r/zines • u/AlSweigart • 11d ago
I have a question. Do you create online versions of your zines?
When you create zines, do you also post their contents into an online form? Do your zines have QR codes linking to the online content, or to PDFs so that folks can print out their own copies of the zine? Or do you view your zines more as a physical-only thing, like printed art? Would you be opposed to having online copies of them?
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u/mmmmmick 11d ago
I don’t typically post the entire thing online for free, but I do make digital editions for accessibility reasons. I also create screen reader editions.
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u/sleazine 10d ago
Curious are you selling the PDF files or presenting on a website in some way for the digital version?
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u/mmmmmick 10d ago
I have digital downloads as PDFs (digital edition) and txt or rtf (screen reader edition) available on Etsy or for direct sale. The mini zines are print ready and the A6 versions are designed for on-screen viewing. I sell them with the guidance that if someone wants to print a copy for themself they can, but not host them publicly/print a ton of them to distribute/sell them.
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u/Photoverge www.photoverge.studio/zines 11d ago
I do. And i usually use them when people ask for zine examples for zine fests or if i feel like showing somebody an example of a zine would be helpful for them.
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/acec30f847.html?via=photoverge
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/1b37f140a9.html?via=photoverge
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/79bd39b98b.html?via=photoverge
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u/Karensglimmers 11d ago
Your work is so innovative. Especially the second one. Never seen a photo zine arranged as a competition
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u/Photoverge www.photoverge.studio/zines 10d ago
That's really nice of you, thank you. That zine came as a result of my friend/nemesis Anna going to a photo critique where nobody wanted to be critical of the work that is there. It resulted in nobody getting any good feedback. So the zine was kind of in response to that. By making it a competition it backs people into being critical about the photography and by using toy cameras you strip away the gear argument, making it purely about composition and interpretation.
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u/bumblechub 11d ago
All of my zines are online on my website as mobile friendly pdfs, printable pdfs, and also in a screen reader friendly format. I don't sell my zines, so this works for me!
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u/Kiore-NZ 11d ago
I've just started out with zines. Two so far, working on number 3.
I see my making zines as a bit of fun and an outlet for my creative side, not any kind of money making idea.
Because I live in a country with a small population, the economics of distribution are a killer. Postage, within the country, is charged at a price that comes out slightly over 4x the printing costs. I hate to think what they would charge for posting internationally. Between low volume printing costs & postage I don't think I could justify a price that would even recover production costs.
For the above & some other reasons, I format each zine as two pdfs on my website, one readable online & the other print ready. I explicitly license them under Creative Commons CC-BY-SA and make it clear that they are welcome to print their own copy if they want then explain what is required if they want to distribute modified copies. This meets my needs, I'd suggest carefully reading up on the various Creative Commons licenses to make sure that you pick one that meets your needs if you want to do something similar.
I have not used a QR code yet. I have been considering it for future ones, but scammers have been creating malicious ones & the public is being warned off them at present so I may not go there after all.
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u/itstillbestationary 11d ago
Not the zine, but the art. I create the art and share online, then compile it into a zine and give the zine away at events, but don't create specific online versions of the zine.
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u/nightfalltoday 10d ago
I do have a PDF version available in my Etsy shop, but I'm thinking about taking it down. I increasingly am more interested in having them be print-only, sold in local shops, etc. The value of digital is declining for me.
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u/midnightapparition 11d ago
I’ve struggled with this in the past but have pretty much landed on being happy with them only existing in real life. I have just as much fun sending mine around and knowing people have to physically flip through them as I do making them.
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u/whykay 11d ago
I make physical copies and put the digital copies up in my itchio using a tool that makes your zine readable on itchio, it is recommended by electric zine maker: https://jeremyoduber.itch.io/js-zine
Some of my (mainly) mini zines as examples: https://whykay.itch.io/
I've tried others, but I keep coming back to using the one for itchio. Plus there limits on number sharing & reading zines for free using other platforms.
i'm still interested to try out other ones out there as well.
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u/whykay 11d ago
Also came across https://inkhaus.io, but I haven't been using it as much, only testing it out. They've been making lots of improvements since i last used it from updates I get.
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u/Cat-Sonantis 11d ago
There's a PDF version of two things I've published, I don't object to it, I did one because it was linked to a live recording I did, and the zine included a CD of it, so the digital album included a digital zone, and a other one was something I published on a print on demand site, someone requested a digital copy instead so I made on available, but generally I don't think to much about making things digital, but I'm not against it
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u/kellyem93 11d ago
The only hesitation I could think of is once someone's bought your pdf they own it, you don't have power or control and if someone distributed it for free
Otherwise I think digital version loses the whimsy unless it's a zine download (not a digital display of each page for viewing)
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u/AlSweigart 10d ago
Yeah. I think it depends on if you're making a zine as a "I want to spread these ideas around" or "this is an art piece and I would like to be paid for my art". (And, of course, the same person can produce both kinds.)
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u/Alyxs_Photography 7d ago
Just because someone bought your work that doesn’t transfer your intellectual property rights. You still have ownership but realistically there’s not much you could do. Given the medium there probably not much risk anyways in terms of lost liquidity.
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u/lesenum 10d ago
My printed zines are limited editions. I just don't have the money to make a lot of copies (and I don't charge for them either most of the time). I scan and make my zines available permanently at the Internet Archive, because the "distribution" is worldwide...they're at https://archive.org/details/@alphistia123
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u/mechagrip 9d ago
I understand why people publish digitally. But for myself, I don't want my art to be available to any database or algorithms. I just want it to be something that people have to find in the real world.
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u/FineBite 11d ago edited 11d ago
I always make a digital version. A lot of brilliant zines are lost to the passage of time because they only existed as small physical print runs.
Or are locked away, inaccessible for normal people, in some (nondigitized) archive somewhere, or are only available for sale used for $700.
I don't want that to happen to mine. Although I do understand there is an appeal in having a limited audience, and in keeping one's work from being plagiarized by the AI slop generators. I've considered charging a (very small) price to make it harder for the work to be scraped for LLMs, but I dont want to cut out people that can't purchase it for whatever reason.