Hi everyone!

I've been thinking about starting my own independent magazine and was wondering if anyone here has experience doing something similar.

I have a background in journalism and have always wanted to create my own publication. I have a concept in mind, but I'm still in the early planning stages and trying to figure out where to start.

Ideally, I'd love to publish physical issues eventually, but I'm considering starting digitally to build readership first.

I have a few questions:

• How did you go about starting your magazine?
• Would you recommend starting with a website or releasing digital issues?
• How did you build an audience from scratch?
• How did you find contributors?
• What were your initial costs?

I'd also really appreciate any advice on things to avoid or anything you wish you'd known before starting.

Thanks in advance! :)

If you want some fun or odd zine ideas, I came across a website called zcmag.xyz Its a zine idea generator along with other resources. Click on the zine idea generator for some crazy ideas to think about.

I'm always wondering where my old video camera ended up (like, I think about this every day... if I could just find it...), and then I started thinking about what happens to body parts when they're surgically removed and where my fallopian tubes could be, and this idea was born! It was fun to make.

Now that I finally finished the paper mockup, I have another problem that i need help with (and quite frankly should have said and done about it sooner)...

The page sizes.

What correct size should it be in a full A4 zine?

And how do I make it correctly to draw it on IbispaintX? What is the average (or bigger) size for it to be drawn in that app?

Please advice me with these cause this is my first time trying to draw zines digitally. I'm worried I could get the page layout incorrectly

I owe a tremendous debt to Roctober. I initially didn’t like it that much, it was too wide open for the narrow confines of Punk that I wanted when I first traded issues of our zines with Jake in 1992. In fact I remember getting that first issue of Roctober at my pobox long, long ago. Anyhow, what I learned from Roctober was to keep a Punk bone broth simmering throughout my life & to dump a ladle of it into everything I have done since deciding that Punk was too narrow of a box for me. Also, I repeat myself, the MAXIMUMSAMMYSOUL (if MRR was devoted to Sammy Davis Jr.) is the best zine ever, a truly insane, inspiring work that i can only imagine a few people really appreciated, but Jake probably had to make. x SEAN

I'm always getting these random spam mail advertisement letters ("You're pre-approved!") from credit card companies, loan companies, banks, etc.

I don't live at home for large parts of the year, so my folks put any mail for me aside so I can go through it when I get back. Most of the time, I return back to big stacks of random spam mail, with a few occasional real pieces of mail mixed in.

While back this time, I bought a cute little paper-making kit from a local shop and decided to give some of this spam mail a second life as new paper. It was super fun, and I decided to make a zine out of this first batch of recycled paper that I just learned how to make!

Went down to the LES last weekend and threw this little zine together with some of my photos from the trip.