002
Going Pro

I'm often charmed by the level of corporate-suck professionalism people assume The Inner Swine has attained. I could be flattered or horrified by this, depending on who's doing the assuming and how many night-before cocktails I'm recovering from. Somehow, over the years, I've managed to convince some people that TIS is a sprawling moneymaking concern. How this was accomplished is a mystery to me, though, since the illusion is surely broken the moment people receive a poorly-spelled, blurry, photocopied zine in the mail. Or at least the illusion ought to be broken at that point, but usually isn't. I guess I have Jim-Jones charisma and I don't know it. I should be making money, not sitting here writing this column like a sucker.

Amazingly, many people–to this day!–believe that The Duchess is actually a lawyer, which is untrue. I wish she were. I'd spend less time in drunk tanks pissing myself and demanding that the beatings stop.

First, of course, you have the people who are nice enough to want to buy a subscription or a book or whatever from me, and then make out a check to The Inner Swine. In the real world, I suppose it's a good assumption that people who ask you for money in exchange for goods are genuine businesses, with Tax IDs and the ability to cash checks made out to a company name. The assumption that my zine is Doing Business As (DBA) The Inner Swine is quite a leap of faith, considering that fact that you're buying a photocopied zine. People who make out the checks to TIS must imagine some Rolling Stone-like office, with a staff of people running around waving paper around and slamming down phones, and me, Jann Wenner-like, sitting in some glass-walled office, drinking heavily.

Don't get me wrong–I'm not angry with people who write me checks, nor am I questioning their smarts. Most people familiar with zines know that if you gotta write a check, make it out to cash, or to the person's real name. But people for whom my zine is their sole exposure (the poor souls) to the world of DIY publishing, they probably think it's just like buying a subscription to a magazine. You don't make those checks out to Jann Wenner, after all. Though I imagine he'd cash one if you sent it to him.

Sometimes other businesses assume that TIS must be thriving business with actual assets and cash flow, too. They call me trying to sell me stuff. The most recent one that made me giggle was a newspaper in California which was going to publish a review of The Freaks Are Winning. The publisher called me up to see if I wanted to buy an ad in the issue the review was appearing in. A dubious practice, perhaps, but I was game enough to ask for a rate card, and holy mother of god it was expensive. The idea that a runt like me had an extra few hundred bucks for a largely useless ad amused me, to say the least, but I get emails all the time from people asking me to spend some of the money they obviously believe I'm making off this outfit.

Other Zine Publishers are amused too, I'm sure. We know the kind of negative cash flow zines generate, as a rule. I might as well be paying you people to read my zine. And in some cases, I pretty much am.

Now, some of these corporate come-ons are blind spam that don't know anything about me aside from the fact that I have a PO Box, publish something, and possibly that I own an ISBN number, so you can't point at every scrap of marketing that comes my way and think, even if you're an arrogant ass like me and like to think that everyone in the whole world knows who you are and are dying to meet you. Or attack you, which I have to confess is usually where my arrogant fantasies lead me. People who have actually seen and apparently read my zine still make some of the strangest assumptions about the level of professionalism going on here at the TIS compound, the most popular of which is believing whatever I say about The Inner Swine's Inner Circle (TISIC). For example, when [CENSORED BY ORDER OF WIFE] joined our jolly clan of merrymakers, I dubbed her our Legal Counsel because when I was negotiating the contract for my novel Lifers (negotiating here being a college-sissy word for signing as fast as I could for fear they would change their minds) she was the only person I knew who had actually worked with book contracts before, and she helped me with the crucial decision of whether to turn down the only money anyone had ever offered me for a book I'd written or to curse my stupidity the rest of my days.

Amazingly, many people–to this day!–believe that The Duchess is actually a lawyer, which is untrue. I wish she were. I'd spend less time in drunk tanks pissing myself and demanding that the beatings stop.

While I guess it's not beyond belief that a loser like myself would have a friend or loved one who was a lawyer who helped me out during the frequent lawsuits and tax investigations the TIS offices must endure in order to bring you people the Truth, I am pretty sure a lot of these people actually think I can afford a lawyer. Which is ridiculous. I can barely afford coffee in the morning. I mean, how many people forcing photocopied magazines onto the world have lawyers? If there's more than one, I'll eat my shoes. Which doesn't scare me. I've done it before, during leaner times.

Of course, if you're one of those gullible people, why not send me some cash for my legal defense fund? Contact me in the usual way if you're interested. Until then, watch the skies for the next column!

Jeff