Q&A

This is hugely, hugely dependent on what size zine you are going to print. Usually, the digital version follows the print version, just in PDF form, so you should follow specs based on what you are going to print. I touch on this briefly under Budgeting (because final print size and page count affects zine costs) as well as in the Zine Layout page for more guidance.

Generally speaking, it's assumed that the zine funds will be used to pay for shipping supplies like bubble mailers, backing cards, and so on. In the zines I've worked on, the finance mod has gone right ahead and ordered the supplies for delivery to the shipping mod, too, instead of reimbursement. If there are any extra supplies left over from these -- and we assume that amount will not be exorbitant (i.e., you'll generally place these orders once you know how many zines you're mailing after preorder period is over, so if you sold 176 zines you will likely buy mailers in the 200qty range, not 500) -- the shipping mod by default ends up keeping them, for personal or future zine use.

In accrual accounting, and in real world business practice, only the cost of the supplies used will be subtracted from the zine funds, but zines are usually one-time projects and not a long-running business, so it's more acceptable that the total amount of those supplies are subtracted.

Now, not all shipping supplies are as simple. For example, a DYMO label printer and a UPS mailbox can each cost $250, and I've purchased both for zines I've co-modded. Even though that first zine did fairly well, I didn't feel comfortable including the printer and the mailbox under the costs of the zine total (The zine paid for the labels though). I'd viewed the printer as a personal purchase since it would help me in future zines I was also going to be shipping, and it is still something I'm benefitting from today whenever I ship anything personal. And the mailbox wasn't really a necessary expense either -- it was just something I wanted to do if I were to take on shipping mod responsibilities.

Those kinds of expenses, I think, would fall under grayer areas. I think I could have expensed them if I wanted, but I think you would need a really solid reason to do so. A DYMO printer can be cost-effective if you end up shipping 500+ orders, for example, but probably not a wise purchase if you are shipping 50. So, keep these in mind when you are determining what kinds of supplies the zine should be purchasing.

I've personally never offered digital merch in bundles, but depending on how you've set up the bundling options, perhaps the best way might be to save them in different Google Drive folders per bundle and then send out the link to buyers. If each digital item can be an add-on and therefore more personal, then you may try looking into mail merge options instead, and use the power of spreadsheets to feed into the emails you send out. (I've used Yet Another Mail Merge (YAMM) for Gmail, which is free if you only send up to 50 emails a day, so you can batch things out like that.)

BigCartel also has an integration with a platform called Pulley, which will deliver digital products for you for a cost.

As always, the solution you're going to want to go with will depend on the volume of orders you'll need to fulfill. For anything under 200 orders, YAMM would probably work since you don't need to pay for it and you can batch it out. The more complex and intricate it gets, you are probably better off paying for a service like Pulley. (So, try not to make it complex and intricate.)

Generally speaking, the responsibility for filing taxes will fall to the person whose PayPal/Stripe account the zine income/expenses goes through. And, depending on how well the zine does, each contributor receiving a portion of the profit will need to also figure out how the money they get from the zine will need to be declared in the taxes they file in their own countries. (For example, in the United States, a zine runner may need to issue 1099-MISC forms for contributors who were paid more than $600.)

I don't think taxes factors into costs, but I would also check the state laws on sales taxes for whoever the PayPal/Stripe is under -- I know some states, for instance, may require sales taxes added even to products sold online, so that's the other side of the tax situation that will need researching!

At the end of the day, everyone's tax situation is different, so I definitely suggest you reach out to a professional accountant to figure this one out! Try to get someone's opinion early on so you know if you DO need to set money aside first -- even if a zine is for charity, at least in the US the IRS will still view the zine's income as taxable, even if you gave it all away. Be sure you track all your expenses and receipts, so you've got a paper trail of how much money was made and spent in the tax year applicable. Paypal and Stripe will provide you with 1099Ks to get total earnings pulled together, but you'll be in charge of pulling your expenses in a legible way.

Also, be mindful that if you earned money in 2020 but didn't pay anyone out until 2021, that it could affect your taxes! So be sure you're only reporting on the money that went in and out on the tax year the money was received and spent.

The simplest answer here is first figuring out what the cost of your giveaway bundle would be, and add to it the most expensive shipping fees for an international location, assuming your winner could be that. Either add this to your breakeven goal or, so it's easier to plan for, see if this is an amount the mods can pay for out of pocket.

It's up to you to find out and research which printer would work best for what you need. Some merch and zine folks are protective of the suppliers they've found because in the past, some suppliers have gotten bombarded with so much new business that either they've been unable to keep up with them and closed shop or the folks that have been using them for a while end up having a hard time relying on their production schedule, especially during con season.

There are a lot of printers you'll find over Google -- try searching for "zine printers", "booklet printers", "small run book printers" and I guarantee you don't need to go past page two to find printers that many other zine mods have used before. Sometimes you may find even better solutions that are local to you (or your shipping mod) -- I'd encourage you to look at those as options too.

More importantly, you can then compare their pricing, ask for samples, and see for yourself which ones you'd like to choose. Compare the samples with the zines you like to figure out which ones are close to the final product you're interested in.

Artists know a charity zine is for charity, so they aren't expecting monetary compensation for it, and that's okay. But I do think they still deserve a copy of the zine that they've worked on, and not to have to pay for shipping. So in this case, if your reason for setting a zine up as for-charity is because you don't think you'll sell enough copies, then please keep in mind you're still going to need to make enough to cover for bundle/shipping for your contributors!

If you're doing a digital-only charity zine, then you've given your possible contributors all the information they need. They are signing up their time and effort for the cause you have chosen and are doing so voluntarily and because they are passionate about the project -- that's absolutely fine!

It depends on the mod team! Usually all the mods decide on this, sometimes the mods leave the judging to a different group of people. You can always check with the mod team to see how they're doing it.

I'm still working on how best to do the page on layouts, but some things to consider when formatting fic:

• Serif fonts are more readable than sans serif, especially for print.

• Give generous margins! For physical zines I've set them up so there was 0.8" in the inside margins and 0.5" in the outside margins. The inside margins help offset what happens when you bind a thick book, and the inside pages are basically eaten by the binding. The outside margins are especially helpful because when you're holding a physical book, your thumb's going to end up covering those outside margins.

• Have enough spaces between the lines so that the words can breathe -- it's an eye strain to look at a page that is crammed with words, so make the reading experience worth it

Try picking up a paperback book and see how they've formatted their pages. It's a great resource to see how you should format fic.

This question also asked about programs to use: Adobe InDesign is the industry standard, but it is expensive and runs on a monthly subscription. I've been using Affinity Publisher, which can be purchased with a one-time fee, with similar results! For basic bookmaking, it does the job and isn't that different from InDesign functionally, so learning it when you know how to use InDesign is an easy transition.

There is a lot to consider when you're running zines, way more than the initial idea for them, so I would very carefully think about whether or not that IS something within your wheelhouse to do at the moment. It's great to think of timing and it's also great to think about what you don't know yet. I wanted to direct back to this page about modding in the site because a lot of what I'm going to say here ties back to all those factors.

Time

I don't know how someone would have made a fandom zine over the summer a plausible project. Not when you need time to get contributors (easily ~1 month), not when you need those contributors to create a zine (2-3 months), not when you need to run sales (~4-6 weeks), production (~3-6 weeks, maybe more) and then shipping.

If you want to do a zine over the summer, the best thing to do is to create one yourself, or with a small group of friends. The origin of zines is actually a lot more DIY than the polished fandom anthologies you might be more familiar with today, but zines can be as simple as photocopied pages you made yourself.

There's nothing wrong with starting small-scale as you learn something out!

Money

This is super important, especially if you're thinking about a project that's going to involve basically commissioning a bunch of artists for work. DIY zines like the one I linked above are great because it doesn't really cost a lot to make them, so you can just mail your friends those copies pretty easily, but when you're going into printing polished zines you should think about how much it's going to take to send all of those artists/writers their own copy, shipping included! You can't just trust that a zine will sell enough copies of itself that the money coming in will cover for it, so you have to have that backup capital in place.

Experience

This is really hard to answer, because everyone has to start from somewhere! But I think head mods do themselves, and their zine, a disservice if their main contribution to the zine is the idea. You can add mods on with experience in certain things, but something to consider: as the main mod of the project, how would you know that your finance/shipping/etc mod is doing things properly?

When you take on the responsibility of heading up a zine, you are the final person who is accountable for how the zine performs. You can have people helping in different areas, but if you don't know enough about budgets, costs, and so on, then you're putting yourself at the mercy of others. This can be pretty risky if you don't know/have a long relationship with whoever gets added to your team, and I've seen many cases where even long-time friends turned out untrustworthy.

But how do you gain experience?

• Try smaller-scale projects with less overhead -- do it yourself or with friends and see what you run into

• Observe and learn -- if you are able to be part of zines first as a participant, you can pick up a lot from how those zines are run (whether they're run well or badly, any new experience can be helpful!)

• Real life responsibilities/projects -- if you've ever had to prepare a budget for a school club, organize an event, or something similar, your experiences there may help! Here are the skill sets I think are important in modding zines that you can refer to.

Ultimately I don't think there's anything wrong with starting out smaller, with something a lot more manageable and within your comfort zone. There are very big, very real risks to starting projects that involve other people's time, effort, and money, and there are better, less risky ways to beef up your experience before you can tackle a more formal project!