Five Tips for Sending Your Zine to Zine Reviewers

Good afternoon beautiful zine people.

Today I was thinking about mail (as I do often) and how fortunate I have been to receive utter awesomeness from lovely people around the world. It hasn’t been that long since I received the very first zine sent to me from someone I had no connection with, purely for review purposes.

Receiving that absolutely blew my mind because it was one of those ‘I’m making it doing this thing I love’ moments. Not only that, the person who sent the zine did absolutely everything I could have desired as a zine review to make it easy to identify them (the info I put with each zine review) as well as establish the expectation that the zine was sent for review.

In turn, that got me thinking about tips for sending your zine to zine reviewers. It’s similar to a tips post I wrote way back when I reviewed books, and people seemed to like it, so away we go.

*Check the website. They’ll often have FAQs or other ‘about’ pages that’ll answer your questions in regards to tastes, formats, genres, and even reviewing style. This is a big one in that it can save everyone a lot of time. You don’t want to send your lit zine to someone who only reviews punk music zine reviews. That sort of thing.

*Include a note. I love included notes just because, but they serve a function as well. (More on what to put in the note to follow.) I like a mystery as much as the next person, but notes are definitely helpful – especially if you don’t have an established relationship with the person you’re sending to. Even if you’ve already chatted through email and they know the zine(s) is coming, still include a note.

*Mention the website. This isn’t as important to me personally now because SeaGreenZines is the only zine-related site I have going, but it used to drive me nuts years ago when I was doing book reviews and posting book promos.

At one point, I had over half a dozen websites that I wrote for, reviewed on, and/or sold advertising space on. People would email me and say, “Here’s my ad. Thanks!” I would have no idea what site they were talking about, and it always added that much more work to my day, made me cranky, and delayed their ad going up.

*Mention how you found them. This is more fun than anything else, but I love it when people mention where they found me. Instagram, the website itself, someone else mentioning me/the site. It’s nice to know but can also be valuable in terms of letting the reviewer know what’s working as far as time investment goes.

*Include your details. I have a business card with all my links and such on it that I toss in with any zine I send to a new person. Even included in the note, this is a good move. Make it easy for people to check out your other internet spaces, and they will.