A Question for the Audience
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| Title: | A Question for the Audience |
| Creator: | Carolyn Cooper |
| Date(s): | mid to late 1986 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | multifandom |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
A Question for the Audience is a 1986 essay by Carolyn Cooper.
It was printed in Blue Pencil #4.
Some Topics Discussed
- subgroups and "the other"
- differences in the audience and content of media zines as opposed to apazines
From the Essay
I recently received a letter from a member of the LASFS APA that brought a matter up for discussion and I need y'alls opinion. This very nice gentleman was on a zine panel at Westercon where BP was recommended by someone else as a resource for zine editors. My heartfelt thanks to the reader with the kind words and publicity, however, when the gentleman wrote to find out about getting BP I honestly wasn't sure what to do. For those of you who don't know about the "other" (non-media) zine fandom, they don't usually sell their zines, they trade or give them away, or at best, ask a nominal amount such as $1-3. Also, APAs and others (like perzines) are generally not big and mimeographed and they don't consider media zines REAL zines because they contain stories instead of articles, gossip/news or personal opinion. In most cases the APAS resemble a more editorially biased version of Interstat, Southern Enclave or Comlink, which is where my dilemma came in. In all good conscious, I felt obliged to point out to the gentleman (who was talking about a possible 10subscriptions!) that BP was geared towards media zine producers and that many of the discussions would be of little use to folks who don't care about pleasing a sub-fandom, who don't worry about money, and who don't give a twaddle about fiction, portraiture or the jadedness of zine buyers. On the other hand, BP does provide cost consciousness tips, news affecting pubbing and help with layout and design. Then I thought about all those newsletter/LoC zines out there in media fandom and said, "Coop, you aren't doing anything for them either. Why aren't you carrying more info on non-fiction writing, on meeting consistent deadlines (I'm certainly not going to tackle that one), on responsible journalism, on the question of whether newsletter/LoC zines should or should not be eligible for awards, on what all goes into doing a newsletter or LoC zine and what the heck is this "other" zine fandom (Will everyone who knows what "corflu" is raise their hands? Thought so.)?"
So here's the question: Part A: Should BP extend its focus to include non-fiction, newsletter/LoC zine oriented articles? Part B: Should BP expand to include issues of the "other" zine fandom (Note: for any of you who like myself are peripherally connected to the "other" zine fandom, I have NO intention of imbroiling [sic] myself or BP in the endless and petty Machiavellian politics and feuds of the "other" fandom anymore than I intend to get involved in any feuds or squabbles in media zine fandom. The issues I'm talking about would be general fannish problems such as integrity in reporting.)?