TMUK Fanzine sales

[chrisl]

I've always wondered how future generations of fans would view old-school TMUK fanzines, and I think I may have just found peak nostalgia at:
This

Hero someone is selling a copy of Lost Chronicles #12 for just over £25!

The TF Nation 2017 magazine is going for about £6.30 on the same site.

[Hero]

Oh my...

[chrisl]

Possibly a new record for a TMUK fanzine!

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/286049940331

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/286049940301

[Fortmax2020]

At that price I'd expect a staple to be included!

[Fortmax2020]

Something somewhat distasteful that the seller is also trying to flog personal correspondence for money.

[The Huff]

I'll photocopy these for only half the price if anyone is interested...
Bargain!

[Rich]

£65 for the print from Transforce? They're optimistic. You'd think they'd wait until after James publishes his book to cash in but I guess they think the bottom will fall out of the market (if there even is market).

[Fortmax2020]

Matt's already racing to the bottom! 😆

I mean, I wouldn't say no to a complete run of something like Informer. 30 years and the internet on it would be fascinating to come through it. Loved the couple issues I was able to get hold of back in the day.

But not at $100 a pop.

[that_bluestreak]

i would love to read those old zines, i love that sort of thing.

related, i bought a joblot of comics recently that included an Auto-Assembly 2013(i think) comic about Bumblebee and Wasp. I was going to ask if there was a list of TMUK 'publications' anywhere for the back issue collector?

[Andy Turnbull]

Sept 10, 2024 16:34:17 GMT Rich said:

£65 for the print from Transforce? They're optimistic. You'd think they'd wait until after James publishes his book to cash in but I guess they think the bottom will fall out of the market (if there even is market).

If I can find the disc I am sure I have the print files for that, can run you off as many as you want!

[Rich]

Thanks Andy. I still have it somewhere, I'm sure. I was just bemused by the price.

But clearly you should print out a few and make yourself some toy money😜

[that_bluestreak]

Its a lot of money they're asking but don't be bemused that people are interested. It IS interesting, and if you're interested in fandom as I am and a lot of people are, these are fascinating artefacts. I love things like fanzines and other ephemera, theyre an essential and under-appreciated part of any fandom's culture. If anyone comes across any old fanzines it would be really cool to have them online, perhaps via archive.org. They could be edited or anonymised quite easily if people didn't want to be identified all these years later. It would also discourage people asking huge prices on ebay.

[Andy Turnbull]

Sept 11, 2024 5:40:06 GMT Rich said:

Thanks Andy. I still have it somewhere, I'm sure. I was just bemused by the price.

But clearly you should print out a few and make yourself some toy money😜

That woudld be slightly unethical. However, could do a run and raise some money for charity...

[The Huff]

Hangonaminute!
I sent James a lot of this stuff for his supposed 'book' a while back.
Was this his cunning ploy all along!?

[Fortmax2020]

I knew it. 😆

[chrisl]

Sept 12, 2024 11:11:28 GMT The Huff said:

Hangonaminute!
I sent James a lot of this stuff for his supposed 'book' a while back.
Was this his cunning ploy all along!?

I can see the headlines now - UK Photocopier toner shortage crisis fuelled by Guernsey-based fanzine entrepreneur

[Fortmax2020]

This would explain his focus on pre-digital material. The swine!

[chrisl]

Sept 11, 2024 20:25:50 GMT Andy Turnbull said:

Sept 11, 2024 5:40:06 GMT Rich said:

Thanks Andy. I still have it somewhere, I'm sure. I was just bemused by the price.

But clearly you should print out a few and make yourself some toy money😜

That would be slightly unethical. However, could do a run and raise some money for charity...

Off the wall (theoretical) idea - (putting aside contributor consent for the purpose of this imaginary exercise):

300 copies of a 324 page A5 sized hardback printed in greyscale with a colour cover on Mixam costs £1,796.50 which is about £6 a copy. Were this to be sold at £20 (which is pretty reasonable) this would leave a £14 profit for charity on each issue, so a total of £4200. I'm estimating that there is easily enough TMUK 1990s fiction material (and maybe sufficient non-fiction material) to do at least two volumes of such a book. So a potential £8400 could be raised for charity (I doubt more than 300 copies would be sold). Ordinarily very few people would be interested in such a niche aspect of the TF fandom, but if this was released alongside James' new book at TFN, and if some of our other famous alumni were able to do the cover(s) and some digital restoration, we might be able to do some serious good?

[Philip Ayres]

Is he putting the Spence family motto into practice?

[The Doctor]

"Support your local brewery"?

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

"Fleece the Rubes"

[pulsar]

By the primordial program!

In case anyone is in any doubt, I don’t know who this person is and obviously don't endorse selling this stuff for profit. I am skeptical that there’s any real market for it — a listing doesn’t mean a buyer — but I would be on board with charity reprints if there is.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

I’m a big supporter of new material fanzines for charity like the ones Blueshift does for TFN, but I find this all very weird. As I saw them, those newsletters were us sharing news and info and our views about them with each other at the time, not for grown-up strangers to pore over and find fascinating and attribute ‘historic value’ to 35 years later. It’s a bit like someone 35 years from now making a book for charity containing discussions from this forum, except here we’re all grown-ups rather than children (I believe).

Martin

[The Doctor]

I refuse to grow up.

-Ralph

[Pinwig]

My working week revolves around ten year olds. Most of them are more grown up than me.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

...he told the judge.

[Andy Turnbull]

Sept 13, 2024 8:20:20 GMT chrisl said:

Sept 11, 2024 20:25:50 GMT Andy Turnbull said:

That would be slightly unethical. However, could do a run and raise some money for charity...

Off the wall (theoretical) idea - (putting aside contributor consent for the purpose of this imaginary exercise):

300 copies of a 324 page A5 sized hardback printed in greyscale with a colour cover on Mixam costs £1,796.50 which is about £6 a copy. Were this to be sold at £20 (which is pretty reasonable) this would leave a £14 profit for charity on each issue, so a total of £4200. I'm estimating that there is easily enough TMUK 1990s fiction material (and maybe sufficient non-fiction material) to do at least two volumes of such a book. So a potential £8400 could be raised for charity (I doubt more than 300 copies would be sold). Ordinarily very few people would be interested in such a niche aspect of the TF fandom, but if this was released alongside James' new book at TFN, and if some of our other famous alumni were able to do the cover(s) and some digital restoration, we might be able to do some serious good?

This is the bit where I absolutely pour cold water on your idea having been involved in any of the big printed stuff that's been at TFN/AA since 2008.

1. black and white is a much harder sell than colour
2. What you think is reasonable is not what the average punter at a convention does
3. There is very much a price ceiling on what people will pay for fan produced content at a convention and you are above it irrespective of production values.
4. Mixam you would need to pay in advance, that's a significant outlay with no guarantee of return on sale.
5. Your projections are absolute pie in the sky. If you go to an event and sell to 1 in 10 attendees on the day that is considered a success by anyones metric, fan or pro.
6. If the book was full of Nick and Jack and James material, yes we could probably shift a 100+ units, but then that would hardly be reflective of TMUK's output as a whole and would be seen as a cynical cash grab.
7. As a reading experience it would probably require a lot of editorial notes/story so far material which would be quite off-putting.
8. If you want the book to be proeprly curated, have considered design approach and presentation you would have had to have started this project a year ago.

I am with Martin, (while once upon a time I think it might have been nice to do some fancy reprints and I am not opposed to that if we were doing them for within TMUK/existing contributors) but I like to experience something new and different and the annual zine scratches that itch.

The stories are all told, and everyone involved is capable of much better now, so why would people want to show off work, that is a shadow of what they could do now, however interesting it might be.

[Andy Turnbull]

The seller has actually had the Transforce LM print on sale on ebay for a decade, was just going through some old emails (as I did some art for him years ago for a portfolio thing) and found a reference to it, in our chat.

As it happens, I also have the original art for that piece courtesy of Paul Wright and James Wilson here (again some charity fundraising will be done with that)

[chrisl]

Sept 14, 2024 8:37:40 GMT Andy Turnbull said:

Sept 13, 2024 8:20:20 GMT chrisl said:

Off the wall (theoretical) idea - (putting aside contributor consent for the purpose of this imaginary exercise):

300 copies of a 324 page A5 sized hardback printed in greyscale with a colour cover on Mixam costs £1,796.50 which is about £6 a copy. Were this to be sold at £20 (which is pretty reasonable) this would leave a £14 profit for charity on each issue, so a total of £4200. I'm estimating that there is easily enough TMUK 1990s fiction material (and maybe sufficient non-fiction material) to do at least two volumes of such a book. So a potential £8400 could be raised for charity (I doubt more than 300 copies would be sold). Ordinarily very few people would be interested in such a niche aspect of the TF fandom, but if this was released alongside James' new book at TFN, and if some of our other famous alumni were able to do the cover(s) and some digital restoration, we might be able to do some serious good?

This is the bit where I absolutely pour cold water on your idea having been involved in any of the big printed stuff that's been at TFN/AA since 2008.

1. black and white is a much harder sell than colour
2. What you think is reasonable is not what the average punter at a convention does
3. There is very much a price ceiling on what people will pay for fan produced content at a convention and you are above it irrespective of production values.
4. Mixam you would need to pay in advance, that's a significant outlay with no guarantee of return on sale.
5. Your projections are absolute pie in the sky. If you go to an event and sell to 1 in 10 attendees on the day that is considered a success by anyones metric, fan or pro.
6. If the book was full of Nick and Jack and James material, yes we could probably shift a 100+ units, but then that would hardly be reflective of TMUK's output as a whole and would be seen as a cynical cash grab.
7. As a reading experience it would probably require a lot of editorial notes/story so far material which would be quite off-putting.
8. If you want the book to be proeprly curated, have considered design approach and presentation you would have had to have started this project a year ago.

I am with Martin, (while once upon a time I think it might have been nice to do some fancy reprints and I am not opposed to that if we were doing them for within TMUK/existing contributors) but I like to experience something new and different and the annual zine scratches that itch.

The stories are all told, and everyone involved is capable of much better now, so why would people want to show off work, that is a shadow of what they could do now, however interesting it might be.

Thats a really useful insight in terms of numbers and interest - I’d estimated there being a lot more TFN attendees (I’d estimated on a 1/10 basis) and prices as being somewhere between my own (significantly more niche) fanzine sales and the MTMTE notebooks. It’s a shame really as the possibility of using stuff just hanging around to raise money for charity would have been a no-brainer for me.

Totally agree on the amount of time needed to do things justice though. It was just a hypothetical on the basis of seeing those crazy eBay auctions.