SF’s 17th annual Zine Fest places value on ideas, not money

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From SFGate:

Hundreds of writers who don’t care about making money came to San Francisco, where they didn’t.

That’s how it goes when you publish your own book on a copy machine, one at a time, and sell it for a buck or two.

These kinds of works are called “zines.” The 17th annual San Francisco Zine Fest was held Sunday in Golden Gate Park. What happens at a zine festival is that hundreds of writers sit at long tables and offer up their zines, mainly to one another. Everyone goes broke together, all in one big room, instead of one at a time at home.

“If you do this for capitalistic reasons, you’re not very bright,” said Breanne Boland of Berkeley, who was selling a self-help book about creativity. At $2, it was half price because she hadn’t been paying attention when she printed it on the copy machine. It came out off-center, which is something that doesn’t happen at Random House.

“When you’re your own editor and publisher, you know that all the mistakes are yours,” she said. “You get to make all the choices.”

Boland has another job. She’s a software engineer. That’s because she needs to eat, she explained. Another zine writer with another job was Rachel Scheer, of Seattle, who teaches second grade to pay the rent.

. . . .

“You don’t do this to become rich and famous,” she said.

The giant hall was filled with charming, earnest, colorful opuses, almost all held together with the miracle of staples. The subject matter included monsters, rock music, nature, cookies, nuclear war and an illustrated guide to the world’s cemeteries.

Admission to the zine festival was free but, said festival organizer Anand Vedawala, each zine author had to pay $90 for table space. At that rate, breaking even was not an option.

“I’d love to be published by someone besides me,” Scheer said.

Link to the rest at SFGate and thanks to DM for the tip.