spent $180 on a printed zine of my own work and it outsold every canvas I had up
printed 50 copies of a small zine back in february. 12 pages, mostly the torn paper series, one page of scribbled notes I almost cut because they made no sense out of context. cost me about $180 at the local copy shop, which felt stupid at the time.
sold 41 of them at $14 each. meanwhile two of the actual paintings from the same series are still leaning against my studio wall, unsold since november.
I think people wanted the story cheap enough to take home without having to commit to a wall. or maybe the notes page did it, still not sure. either way I'm now the person who sells zines, apparently, and my gallery contact thinks it's a gimmick. he's wrong but he's also the one who'd know I guess
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This makes a lot of sense to me and honestly the notes page is probably the whole thing. People can afford $14 without thinking about it, and a page of your actual thinking is way less intimidating than a canvas they'd have to hang and explain to their spouse. I sell at local fairs and the small stuff always goes first while the bigger pieces sit there looking expensive. Did you print them yourself or have the copy shop do the whole thing? $180 for 50 sounds pretty reasonable for 12 pages, I've been wanting to try something like this.
Ha, I'd add the other half of it too: a painting is a decision you have to make and live with, a zine is something you can buy on a whim and read on the bus. Different animals.
On the printing, the copy shop did the whole thing for me and I think that was the right call for a first run. Doing it at home, 12 pages doubled side, folding and stapling 50 of them, I'd have given up around copy fifteen. The one thing I'd do differently is ask for a proof before they ran all fifty. Mine came back with the margins eaten on the inside spread, which I only noticed once I was sitting there folding them.
the margins thing, yeah. mine came back fine but I didn't ask for a proof either, just got lucky. next run I'm doing one copy first and sitting with it before they touch the rest.
bus read is exactly it. a painting asks you to have a wall and an opinion. a zine just asks for fourteen bucks.
copy shop did the whole thing. I just handed over a folder of scans and a stack of paper I liked and they dealt with the rest. $180 was mostly paper and staples, the actual printing was cheap because it's all black on off-white. if you go cream or heavy stock it climbs fast.
the one thing I'd do differently: I folded and stapled all 50 myself at the kitchen table and it took an entire evening. next time I'm paying them to do it.