My situation - privacy issue

[Erin H]

I am thinking of writing a new zine. I haven't written one in over 7 years, and I'm starting to get back into the zine groove. I want to write about my relationship with my fiance, my disability, our disabilities, and how we deal with the problems/stereotypes we face because of them. Since I'm disabled, I need someone to help me cut/paste/fold/staple/copy my zine. I used to just type everything on my computer, print it out, and have one of my nurses or my dad help me put it together. I would direct them what to cut and where to put everything. This led me to censor a lot of what I wanted to say, and I feel like my past zines weren't as good because of that. With my new zine, I definitely want to write about things that I would NOT want my nurses or parents to see.

I have been thinking about doing everything on the computer (text/formatting/layout), but I am not sure how to do that. I have Microsoft Word and Photoshop.

Then, after I finish putting everything together, how will I get it copied? Folded? Stapled?

Any ideas would be awesome. Thanks in advance.

[Sarah Arr!]

Hey, if nothing else, I'll do the copy collate and fold, and mail it back to you. My copy shop is pretty super cheap and I have the collate & staple stuff @ home.

[Erica S.]

If you get to the point of wanting to get it distroed (and I might be interested in distroing it as it sounds VERY different and interesting), some distros will take your flats, run off your copies themselves and collate them, and sell them for cost. You'd probably want to get some high-quality digital prints of the flats themselves to avoid copy-of-a-copy blurriness to send to the distros, or just do it all by email if you can turn the flats into an Adobe PDF or a big .jpg (i.e. a common program that most people have on their computers). You won't be able to control little stuff like how many staples they use or the exact shade/weight of paper, but it would certainly be private!

Seriously, email me when this comes to pass: blacklightdiner at gmail dot com

[Dan 10things]

See, a bunch of people volunteering to help, now get writing! :)

[Erin H]

Thanks, everyone. I've started writing, and I hope to have everything completed in a month or two. I have Adobe Pagemaker, so I can turn it into a PDF. Yay. I'll post here when I finish :)

[Chella Quint]

Good question. You could make it look cut and paste if you like by using photoshop to create different effects for backgrounds, and if you have publisher as part of your microsoft office package you could insert the photoshop backgrounds and then overlay text onto the images. If you save the files as pdfs, you can send them to a willing printer on line or take it in on a memory stick. Maybe get in touch with a small press or work out a trade (distroing or freebies in exchange for collating and stapling for you?) with one of your other zine or distro contacts? If you'd really prefer doing real cut and paste and collating and stapling it yourself, maybe get family to lay out all the backgrounds on your flat, and then email the text and mail the flats to a willing partner in crime? I would offer, but my paper sizes are different in the UK and will screw up your layout! (A4 etc doesn't apply to the US.)

ETA: I've just realised that this forum is set up to show posts at the bottom - I hadn't read any of the replies when I first wrote this. Looks like everybody's in agreement though and wants you to do the zine as well as working out all the details.

To do quarter size, what I've done in the past is laid out 2 copies top and bottom as though it were halfsize. What you get when you print is landscape-fold quartersize zines, and you only need to print out half as many and then do a final cut at the end. You can even lay them out in numerical order and let a photocopier deal with booklet layout.

Can't wait to see it! xxC