How do you (if you do at all) store your original zine manuscripts?

[Saling Pusa Distro/closed]

Well, it is an understatement to say that i amd very disorganized (as an excuse, I'll site my psych prof, as he says it is typical of creative right brain people...ha!) so anyways, well, I find that i just lose or neglect most of the original copies of zine flats that i work on, after having them scanned...

so i just wanted to know, do you guys save the original flats? or what do you do with them? or do you just save the scanned /pdf files? my room is already filled with bozes and drawers for crafts and unfinished projects, plus tons ot notebooks , journals and sketchbooks among other things...

[Emma Jane Falconer]

Nothing exciting, I just have them in plastic sleeves clipped into a folder in order of issue. Each one of my zines is 1-4 double sided a4 sheets, depending on the zine, so they don't take up much space.

[ashlee swanson]

i keep them in a binder in sheet protectors. most of my zines are out of print, but i still like keeping the original flats in case i ever want to reprint something. the binders are super easy to store and they keep everything protected.

[W. Alan Fare]

I store the masters of each issue in seperate mylar bags, one for each page master, and put them all in another mylar bag. Then I tag the main bag and store it flat with all the rest in climate-controlled storage. Yes... sadly I'm that much of a nerd!

I've also been collecting movie one-sheets, half-sheets, inserts, press books, 8x10's, etc. for decades, so I'm really crafty when it comes to storing paper goods. But in my early days I used to just put all my masters into manila envelopes and mark them with issue and title. Over the years they would dry out and start to fall apart, that's when I decided to take much better care of them.

P.S. Nothing I've ever published is saved soley on a computer! I keep all masters in hard form just to be safe! Not to mention I'm really a luddite at heart...

[Alex Wrekk]

i keep my flats in random file folders... these folders can get lost but always get found. I make good master copies so I don't have to lug my originals around with me when I make copies.

[Amazing Sunflower]

Oh good! That's my method too! After reading W. Alan Fare's post, I felt like a huge slacker!

My file folders usually do end up in my file cabinet, which is rather unorganized, so sometimes I have some stress putting my hands on the title I need. Maybe if I quit messing around on the internet, I would have time to organize my file cabinet.

Alex Wrekk said:

i keep my flats in random file folders... these folders can get lost but always get found. I make good master copies so I don't have to lug my originals around with me when I make copies.

[Monstress Zine]

yeah, i save them. i even have a zine from the late 1990s where we used oak leaves on the cover. i put the flats in envelopes 'cause i'm still cut'n'paste. then i stick them in folders in a filing cabinet. that sounds much more organized than it actually is because i have a really haphazard filing system called, "i'll just stick it here in the top drawer."

ashlee and w. alan, you guys are amazing. i will now start thinking about implementing your systems and it will probably actually happen a year from now!

[Saling Pusa Distro/closed]

my room is still fairly cluttered but my zines are not officially filed and organized--well, kinda. Their all in a binder, each in it's own sheet protector (all but one, the fat cut'n'paste original copy of a literary zine that wouldn't fit--so i had to put it in one of those big ziplocks). and soon, is shall take all my pdf copies out of my poor cluttered hardrive (and flashdrive) and them in a cd... hopefully...

[Saling Pusa Distro/closed]

i envy you! now that i think about it, i wish i had saved copies of the first zine I ever wrote for : Coffeewrite (which was the official zine of my high school, that the admin people kept on censoring for sexual or gay or revolting or even slight political undertones...)

una crow said:

yeah, i save them. i even have a zine from the late 1990s where we used oak leaves on the cover. i put the flats in envelopes 'cause i'm still cut'n'paste. then i stick them in folders in a filing cabinet. that sounds much more organized than it actually is because i have a really haphazard filing system called, "i'll just stick it here in the top drawer."

ashlee and w. alan, you guys are amazing. i will now start thinking about implementing your systems and it will probably actually happen a year from now!

[W. Alan Fare]

You might look into investing in protective bags to store your masters. If you have a comic book shop near you, they uaually sell them in bulk, or you can get them cheaper direct from a supplier. I used "Bags Unlimited". And once you get a system worked out it gets easy to just file each issue master in chronological order.

Just keep in mind, I grew up in a house where my mother was an insurance underwriter and my father worked for the I.R.S. I had the idea of filing my homework into my head in elementary school! No wonder I left home when I was 15...

I Am said:

my room is still fairly cluttered but my zines are not officially filed and organized--well, kinda. Their all in a binder, each in it's own sheet protector (all but one, the fat cut'n'paste original copy of a literary zine that wouldn't fit--so i had to put it in one of those big ziplocks). and soon, is shall take all my pdf copies out of my poor cluttered hardrive (and flashdrive) and them in a cd... hopefully...

[Saling Pusa Distro/closed]

i'll look into it. i know i should be taking care of the originals.master better... but im just to disorganized... although i think zines and anything lit-related are the only things i care enough about to actually put some effort into filing and storing them more carefully...

W. Alan Fare said:

You might look into investing in protective bags to store your masters. If you have a comic book shop near you, they uaually sell them in bulk, or you can get them cheaper direct from a supplier. I used "Bags Unlimited". And once you get a system worked out it gets easy to just file each issue master in chronological order.

Just keep in mind, I grew up in a house where my mother was an insurance underwriter and my father worked for the I.R.S. I had the idea of filing my homework into my head in elementary school! No wonder I left home when I was 15...

I Am said:

my room is still fairly cluttered but my zines are not officially filed and organized--well, kinda. Their all in a binder, each in it's own sheet protector (all but one, the fat cut'n'paste original copy of a literary zine that wouldn't fit--so i had to put it in one of those big ziplocks). and soon, is shall take all my pdf copies out of my poor cluttered hardrive (and flashdrive) and them in a cd... hopefully...

[Matte Resist]

I have a box that I put all my zine originals in. I usually try to put each in it's own envelope. However, I recently was going through them and found that the sticky part of the envelope had caused problems with a couple. A few weren't looking so good after sitting around for better than 10 years. Fortunately I also have a box with a good copy of each zine. For my more recent zines I also have a flat which I use for making copies. Those are neatly organized in folders in a file drawer (well... mostly. Sometimes I have trouble finding one when I need it)

[Giz]

I kept all of them folded like copies, but unstapled. most of the time, the xeroxed one looks better than originals.
I do the same for music-stuff booklet.

My only mistake was to give original cut&paste sumbission for a zine... but they're friends of mine and give it back when the zine will be published.