The Existential Suckiness of Self Publishing Zinesters gather at Webzine99 Joyce Slaton, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, July 27, 1999 2001 SF Gate URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/07/27/webzine99.dtl San Francisco, California, USA -- Running a webzine really sucks. At least, that seemed to be the consensus at Webzine99, version 2.0 of the indie Net zine convention. Hundreds of zine publishers and fans met in SF's cavernous SOMARTS Cultural Center Saturday to network, schmooze, share strategies and yeah, to bitch endlessly about the unrelenting and unrewarding hard work of creating and maintaining an independent Webzine. As Web events go, Webzine99 is pretty old-school. Web-heads in early days used to gather at house parties and geek-cons where a game of D&D was as likely as not to break out. But ever since the Web exploded, conventions have become decidedly more e-commerce. Ticket prices to events like Seybold or Internet World have soared as the events themselves have expanded. Now the Moscone Center seems to be stuffed every week by over-hyped conventions and attendees in suits and Palm VIIs. But at Webzine99, suits and PDAs took a back seat to ironic T-shirts and PVC pants, and a $10 admission bought something more like a party than a networking event. The indie crowd wallowed in a day of chatty panel discussions and speeches from such Webzine luminaries as Vsearch's V. Vale and Holy Titclamps' Larry-bob. Presided over by techno DJs and a hang-out space refreshingly free of e-biz demo tables, they gossiped amidst a steady stream of donated food. Because, of course, attendees weren't at Webzine99 to sell, co-brand or sign up revenue-sharing partners. They were there to crow about the rewards and cry about the crappiness of self-publishing. "Doing this on my own, what I do, it's a pain in the ass!" moaned Oddities Compiled's Daniel Phelps, who agreed with other zinesters that he spends from 10-30 hours a week working on his Web creation. "I come home from work and I work on this. It never ends! It sucks! But I'm addicted!" Addicted? To what?! Zine editors are hardly covered in glory; in fact, zinesters are generally quite sanguine about their lack of fame. And God knows zineing is hardly lucrative -- only two of Saturday's panel participants, V. Vale and Unamerican Activities' Srini Kumar have claimed a livable wage from their publishing creations, and Kumar has since had to get a day job. From all accounts, the financial side of Webzines sucks wind. "Every bit of profit I make goes back into the magazine," said Bitch Magazine's Andi Zeisler, whose site excerpts material from the print edition. "If we have some extra money we get, like, an another color ink on the cover." But there is, naturally, the dream of making it big, exemplified by those lucky guys at The Onion, who managed to produce a NY Times best-selling book without selling out. To zinesters, who mostly share the DIY fuck-the-establishment of the punk rock and paper fanzine movements, financial success is almost something to be sniffed at. Michael Kinsley or Tina Brown would not be welcomed here. The money is not the point, writer after zine writer insisted. The point is to vent. The point is to express. The point is to piss people off, or to make them listen or make them think or make them laugh. "Newspapers and magazines only want to talk about e-commerce and IPOs," grumbled V. Vale, whose VSearch (formerly REsearch) publications have been an alternative voice for two decades. "They've lost sight of the real human communication purposes of the Web. The goal for us is not an IPO. It's getting our message across they way we want." In a world where the media is run by wire services and an increasingly narrow network of national companies, print and TV news is slick and impersonal, homogenized and sanitized. Webzines are anything but. They may be ridiculous, offensive, high-minded, earnest, painfully personal or prurient, but they are not boring. Almost without trying, without a business plan or venture capital or strategic partnerships, these zines create "I can't believe I've saying this word - community," moaned Lockergnome's Chris Pirillo. The hundreds of thousands of people who get his Windows 95/98/NT newsletters a day depend on what he writes in a way they'll never look to Molly Ivins or Cokie Roberts. They trust Lockergnome the way they trust Online Journalism Review's no-bullshit alternative news commentary or Fierce's unflinching Web reviews. Because zines aren't created out of a desire to find a market niche like GeoCities or Yahoo, they are the result of a passion. And sharing that unvarnished, true-to-life passion creates passionate fans. Sometimes they're too passionate -- some of Webzine99's best shared stories arose from the wacky antics of zine fans, who send what Srini Kumar terms "a constant pulse of hate mail," and worse. Elly of Elly.org had one stalking fan show up at a private party and menace her psychedelically impaired friends until 8 a.m., and The Brunching Shuttlecocks' L. Fitzgerald Sjsberg still can't get one of his fans to stop sending him samples of moisturizer and locks of her cat's hair. Along with the cat hair these and other zinesters get a reaction from their readers -- loud and clear -- be it outraged, sympathetic, giggly or otherwise. Readers know that at least with these zines they're getting the straight dope. And it's this very honesty that makes webzines an anomaly, something for readers to get excited about in the vacuum left by straight-from-the-press-release stories from mainstream media. It's ironic that e-commerce sites and the corporatized media spend millions to encourage interactivity and create community while Webzine editors with almost no financial outlay and unbelievable time constraints have created vital and involved communities. Why is it that workers for magazines which lease their voice to corporate sponsors can make a living, while those who remain uncompromisingly true to their own vision still have to have day jobs? I guess that's why running a webzine sucks. 2001 SF Gate