Fever Zine and the World Wide Web
By Anne Keehn
Websites for magazines and newspapers were originally formatted as sparser, less-relevant versions of their print counterparts—as Tom Rosentield, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism recently told the Associated Press: “Only a few years ago, newspaper Web sites were primarily considered an online morgue for that day’s newspaper.”
But Internet advertising spending is projected to exceed that of print in the near future. And this past Monday, the L.A. Times set a precedent when they broke a major “blockbuster” story—an investigative feature on Sean “Puffy” Combs’ connection to the 1994 shooting of Tupac—on the web, two days before putting it in print.
More than ever, the Web is becoming the centerpiece of information dissemination. And Liverpool native (and SWINDLE contributor) Alex Zamora, an independent zine publisher based in London, is capitalizing on this sea change in the industry.
Zamora’s Fever Zine was initially distributed exclusively through MySpace. Through the social networking site, he was able to connect with potential contributors to his zine: artists, writers, designers and photographers from all over the world. And even before his local stores showed an interest in stocking Fever, Zamora was selling his zine to fans in Japan, Europe and the U.S. through the Internet.
SWINDLE’s Web exclusive interview with Alex Zamora follows after the jump!
What was the first zine you ever looked at?
One of the first zines I remember reading was called G-Spot. I was working at a nightclub in Central London and the bar staff would contribute to it, with one of them editing it each time. The owner paid to have it printed and it was given away to the customers so they could have something to read on the night-bus. It was full of random and odd stuff.
Tell me about how you distribute Fever Zine. How has the Internet played into all this?
Well when I first started Fever Zine I sold it exclusively via our MySpace page using Paypal. I printed, folded and stapled 5 copies at a time. It was quite sustainable and every time I was running low I’d print some more off. After a few weeks my laser toner started running low so I refilled it, only to have it run out soon again. Eventually I started printing in sets of 100 and as we spread through MySpace we sold more and more. Issues were going everywhere from Japan to Australia and all over Europe and the West Coast of the U.S. The East Coast only came on board with Issue 2. I guess word reached them a little later than everyone else. When Issue 2 was ready we found that Fever’s success translated in various shops around the U.K. and even in Paris and Barcelona. The Internet and MySpace in particular played a seminal role, allowing us to disseminate images, stockist information and of course sell the zine online. Quite simply without it there’d be no Fever Zine.
How does the Web help you network?
I found that in some cases having a MySpace page can be a lot more powerful than having a really intricate homepage. When it came to starting one for Fever Zine I already knew how to create a successful network of creatives and how to use it to spread the word, but in the end it was always the product that interested people and if your product isn’t good enough people simply won’t buy it, no matter how many MySpace friends you have. With Fever Zine an amazing side effect from using social networking was being able to engage with people around the U.K. as well as around the globe. From posting news stories about art competitions, or random YouTube videos of Michel Gondry’s spin paintings to helping to promote exhibitions and creative events in different countries, MySpace played an important part in connecting Fever Zine to creative communities and scenes around the world. In fact the way in which we used MySpace was picked up on by quite a few trend-spotting agencies, which had been following what we were doing and what we cover. One in particular lead to coverage in The Guardian newspaper, which was a pretty big deal. They noticed that we were doing things differently and flourishing on MySpace in a way no one else was. That was pretty special.
Are there other zines out there that you feel an affinity with? Do you see yourself as part of a creative scene?
To be honest I don’t feel an affinity to any zine or creative scene in particular. There are many which we love and admire, but we tend to dip in and out of scenes around the world and we live happily alongside other indie publications, many of which we help to promote. We’re not just a London zine or a British zine, we’re 100% global both in what we cover and in our perspective.