A fanzine, a contraction of the words 'fan' and 'magazine', is a small independent publication. Easy and fun to do, it is a great way to communicate an idea and promote its dissemination.
Steps
Step 1. Make a 12-page fanzine (10 pages plus two covers) in A5 format
Take three sheets of standard A4 paper, fold them in half horizontally, and you get a booklet.
Step 2. You must now choose the topic (s)
A fanzine does not necessarily have to be monothematic: if you want, you can choose a different topic for each page. Popular topics include: stories, polls, video game tips, bands, comics, art, recipes, fashion tips, local news, politics.
Step 3. Choose a title
The ideal is to choose one that is short, essential, and easy to remember.
Step 4. Now think about the look and feel
You can write the articles by hand or on the computer: the important thing is that they fit on the page.
Step 5. Create your prototype, from which you will then make photocopies
Make sure everything is well fixed, and that the final look is what you want.
Step 6. Make photocopies
The easiest and cheapest way to print a fanzine is double-sided, by photocopying the two sides of the original onto both sides of a blank sheet.
Step 7. Now you can distribute your fantastic creation
Advice
- If you want to give your fanzine an attractive vintage look, you can use an old typewriter, which you can easily find on eBay for little money.
- Remember to set side, top and bottom margins wide enough to ensure a professional effect and to prevent some text from being cut out.
- To gather ideas, search the Internet for a catalog of fanzines, or buy a few from bookstores or alternative culture stores. The best thing is to know other authors, with whom to exchange your fanzines.
- Remember that the result will always be black and white, unless you want to invest in color photocopies, which are very expensive.
- Alternatively, you can format your fanzine using free software, such as Writer from OpenOffice.org or Scribus: set up a horizontal page with two columns, and print all copies with your printer. The result will be cleaner.
