Gabriel Ricard: First of all, for anyone who might not be familiar with your site, could you tell us a little bit about ZineWiki?
Kate Sandler: ZineWiki is, in short, Wikipedia for zines and small-press projects. Explaining what Wikipedia is, at this point, feels like explaining that "blog" is short for "weblog," so I will spare you.
GR: How did you get started?
Alan Lastufka: I added an entry to Wikipedia for Alex Wrekk, who publishes Brainscan zine and the book about zines, Stolen Sharpie Revolution.
Wikipedia deleted that entry claiming she was "non-notable." For someone who had given so much to the zine community, it was ridiculous that she didn't deserve an entry based on their standards. So I decided to start a site dedicated to cataloging every zine published, with historical information on each entry and a cover scan, etc.
I researched the WikiMedia software, which was already in use by numerous online collaborative projects, bought the domain name, set-up the servers and then started begging people to contribute.
GR: You guys are coming up on a full year of activity and support. Does it surprise you at all that the response to the site has been so positive?
KS: To be surprised would be to imply that we did not think that ZineWiki was a particularly good idea, such that no one would be interested in it. On the contrary, we thought it was a fabulous idea —an irresistible idea— that a lot of people would find useful, interesting and fun. Happily, it seems like we were right about that.
GR: If I may ask, how does ZineWiki maintain financial support?
AL: I pay for it all out of my pocket. The site is hosted on my Fall of Autumn server and most of the advertising has been donated by the publications (Clamor and Zine World) that have run the ads, though a few I've paid for. Word of mouth and others' contributions are the best support anyone can offer at this point.
GR: How many people would you say are contributing to the site right now?
AL: We have almost 600 registered users, but only about 10-15% of those users have edited anything other than their own article. Then we have a core group of six administrators that do the majority of article clean up and categorizing.
GR: I've noticed that you guys have been getting a good deal of positive press on this as well. Would you say this is just word-of-mouth, or do you guys go out there and promote the hell out of this thing?
KS: There was a press release for the thousandth article posted on ZineWiki. Did you know there were a thousand articles as of February? Probably not. Press releases and traditional publicity are kind of anachronistic in the indy press. In Wiki-speak, they just aren't notable. Word of mouth doesn't quite describe it, either. It's word of hyperlink, word of e-mail. We have put a few ads in print, but there's no publicity campaign.
GR: Tell us about Punk Planet.
AL: Punk Planet is a Chicago-based magazine that focuses on independent culture, music and literature. ZineWiki started up around the same time as their "Revenge of Print" issue, which focused heavily on zines and the small press. So I contacted the publisher, Dan Sinker, about ZineWiki and he offered me a few articles from the new issue to reprint on ZineWiki. We hoped it would both draw visitors to the site, and gain a little more online exposure for Punk Planet.
We've since republished a number of exclusive articles online from the print magazine.
GR: Based on the strength of your site, you must feel that the zine is in pretty good shape right now.
KS: I don't get that message from the success of ZineWiki. A large percentage of the zines we have articles about are defunct; in effect, ZineWiki entries serve them as tombstones. The conversation is lively, though, which speaks to the interest in the medium of print. A lot of discussion went into how to integrate the encyclopedia with zine archives and libraries so that it might be useful in cataloging. Zine libraries, by which I mean physical archives, are vitally important, of course, to keeping zines available. Availability is the test of a good medium. Hopefully, people are using ZineWiki to that end.
GR: What does the zine have to do to remain strong?
KS: It must do what any zine must do. It must be read. It must be printed and it must be distributed and it must be read. It's the simple truth, and some people seem to forget it. Talking about a zine does not make it strong. Wearing a pin for a zine does not make it strong. Selling a zine does not make it strong. The zine must be read. Written, printed, distributed, and read. The bare minimum is really all it takes. Writing well, printing often, distributing accessibly and aiming at diverse readers will make your soul a few ounces lighter, so I recommend aiming for that once you're in the groove.
GR: What goes into deciding on the subject for your monthly featured article?
AL: The Featured Article is based on views, length and how well it's written. Popular articles are usually edited the most often and, because of that, usually have the most complete and accurate information.
GR: Tell us about Fall of Autumn.
AL: I started Fall of Autumn over the summer of 2005. Shortly after, Aaron [Cynic] and Kate started contributing, and we are now an equally-owned collective. We distribute zines and crafts. We publish zines, columns, articles, tutorials and Zinester Podcasts. Zinester Podcasts are free audio readings from zines, by zinesters, that anyone can subscribe or download from our site in a free mp3 format.
KS: Aaron and I had been working together on zine-related projects for a little over two years when Fall of Autumn started. We ran a coffee-shop series of monthly zine readings, got involved in organizing conferences around self publishing, ran a little distro, and made a lot of contacts and friends. When we started working with Alan, we decided to put our own projects on the back burner and see where Fall of Autumn could go. At the time, Fall of Autumn was launched as an online magazine. Things changed very, very quickly as the project grew. Now it's more of a bazaar of zine-related work, but with a technological spin.
GR: What are some of your favorite zines?
AL: I really like Brainscan; it was one of the first I read and almost everything in it stuck with me. I also really enjoy 398, a fairy-tale zine from Canada. Old Weird America is written really well. And as far as comics go, My Brain Hurts can't be topped. My Brain Hurts is written by Liz Baillie and she is currently writing a new webcomic available exclusively on Fall of Autumn.
KS: I love too many zines to fairly name a few as favorites. Ladyfriend, Avow, Doris, anything Love Bunni Press gets its capable hands on. I like zines that feel like good documentary films, zines that don't feel like pedestals for their own writers. To paraphrase Ira Glass (who isn't my hero, but makes a salient point), a good story shows people at exactly human size. American't does that, Bradley Adita's READ zine project does that, Black Carrot and everything from Grilled Tuna Zines does that. I highly recommend all of these.
GR: Any new/exciting features that we can look forward to?
AL: The Zinester Podcasts will continue, we're just hitting our 40th episode of those. We'll have the third series of the royalty-free Punk Rock Clip Art available for download in the near future. I've also started a series of filmstrips that blend education with ideology, focusing on the various print techniques available today, how they work and why you would choose one over the other. Each technique is presented by someone who's a total nerd about it.
GR: Any advice for those starting out in the submitting process?
KS: Imagine if you opened up the World Book Encyclopedia and read that an elephant was "a big ol' stinky beastie that gets real lonely and wants you to e-mail it at XsmellephantX@gmail.com." That's not very good information, unless you're looking for an elephant pen pal (try the zoo). Apply that to zines in ZineWiki. We don't want opinion, we don't want bad grammar, and we don't want advertisements masquerading as encyclopedic entries. What we do want is knowledge shared. Don't be afraid to do research, to link your entries to source materials. ZineWiki is only as good as it is broad and reliable. It's getting better every day.
Gabriel Ricard is a Staff Interviewer at Unlikely 2.0. You can learn more about him at his bio page.