zine tours

[Harley R. Pageot]

I read about this somewhere. Maybe in Stolen Sharpie Revolution?

Like book tours, only with zinesters. Driving around, hitting up bookstores and zine libraries, and doing readings and selling of zines.

It sounded like pretty much the most awesome thing ever. Road trips + zines. What could be better?

But has anyone actually done this?

I'm sure it would be a blast but I just envision losing so much money on gas and food.

[NicoleIntrovert]

Alex Wrekk has done it, you can read about it in Brainscan (#23 i think has writing of one of her zine road trips??)

It isn't a money making venture, it is a "vacation" you will need to spend cash on gas, food and such. It's the same when i travel with Click Clack Distro to different events. I sort of break even, but more often times than not, i will use my personal cash for lodging, food, gas and just put the distro money back into the distro.

[ciaraxyerra]

you would stay with your pen pals & the people that host your reading events. you would pack a towel & some travel toiletries & shower at your host's house. you would sleep on their couch or, if you're lucky, maybe they have a spare room or mattress for travelers. this is no different than traveling to see a friend that lives far away, except that you are going to several places & reading your zine at each of them. i'm not even convinced that you'd need to have serious name recognition. the papercut zine library in boston has hosted many zine readings & people were mostly just excited by the idea of a zine reading. if someone who writes a zine they were way into was involved, so much the better, but it's not about being a rock star. the whole thing would probably be more fun if you were traveling with some other zine friends & doing the tour together, but, for example, the last time cindy ovenrack (from "doris") toured with her band, she did a bunch of zine events too. she played a show at night & the next day, she'd go do a zine reading or other zine talk. she even spoke at harvard university.

[NicoleIntrovert]

There is also the Sister Spit tour: http://www.sisterspit.com/

[NicoleIntrovert]

http://www.robertsstreet.org/n/residency

I'm Not Lion / Zacery said:

Gah, Ciara, you make it sound pretty cool...don't tease us, I'll eat my hat if I ever do anything like this...I only have, like, four penpals and none of them would let me stay with them (nor would you want me to, seriously, I mutter like a serial killer in my sleep).

Also, how incredible would it be to pack a tiny bag and be like: "right then, let's go!", I'm so used to having boxes of stuff, I could do with going somewhere with limited "stuff"

This is similar to how I'd adore to do one of those things where you go stay somewhere for two weeks and make zines every day, "zine residencies", is it? I tried looking online for those but came up with nada.

[Harley R. Pageot]

Of course I'm serious.

If the past 20 months have been any indication, I certainly won't be working this summer. And zines have very increasingly become my biggest hobby and interest. I've never done any public readings but that's not to say I couldn't. I'd just need material that I'd be happy with and I think YS!4 in February and YS!5 in May should definitely provide that.

If I had a car and a license, I'd arrange something like this myself. Unfortunately I've neither and no friends who do either.

[Harley R. Pageot]

These threads really start to get confusing when people start deleting their profiles.

[kit feral]

agreed.
too bad the comments don't stick around when they flee.

Harley R. Pageot said:

These threads really start to get confusing when people start deleting their profiles.

[Billy Da Bunny]

On the topic of zine tours, here's a link in case y'all don't know about these awesome zinester/artist/singer type people:

http://www.trannyroadshow.com/

[Giz]

see ya then !

about the zine tour, it seems to be easier in north america.
did someone zine toured europe ?

Amber / Culture Slut said:

Harley, it is very bizarre the way we keep reading each other's minds these days. I'm actually in the beginning stages of planning a zine tour. I've been saving up my money to make it to the Portland Zine Symposium next summer, and then I figured if I'm gonna go that far, I may as well do a whole damn tour. I've got a few connections in western Canada, and four or five zinesters on board (well, we'll see if they're still all about it in the springtime) and I think it could be a pretty amazing time. I've toured with bands before, so I'm pretty adept at sleeping in vans and wearing the same clothes everyday. Nothing to it. If you're serious, we should get to talking.

Ever since I participated in the zine reading at TZL, I've been wanting to do readings like, every weekend.

[Harley R. Pageot]

I'd actually think it would be easier in Europe becaue everything's so close together. You have six or seven different countries in the same amount of area as southern Ontario.

[Emma Jane Falconer]

I think european zine tours are probably easier in some ways because the distances are smaller and the public transport is far more comprehensive, but the zine scenes are also smaller (tiny in some countries!) so there's less opportunity to book events.

Like the Portland Zine Symposium has hundreds of tables, but the London one has about 70 tables and our one in Brighton has 45 tables next year. We did some zine events in Brighton, to mixed effect. We had Alex Wrekk do a reading when she was staying with us in Brighton and that went really well, but we had other events that were awful (like the time this woman brought about 5 children with her and made them stay up so late they were tearful and whiny and then let them make a big hard to clean up mess whilst trying to bully you into buying her childrearing guide)

[Emma Jane Falconer]

A good way to do it in the EU I should add is to buy a Eurail ticket. It covers unlimited train travel in all EU countries, and is a great way to see multiple countries cheaply and conveniently.