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Underground > Creation >

Chapbook musings.

17:33 / 05.12.02

I'm thinking about throwing together a chapbook for some of the writing I've done over the past couple years, and I was wondering if anyone had done this before, and if they'd have any advice for me on it?

I used to do a zine for six years before I "Awakened", but I barely remember what I did. I remember it was fun, though... the midnight Kinko's runs, the coffeehouse musings, the clipart and horror, the gonads and strife...

Well, except for that last part.

But not really.

Anyway, any advice?

::aphonia::

17:47 / 05.12.02

I've just self-published a short story collection. Is that what you mean by a 'chapbook'? If so, I'll tell you how I went about it.

17:53 / 05.12.02

Yeah, tell me about it.

::a::

11:45 / 06.12.02

Ok, it was pretty easy, due to me having help from various quarters, including some of the good people of Barbelithland. If you've done 'zines, then you'll be aware of some of the procedure, but here, briefly, is what I did:

Got the stories together, laid them out the way I wanted them, made sure I was consistent throughout (lots of my stuff is in parts), saved them on disk, each story as a separate file. Then I did a file to show the contents (leaving the page numbers blank), contact info, credits etc, and a further one for the back cover (which was all text). Next, a friend scanned a couple of photographs and inverted them to turn them into negative images, I chose one and she used Photoshop to add the title and my name. So there we had the front cover. It was done as a jpg file (I think - sorry, I'm a dunce when it comes to this stuff).

Was recommended to a printer, so got a reasonable deal on having a nice, glossy cover, on heavy paper, with plain paper and text inside - quite like a book, really, but stapled instead of bound. Around 60 pages in all, it cost £216-odd for 100 copies.

A friend typeset the stuff for me, so that kept costs down, too. Only problem was, I didn't get to proof read it, so there were a couple of things I wasn't amazingly happy with (such as the text not being justified), but I did alright, I think.

That may be way too much information - I'm not sure which point you're starting from. But get a printer that's recommended, or at least get a few quotes - prices can vary enormously.

Best of luck, and keep us posted!

11:47 / 06.12.02

Ah, and then of course you have to think about selling the thing.

Forgot about that! I tried to flog a few copies to a women's bookstore in central London, but they took a look and weren't into it. A sci-fi/flim shop took a few, but I doubt they've sold any. So make sure you have an idea of where to sell, because my experience is that the book world is pretty snotty about self published stuff.

15:06 / 06.12.02

Agreed. Trying to sell things for money is nigh on impossible.

My current thinking, zine-wise, is to just print a smaller number and give 'em away free.

My (somewhat old fashioned and grumpy) advice;

1.Don't use computers, cos putting it together by hand & typewriter is so much more fun.

2.Don't rely too heavily on anyone else.

3.If you're in the UK, do the photocopying at Staples, their bulk discount is completely sweet.. (I got 70 copies for under £35 I think)

4.from my experience, trying to flog copies by leaving piles of flyers around in places where people who are likely to be interested are likely to see them is a complete waste of time.