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Xerography Debt is a review zine for zine readers by zine writers (and readers). It is a hybrid of review zine and personal zine (the ancestor to many blogs). The paper version has been around since 1999. This blog thing is are attempt to bridge the gap between Web 2.0 and Paper 1.0. Print is not dead, but it is becoming more pixelated.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

No More Bound Printed Matter for Zinesters (posted on behalf of Jerianne/Zine World)

At the post office today, I got an ugly surprise: The Postal Service
has discontinued Bound Printed Matter as an option for folks like us. I
mean, they really discontinued it this time (not just telling us
it wasn’t available like they have in the past). Here’s info from the USPS
website (emphasis mine):


DMM Revision: Postage Payment for Bound Printed
Matter Limited to Permit Imprint

In March, we filed a notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission
for a classification change requiring all mail­ings of Bound Printed
Matter be paid by permit only. The Commission agreed, and we are moving
forward with the change.

Effective September 11, 2008, the Postal Service™ is
revising the Mailing Standards of the United States
Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM®) 363, 364, 365, 366, 463, 464, 465, 466, and
604 for all Bound Printed Mat­ter (BPM). Postage payment for all
BPM mailings: carrier route, presorted, and nonpresorted
(single-piece) flats and parcels, regardless of volume, are
limited to permit imprint. Mailers can no longer affix
postage by adhesive stamps, postage meter, or PC Postage®. BPM will not be accepted at retail counters,
in collection boxes, or by car­riers and must be deposited and
accepted at the Post Office™ facility that issued the
permit.


In other words, you can no longer, as an individual, use Bound
Printed Matter for individual mailings sent with stamps or printed
postage. I have more information about how to use Bound Printed Matter,
with permit, posted at the Zine World
website.



Much like the changes made last year for discount mailings for
periodicals (see Zine World
#25 for details), these changes raise barriers for small publishers,
and therefore inhibit dissemination of information by mail. If this
ticks you off as much as it does me, I hope you will contact the Postal
Service and complain:

1-800-ASK-USPS (1-800-275-8777) — select More Options


Policy and Program Development, USPS Headquarters

or

Postmaster General Jack Potter

475 L’Enfant Plaza SW

Washington DC 20260-0010


We will be updating our U.S. Postal
Rates sheet and the Zinester’s Guide to
U.S. Mail within the next few days.

Jerianne

--
Zine World: A Reader's Guide to the
Underground Press
PO Box 330156 * Murfreesboro TN 37133
www.undergroundpress.org
------------------------------
Zine
World #26 now available! $4 US, $5 Canada

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Another Sadly Self Centered Post

I am featured in the latst issue of the Weekly Dig, a weekly alternative paper in Boston-

http://www.weeklydig.com/arts-entertainment/200809/boston-zine-fair

I like that the reporter calls my zine funny and insightful even though they've read it. I told them it was funny and I guess they just made up the insighful part.

anyhow, I am fianly, finished with Fw/L #12 (expect an official plug in a few days) and hopefully now I'll be able to get some more reviews posted instead of just posting shit about myself.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Review from Davida: Junie In Georgia #16

Junie In Georgia #16
The Best of Issue
June 2008

I began reading Junie in Georgia around issue #11, where Julie becomes obsessed with a fictional bounty hunter. I was hooked. I was glad she decided to do a best of issue because I was treated to early issues. I particularly liked her failed attempt at airport seduction, her hair hall of shame, attempts at waitressing at the cult of Outback Steakhouse, and her battles with the weevils. There are many other good bits, but these were all new to me and rather funny. Follow her as she goes from being Junie in Georgia to Junie in Africa and then Junie in Minnesota.

$3
Julie
3455 Blaisdell Ave S #13
Minneapolis, MN 55408
junieingeorgia@hotmail.com

Friday, September 5, 2008

Most Exciting Youtube Clip Ever!

This is an interview done at last years Boston Zine Fair and from about 3 minutes on you can see me in the background sitting at the next table.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drGHfyTNldI

See the dude in the wacky hat hanging around reading a zine? My hand to God, he was there reading my zine for 15 minutes and he didn't buy a god damned thing. And the guy I chat with at about the 6 minute mark? He was what we like to call an eccentric in these politically correct times. I actually enjoyed chatting with the guy, which is rare, but he sure was eccentric to say the least. And at some point you see a cute girl just waltz on by my table like I'm not eve there. Which is the story of my life. And you should probably listen to the dude talking instead of just focusing on me in the background because even the non-Eric portions are interesting.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

RETURN TO SENDER: I Hates Me People Who Move Without Notice

I don't get to my PO Box as often as I used to. It was once a bi-weekly journey, filled with anticipation and hope. Of course, the volume of mail used to be bigger, back in the day when my zine's circulation was larger and my energy for making contacts in the zine world higher. These days I'm coasting on my own melt and enjoying it, and the volume of mail has leveled off. So I make it to the post office about once or twice a month. I still get lots of neato zines, a few crumpled bills for subscriptions, and the occasional letter from an old zine pal.

Oh, and the returned issues of my zine.

This vexes me. I am quite vexed. The Inner Swine mailing list is ancient and sanctified by time—there are people on that list who have been getting the zine for thirteen years, dammit. Not always voluntarily, but still. The mailing list has expanded and shrunk over the years—sometimes people buy a subscription and then don't have any burning desire to buy another subscription, which is fine. Sometimes, out of the blue someone who's been buying the zine for years sends me a note that they don't want to see it any more, which is also fine. But then there are the folks who, after receiving TIS for years, move away to some new address and never bother informing me. The zine gets forwarded to them a few times, and then Bam! I get one back with the Yellow Sticker of Fuck You on it.

I hate the Yellow Sticker of Fuck You.

The YSoFU, loosely translated, means the person on the other end thinks so little of you they don't really care if you waste the money it cost to create and mail their issue to them. They think so little of the zine they've been receiving for years they can't be bothered to send me an email or a postcard announcing their change of address or their desire to never see my zine again. I am not, in other words, worth twenty-seven cents and thirty seconds of their time.

Now, there are, of course, other explanations. Death, certainly, can result in some returned mail. Incarceration. Dementia. Kidnapping. Alien abduction. There's also the tasty possibility that they actually started tossing your zine into the garbage six years ago, unread, envelope unopened, and as a result had a better chance of solving the unified field theory than remembering to alert you to their sudden move. After all, the Post Office provides a nice, impersonal service for those of us stupid enough to mail our wares to the reading public: that's right, the YELLOW STICKER OF FUCK YOU.

Sometimes, certainly, the YSoFU is my own damn fault, sure. I'm a man who can't remember to wear pants half the time, kids, I sure do send out my share of misaddressed zines. We are not, after all, a corporation with employees, unless the imaginary Rat in a Smoking Jacket and the imaginary Leprechaun named McEgo that I regularly hallucinate after drinking anything in the house that might contain alcohol count as employees. Which I don't think they do. Though I will make a note here to have my legal team—comprised of two monkeys wearing superman outfits that may, possibly, also be imaginary—look into it. So yes, often the appearance of a YSoFU is pretty much my own damn fault, especially when I notice I've addressed the zine to “President, Washington” or “Pope, Italy”.

But soooo many of them come from folks who just couldn't be bothered to tip me off that they didn't want the damn zine any more. Or who thought so little of the zine that it never entered their minds. Either way, I get the Yellow Sticker, and all I can do is making tiny fists of rage in the post office, which means I'll be followed by the Postal Police for a few weeks. Again.

Please, when you move, please alert your zine publishers to the fact. Or someone might start tracking you to your new location and mailing you monkey feces. I'm just sayin'.