Do you guys charge for your zines?

[Weepy Gonzales]

Hey. What do you charge for your zine? Or is it free? I have always been making mine free (or trade, of course), but I don't have a job right now and am wondering what I should do. Thanks.

[Harley R. Pageot]

Man, I would love to be able to give mine away for free but, in the six months I've been making zines, I'm down about $194.

So I sell mine for $3 each. It seems like a reasonable enough price. I certainly have no designs on making money, I just want to try and break even.

And, if you think about it, $3 is a pretty damn good deal for a quality zine. What else can you get for that much these days? A hamburger? 1/6 of a novel? A bus ride one way?

[tim scannell]

nope...never
spend about $500.00/year on hobby
of zines...i don't bowl or play poker or bingo or drink or smoke
or use dope...and so i have extra $$$$$ for an enjoyable hobby.
when i READ a GOOD zine...i send a $1.00 to them...to say
to keep at it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Amy]

About what Amber/Culture Slut said ealier, if something is priced at $.5 on etsy I don't usually look... I'm planning on selling Strangest Moments at 1.50... it's about 30 pages quarter sized. But then I'm trading a bunch of them, so...

[Melanie]

I try to figure in postage & copy costs for the price of my zine. Pretty much every zine I have ever made has cost $1, knowing that it has cost more to make / for postage, but oh well. Most of my zines are sent out via trade anyway. :)

[Erica S.]

Keep in mind that if you're taking orders with Paypal, it will gobble up 30c in fees with every order. And that can add up!

Mine are sold for roughly double the amount they will cost to print, which then pays for the postage fees and Paypal fee and envelopes. I know I'm losing money, but at least this way I am not losing hundreds of dollars every year that I can't really afford. (Also, I agree with Amber that free things are not often respected, which is a crying shame, but it's the truth... after a zine fest there are sooo many free zines and ads in the trash.) Then the wholesale price (for distros) is the actual printing cost. I've never sold a zine for more than $3, and that was a split, usually it is $2, which I think is a fair price.

I've considered subscriptions as a way to make myself write more, since I find it hard to do just for myself, but if I felt people were "relying" on me to produce... hmm...

[APFuchs]

There is nothing wrong at all with charging for something you've worked hard to create.

[incurable hippie]

I'm having to charge for my latest zine - strictly no trades or freebies, for the first time ever. It just cost too much to print, and is big so postage costs too much, for me to do it for free.

Does anyone else feel really guilty for charging for zines??! It could just be me with residual Catholic guilt for everything.

[kit feral]

I always feel guilty asking for money. I don't know WHY- I pay for zines. but I feel like... I don't know, like I'm thinking "I put a lot of effort/time/money/love into this, but maybe you won't see that" and they'll feel like it's not worth it. or think I'm trying to make a profit. I'm not... Canadian postage just happens to be ridiculously expensive.
I'll have to stop trades in January after I pay my tuition and it's been haunting me.

incurable hippie said:

I'm having to charge for my latest zine - strictly no trades or freebies, for the first time ever. It just cost too much to print, and is big so postage costs too much, for me to do it for free.

Does anyone else feel really guilty for charging for zines??! It could just be me with residual Catholic guilt for everything.

[St. Joshua Norton Press]

I consider zine production to be therapy for me, and a sunk medical cost.... That said, I pretty much just give away copies of my Haiku a Day zine, including mailing out a few dozen each month to friends and other zinesters. My more conventional zine I'd much rather trade something for (it's much more interesting to me that way) but baring that, it's $2. That's a nice round cost that covers what it takes me to produce them, and anything left over I consider a subsidy for trades or the stuff I give away.