How To Create And Publish Your First Photography Zine - A Comprehensive Guide

After publishing my first photography zine, I have received many questions from fellow photographers about the zine-making process. This post is a comprehensive answer to all these questions - a step-by-step guide for publishing a zine. I am also sharing the decisions and considerations that guided me in this process and learnings that I am likely to apply to my next zine.

What is a zine?

Zines, derived from magazines, have a fascinating history, dating 18th and 19th century, and span a plethora of topics - from fan fiction and comics, to art, science, philosophy, or politics. You can read more about the concept of a zine on Wikipedia.

Going forward in this article, when I use the word "zine", I imply a modern, photography zine. I define it as a printed publication of text and images, which is:

• Self-made - you prepare and publish it yourself, or at least handle most of the process yourself, as opposed to having publishing and editing teams work on it. Note, that this excludes printing - it's common to have zines printed by a professional printer.
• Small-circulation - zines are usually printed in tens or hundreds of copies, not tens of thousands of copies.
• Easily distributable - you should be able to easily mail it or hand it in person.
• Affordable - zines are an inexpensive way of appreciating artists' work in a physical form, as opposed to buying archival prints or collectible books.
• Informal - a zine is more like engaging with your friends at a coffee shop or a dinner party rather than delivering a presidential speech to the nation.
• Specialized - a zine should have a main, usually narrow, theme. I will touch more on this later.

Most zines resemble small books, but you can also find brochures, folded single-sheet mini-zines, origami-like folds, old-style newspapers, and many other creative publications.

Why you should publish a zine

All the qualities of a zine, listed above, make it a unique and fascinating vehicle for sharing your photographs in a physical form - a rare and gratifying experience in the age of digital media. Imagine handing out a zine to someone who asks what you like to photograph... wouldn't that be cool?

As opposed to singled-out prints, zines are extraordinary for long-form storytelling. They are also affordable to make and buy and help create a personal connection with people.

Lastly, publishing your first zine will be a new step in your photography journey - an opportunity to challenge yourself and learn.

How to create your first zine?

In the next subsections I am going to explain how to create your first zine step by step, based on my learnings. You can follow this process or just use it as a loose guidance.

Step 1: Get inspired

First, you should soak in the inspiration by looking at other photographers' work. Buy a few zines - for example, locally, on Etsy or eBay, through social media, or by directly looking up photographers with a large online following. If you don't want to spend the money on zines, you can see some examples on YouTube; more importantly, you should ask yourself why you don't want to buy any zines and why you expect others to get yours.

Step 2: Understand the who, the what, and the why

Before you set out to design your zine, you need to decide on three things - who, what, and why. Who the target audience is, what you want to tell with your zine, and why that audience would care about it. This decision will have a strong impact on all the next steps of your zine-making process. It will dictate the content, format, distribution channels, and more.

First, take a piece of paper and write down who your target audience is. Who would you like to sell or give the zine to? Friends? Family? Colleagues? Random strangers? Other photographers? Nature lovers? Local archeological community? Art fair visitors? Tourists? ... What's the geographic distribution of your target audience - are they local or all over the world?

Second, write down what your zine is going to be about. It's about that "Specialized" aspect in the zine definition. For example, you can make a zine about your latest travel to Africa. Or about a weekend trip to the coast. Local vintage cars community. Night photography project. Your cat. Portraits of your spouse. Black-and-white street photography from 2023. Snapshots you took with a specific camera or lens. Polaroids. The options are endless. When I first started thinking about my zine, I wanted to make it a compilation of photographs from my local travels in the Pacific Northwest during the past year. I was overwhelmed by sifting through the potential material, there was no consistency or a strong compelling story. Instead, I pivoted to making a zine about my 10-day trip to Utah. My work from Utah was more self-contained, the story was simpler and stronger, and the project was easier to harness. If in doubt, go with a simpler subject first.

Third, write down why your audience would be interested in your zine. Is it because they are interested in your personal life? Do they appreciate your photographs? Do they love or connect with the subject? Are you part of the same community?

Here's an example of a simple response to the who-what-why questions for my first zine:

Step 3: Conceptualize and create the story wireframe

In the third step, you create the skeleton of your zine and decide on a few technical aspects. You need to consider the following:

1. How to best tell your story in a zine
2. Which photographs to use (and, more importantly, which not to use)
3. What text to write to complement the images
4. How to lay out and sequence the images and text in the zine
5. What zine format to choose (especially size, orientation, and number of pages)

In my zine, I decided that the best way to tell the story is to focus mostly on the landscape photographs that show the Utah desert in various conditions, like night, blizzard, sunrise, and sunset. I also included a few less spectacular shots that add to the story. Since images were my primary content, I pushed out the text to a single page at the end of the zine; the text would provide more context about the trip and my experiences. It took me a few hours to sequence the images. I co-located photographs of similar subjects or locations, and made sure to start with a sunrise shot and finish with a night shot. Importantly, the order wasn't chronological. I used Finder (the file browser on Mac) to sequence the images, and later laid them out in Canva; I will discuss software options in more detail in another section. Since all of my photographs were horizontal landscapes, some panoramic, I went with a large (US letter size, similar to A4 standard), horizontal zine with 36 pages. In retrospect, there are a few things that I'd do differently now, but more on this later.

If you are enjoying this blog post, consider subscribing to my newsletter to get notified about my new zine and a follow-up article with more details on publishing zines.

Step 4: Prepare content

In the fourth step, you process and export the images you had selected and write the textual content you had just conceptualized.

There's a few things to keep in mind:

• Try to make your images consistent, especially if they are on consecutive pages. All of my images were horizontal and none of them were black-and-white. I edited them in a similar way to maintain a shared, distinct look. By the way, this is how movies are made as well - footage, often from different cameras, lenses, and locations, is color graded so it looks more alike.
• Right-size the exported images.
• If your publishing software doesn't have CMYK conversion and your printer requires a file in the CMYK color space, convert your images to CMYK.
• Optionally, compensate for the paper type. For example, uncoated paper has lower contrast and saturation, so you might want to adjust for that in the editing process.
• You don't have to spend hours editing every image, it'll drain all your energy. Remember, you're doing it for fun and zines are informal.
• Edit and proof-read your text. Multiple times. And again. And again. And... you get my point. While people won't notice or care about minor imperfections in your images, they will notice the mistakes in your text. If you aren't confident about your text editing skills, ask a friend or send it through an AI software, like ChatGPT.

Step 5: Design your zine and publish it to a PDF

In the fifth step, you finalize the design of your zine, based on the wireframe and prepared content from the previous steps, and publish it to a PDF.

This is probably the most technically difficult step for photographers. While we may be versed in image editing software, most of us aren't familiar with publishing software. When I was designing my zine, I came across three main software options:

• Adobe InDesign - the most powerful but also the most overwhelming and the most expensive (subscription required) option
• Affinity Publisher - an award-winning, powerful, and popular program available for a one-time payment
• Canva - an intuitive tool for creators, mostly known for digital publishing (e.g., infographics, social media content); available in free and paid tiers

I followed my friend's recommendation and used the free Canva version to design my zine and export it to PDF. If you don't have experience with publishing software and want to complete this step as quickly or as cheaply as possible, I suggest that you give it a try as well. I did find a few features missing or inconvenient, but all-in-all designing a zine in Canva was an extremely easy and quick. Notably, the free Canva version has a limit on the imported file size and doesn't offer CMYK conversion, so you need to resize and compress your images and export them in the CMYK color profile in the previous step. I haven't tried any other software, including Adobe InDesign or Affinity Publisher; I am sure the learning curve would have been steeper.

While you work on plugging your images and text into your zine design, don't forget the finishing touches and details. For example, cover, back cover, font, colors, page numbers, information about publication etc.

When everything looks fine, export the file to PDF.

Step 6: Edit, edit, edit

Congratulations, you just published your zine in a PDF! Now, it's time to go back to the start. Wait, what?

Put your PDF aside for a few days and evaluate it with fresh eyes. Maybe share it with close friends or family members. What do you or they think about it? How does the story flow? Would the zine benefit from re-sequencing or cutting any images or text? Changing the layout? What about any new content to fill in the gaps in the story? Finally, how does it stack up to what you wrote in the first step - does it fit into your statements for who, what, and why?

Every project will benefit from a couple of iterations. Just don't get stuck in the editing process forever.

Step 7: Print it

The seventh step is all about printing. You can either print the zine yourself or send it to a professional printer. I will assume the latter, although some aspects in this section apply to both options.

First, select the printer. I went with US-based Mixam, because I've heard good opinions about the price-to-quality ratio. I also heard there are better and more thorough printing services, but they are significantly more expensive. Ultimately, I was happy with my order, although it was delayed by around two weeks and the customer service wasn't useful and didn't provide any compensation for the delay.

Second, select the zine configuration. We already established the size and number of pages in the earlier steps. You need to choose the paper type and weight for pages and the cover, optionally the cover finish, and binding.

There are usually at least three paper options - matte, gloss, and uncoated. Personally, I think gloss rarely looks good; most people opt for matte, but I decided to go with the uncoated option to give the zine a more unique look and feel. Uncoated paper soaks ink differently and the images are more muted and have lower contrast. Although I liked the result, a few people commented that my photographs could have popped out more on a coated paper, so I am unsure if that was the right decision.

For weight, I went with the thickest available, 100 lbs, configuration to give the zine more substance, eliminate paper transparency, and avoid the feeling of browsing a cheap newspaper. I am satisfied with how it turned out.

Different printers will provide different cover configuration options. I chose even thicker paper (120 lbs), also uncoated, and without any special finish. Finish, like lamination, can add a layer of protection to the zine and enhance the feeling when you hold it. It also increases the price.

There are several binding options. The most basic one is staple. Imagine taking a few sheets of paper, folding them in half, and stapling them in the middle. The result is simple and good if you are going for a basic vibe, "notebook look", or want to print many double-spreads (an image spanning two pages). In the perfect (PUR) binding, the option I selected, pages are glued together. A side effect is that you can't lay the zine flat and printing double-spreads is riskier because you need to account for the binding area in the middle. You may also see other options, like wires or spirals; those could be interesting choices for a creative, less conventional zine.

Lastly, you have to decide how many copies to print and do it by balancing the demand and the cost. Typically, the more copies you print, the lower the cost per copy will be (although it's not a linear relationship; if I remember correctly, for me the price per copy was the same at 30 and 50 copies). I printed around 30 copies; I kept a few for myself, distributed several among close family members, and sold the rest.

Now, send the order to the printer and wait.

Step 8: Distribute it

Yay, you designed your zine, you printed it, and your order has finally arrived! It looks gorgeous. It's time for some marketing and business activities.

At the start you defined the "who" and "why" parts - these are your target audience and value proposition. Now you need to figure out the channels to reach this target audience and the price they are willing to pay for your value proposition in the form of a zine. Of course, if you are serious about the business aspect of your zine, you should have prioritized this part earlier and made sure that the final price of the zine is higher than its cost. So, onto business now.

First, decide how to reach your audience. It can be through social media, local community gatherings, art festivals, bookstores, online marketplaces like Etsy or eBay, word-of-mouth etc. For me, selling the zine wasn't a priority, so I just posted about it on my Instagram and brought it to a couple of local community gatherings.

Second, set the price. Ideally, you'll cover the zine cost (but you can also undercut yourself). You have the power to set the profit margins. For me, the cost of making the zine came to around $10 per copy, including printing and shipping but of course excluding all the associated photography costs, like gear, film, gas, accommodation, flights. If I were to count in all the trip costs, the cost per zine would have been at least several times higher and no one would buy it. I priced the zine at $15 for transactions in person and $20 if shipped domestically in the US. It was a passion project and I wasn't interested in making a profit; the profit at my scale (~20 copies for sale) would be negligible anyway, even with unheard-of profit margins.

How it went and what I learnt from my first zine

First of all, I am extremely glad that I published and printed my first zine. It was a gratifying journey, I learned something new, and I got to present my work to others. I also got hooked on the zines! Since I published my zine, I have taken a zine workshop that expanded my knowledge and horizons and I have acquired more zines from other photographers. I plan to publish another zine in the next year and experiment with new forms and techniques.

In retrospect, based on the received feedback and my own learnings, there are a few things that I could have done differently and will keep in mind for my next zine:

• Make it more personal and less formal - my main inspiration came from high-end photography books, but, as you know from the start of this post, zines are meant to be casual. Don't be afraid of adding more personal touches in the form of text and images.
• Stir it up - since it was my first zine, I went with the simplest layout - every page has a centered large photograph. I plan to break this monotony in the future by experimenting with different page layouts, incorporating more text, and leaving some pages blank.
• Reconsider the printing configuration - as I explained in an earlier section, matte paper would have added more contrast and saturation to the images, at an expense of a more conventional experience. Depending on the theme, I might consider a smaller size as well.

Show me your zine or ask a question

I hope you found this post useful. If you have any questions or would like to exchange thoughts, feel free to contact me on Instagram or Reddit; my username is @minifulness. If you end up printing a zine, I'd love to see it - please, send me a message!

If you would like to learn more about my upcoming zine and get notified about a more detailed zine-making walkthrough, subscribe to my newsletter. I've got exciting stuff in the works!