Atlanta (cont'd)

TerminusMux will make 100 1" buttons
with a color picture for $25. From little oafs,
big ofays grow. I can have Bryan Hand's picture
of Black McGoon rescuing Miss Weekiwachee from
The Creature From the Black Lagoon made into
a souvenir memento to hand out at future legionnaire
conventions, Shriner parades, etc. A total professional.
Working the cons. Sci Fi Con, Comic-Con, Bouchercon.
A convention of crows. Frick and Frack, the Tappet Brothers.

I could have a button made
saying zinester with a diagonal bar
through it. Pronounced zinester not.
I write hardcover books for money.
Unfortunately, I have to publish them
myself and give them away. That is,
pay the reader to read my work.
It's no insuperable burden. But
self-published pamphlets and a web site
on the Internet is all I can afford to put out
until I win the Irish Sweepstakes.

What is a man who writes
hardcover books for money
doing at Zine-A-Polooza 2005--
a convention of zinesters, grunge bands,
and comic book artists? Custom button makers?
If cellars are where the readers are, cellars is where
you read, hawking your books afterwards.
Or giving them away, as case may be.
You are test-marketing your product line.
Making adjustments. Getting audience feedback.
Learning who likes what, and how to reach them.

A man who said he was thinking about making a short documentary
about zines, underground comics, and the small press scene asked if he could
interview me. He asked questions about what I was doing, how long I had been doing it,
and why I did it. That is what I write about. Not who the audience is, do they read,
and how will I reach them with a publicity campaign. If you could have heard
my responses you would have thought I knew what I was up to, I had a long-range plan,
I was amazingly well-adjusted for someone who had endured three decades of
frustration and disappointment. Rejection and ridicule. I was, in fact, a culture hero.
Keeping the flame alive. Following the dream. Putting the foundation under
the superstructure, brick by brick.
Bunch of losers, talking shop.
Interview with the interviewer.

The discussion panels were broadcast to people sitting in chairs
over a PA system. The audience and the panelists changed places
as the topic of the panel changed. It wasn't preaching to the choir,
so much as sharing information among people representing a range of
skill levels and hands-on experience. Hearing other old small press hands
speak, I realized that not only was I a member of a subculture, I was a veteran.
And that's where culture heroes come from. The margins. The underground.
We are the ones who are keeping it fresh. I mean...remakes? Jane Fonda
and Michael Jackson? Again?

People want to know about marketing, promotion, and distribution,
but the question is, do you do it because that is who you are? Because
you can't not do it? If so, you will establish a brand-name identity
and the mountain will come to you, eventually. If not, you've tried to put
the cart before the horse. To gin up an interest in a product that does not
outlast the ginning up. That is dependent on it, rather than intrinsically sound.
That was built on a foundation. A career takes 20 years. 20 years of no career.

You have to do it
without being paid
until you develop your chops
and learn the ropes of self-publishing.
Then, when you have a quality product,
with some content to it, someone else
might help you to exploit it. Realize
the potential. Sell it. You have to ask yourself,
as they will, what's in it for them? You have to ask that
of the reader, too. Why would he or she want to buy your books?
Instead of going to a movie, surfing the Internet, and playing arcade games?

Jodi's mother has a place
outside Dahlonega. We left
the zine fest early enough
to get there while it was still daylight,
so we could see her butterfly bushes
and hummingbird feeders. It was relaxing
just to sit in the woods on her deck, away from
Atlanta, and Georgia 400 traffic.