Loaner Zine
| Synonyms: | |
| See also: | pass around, Drawerfic |
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A loaner zine is a zine that is passed around among friends.
One Use of the Term
Sometimes the zine is a casual one made up of fiction that is very loosely edited, if at all, and seen as a practice ground for new writers.
One example of this type of zine is from the Starsky and Hutch fandom: Ruff Cutz.
A fan in the letterzine Between Friends #8 writes about this sort of casual "practice zine": “It would be nice if there were 'stepping stone' zines. For the beginner writer who has a good story but who might be intimidated and quit writing, a sort of 'rough zine', one that edited only the grammar and made sure technical and medical aspects of the story were correct. The next type zine would edit a little more (a lot more?). It would get into things like POV and everything else we learn but I don't know what to call. The last type of zine would be for that polished-best-it-can-be story. Now some writers might want to skip the first two and go straight for the last. That's fine. Others may wish to stick with the first or second. Okay by me. To each his/her own… As for price...let the first one be a loaner zine... maybe even the second one… "
Another Use of the Term
Another example of a loaner zine were the copies of Organia described in Universal Translator #23 in 1984. The editor, Judith Gran writes: "'Loaner' copies of 'Organia' 1, which is out of print, are available for circulation. These are copies which came back from the printer with imperfections that made them unsuitable for sale: blank pages, a not-so-perfect binding, et cetera. $100 will cover the book rate postage and envelope on the way out; you take care of sending it back."
Another Type of Loaner Zine
"Tales of Feldman" had its start as a "loaner zine". It was written at a time before there was a Kinkos on every corner. "Mindy, at this time, circulated her Star Trek story in an innovative way: she sent her only copy to interested fans to read; then the fan would send it back so she could mail the copy to someone else. In a year or so, enthusiastic readers persuaded her to make the story available to a larger audience, and she found a publisher. The story appeared next year as the fanzine Tales of Feldman." [1] Thank heavens for the reliability of the Post Office.