reviewing courtesy

[Isabel Xochitl]

i want to review a few other zines in the zine i am working on right now.
i feel like i should ask the people who did the zines if it's okay. in addition, i feel like i should include their addy and cover price.
but one of the zines has no contact info.
another zinester, i am having trouble emailing.
do you feel it's mandatory to ask a zinester before publishing a review? before publishing their addy? and is it that important to include a price in the review? is a review without ordering info useless to the reader?
if there is a discussion on this already, i'm sorry, please let me know!
thanks.
isabel

[ManDuh]

I review zines on my art blog all the time. I don't think it's absolutely necessary to ask permission before reviewing, although sometimes when I trade I mention that I'll probably be reviewing it.

When I write reviews, I only include whatever contact info is in the zine itself...I'm not sure what I'd do about a zine with no contact info, because I like to send the writer/editor a link to the review after its up.

[Jerianne]

No, I don't think you should have to ask before writing a review. I agree, you should only include the contact info listed in the zine, unless you've checked with the zine's creator about including an address that is not in the zine. Personally, I think reviewing a zine with no contact or ordering info (not even a website or email) is pretty pointless.

[Ericfishlegs]

If you ordered the zine from the distro you could list that as the ordering info, but if the zine contains no ordering info you're pretty much just wasting your time reviewing it.

[kit feral]

I don't often ask. I guess because I don't bother to write reviews unless they're positive and I don't really feel many people would mind that. I only use the contact info in the zine- though occasionally I'll try and hunt down an email/distro link if a zine is older and only supplies an address. Ones with no contact info are tricky. I usually try and hunt down a distro it's being sold in. I don't think it's necessarily useless without contact info since the reader might come across the zine somewhere. I don't include a price. I email/write to the zinesters I've reviewed after I'm done and send them the review. So far no one has minded.

Hope that helps. :)

[Isabel Xochitl]

thank you all for your advice!
including the contact info in the zine seems like a good way to go.
the zine that doesn't list contact info is actually a "singalong colouring book" that a band created and gave out at a show i was at, and i doubt they even have more copies, but it fits so perfectly with the theme i'm going for and is a really beautiful zine. i did find a myspace page for the band, so perhaps i could just list that?

[ManDuh]

That sounds like a good idea. You never know, the band might reprint the book if they get enough requests for it.

Isabel Xochitl said:

i did find a myspace page for the band, so perhaps i could just list that?

[lauramarie]

In my perzine I review zines and don't provide contact info. I don't want to publish anyone's info without their permission and don't want to spend my time contacting each zinester to verify that they're okay with it. So I include only the zinester's name as listed on the zine itself, and I figure that with the magic of google, most anything can be tracked down. I also keep many of the zines I review and suggest to my readers that they can contact me if they would like to read the zine because most likely I still have it.