Make a Zine! [Paperback]

Bill Brent (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Bill Brent is the founder of Black Books and the long-running sex and humor zine, BLACK SHEETS, which he started in 1993. One of his stories appears in The Factsheet Five Zine Reader, a "best-of" collection of zine writing. He has written about zines for P.O.V. and contributes regularly to many zines.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Black Book; 1st edition (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963740148
• ISBN-13: 978-0963740144
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,527,493 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not what I'd hoped, May 3, 2001

By 

Violet - See all my reviews

This review is from: Make a Zine! (Paperback)

I took this book off the shelf hoping that it would teach me something new and/or fun about zinemaking and the world of zines. Instead it's mostly a how-to, geared towards those who are interested in investing serious money and technical skill into their zines. It tells plenty about distribution, dealing with stores and the postal service, and gives advice on layout and putting the scene together.

For someone who's going to work on a large scale, this is good stuff (I was going to give the book two stars before I remembered that it wasn't necessarily geared towards me). But for someone in my position- making a zine with a print run of under one hundred- this is extraordinarily impractical. I should spend HOW MUCH on a postage meter/saddle stapler/hot glue thingy? If you're broke and making copies secretly on a faculty copier, it's not much help.

The other thing I disliked about the book was that it gives the impression that it's a surefire way to make a great zine. Not true. I struggled along for four years before my zine finally started becoming something I could be proud of. Just following instructions does not give the same result as a couple years of practice; beyond that, let's face it, a lot of zines are simply not well-written. I'd rather have a single readable, simple zine than a dozen gorgeous-looking zines with writing that lacks clarity and effort.

In short- some good advice. I recently found myself drawing on the comments about burnout, but for the low-key zinemaker, I suggest you look elsewhere.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Example Warning, November 28, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Make a Zine! (Paperback)

Yes there are lots of good tips in this book, but no one has mentioned yet one important fact about this book: The author is the publisher of a SEX zine, and many of his examples and pointers are specific/relevant to sex zines...this book may not be a suitable choice for young readers! In addition to the many references to sex zines throughout the content, there is an entire chapter for "Sex Zines and Queer Zines", and this fact needs to be mentioned so that adults of young children who wish to start a zine can consider this fact when deciding to buy this book.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Really A Little Bit Sexy, April 28, 2000

By 

A. Petrotchenkov (Moscow, Russia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Make a Zine! (Paperback)

Ask anyone who works for a magazine -- it's a job. Ask anyonewho works on their zine -- it's a passion. This is true and I wouldlike to confirm these words from the first page of the Make A Zine!

20 years ago, when I was young and the Soviet Union was still struggling for communism, I co-published with my friends a jazz zine. It was real SAMIZDAT -- an illegal self-published independent zine. We printed it on the electric type writer with print out of 50 copies or so. It was dangerous but it was passion. Today I am working for a popular computer magazine -- and it is just a good job, not more.

This book is destined to be the starting point of an independent magazine self-publishing. You will find the answers to virtually any question you have regarding how to self-publish zine or e-zine. And it's fun to read even if you don't want to publish.

Bill Brent gives the best introduction to layout, typography, stats, and design I've ever seen. But he also pays too much attention to his sex zines. In appendix of the book there is a good directory of stores and zine distributors (esp. sex-positive), but valuable in the USA only.

Now, in the time of the e-zine explosion, veteran and novice zine editors alike are discovering the joys of paperless publishing. With Internet pulishing everyone is absolutelly independent and free, and there are no expensive print or postage bills.

So, make your zines, ladies and genlemen. And I believe computers & Internet someday destroy any ...totalitarian state.