Mobile-friendly site here! This is a blog for the SoulxMaka zine, "The Music We Made Together: Five Years Later". Please scroll for recent updates, and use the links at the top (or the mobile site) to find important information! Mod: chaoticlivi.
Hey whaddup this is what i did for the Five years later zine tho Iām not really happy with how it looks now but eeeeehhh i got not much new stuff to post anyway
The end~! The end of digital sales, what to do with extra copies, and the closure of this blog
Greetings, everyone! I hope youāre all having a good New Year.
I just wanted to let everyone know that the zine will goĀ āofflineā and digital sales will be ending in a little over a week (on 1/10/2019). The zineās publication date has long since passed, and it wouldnāt be appropriate to leave it up indefinitely. However, Iām giving it a little time in case anyone whoās really motivated to get it falls through the cracks!
If youāve been meaning to get the zine, you can still get it here until January 10. If you were a contributor or buyer who never got a download code to get it for free, please let me know!
Additionally, I have been contemplating what to do with the extra copies of the zine. One prospect Iām considering is donating a physical copy to the Fan Culture Preservation Project, a joint effort between the Organization for Transformative Works and the University of Iowa to archive real, physical copies of fan materials, especially fanzines.
The University of Iowaās collection is an archive, which means the zine could not be rented - a person would have to either request photocopied pages for a fee, or theyād have to physically go to the library to read the content. Nonetheless, it would be a chance to have our artwork professionally preserved by people who view fandom as a type of folklore which is worth saving for generations.
However, including it in the Fan Culture Preservation Project would also mean that scholars across many fields would have increased access to our work, including those who have no emotional investment in, or prior knowledge of, our fandom. Other fans in the past have strongly objected to having their works archived in an academic context, because they do not want to be scrutinized by complete strangers, or they suspect their identities would be put at risk. Some fans feel that having a formal academic fandom archive brings too much attention to a community that is supposed to be underground.
So for that reason, Iām putting the idea out there now and letting it simmer for a while. If you have any thoughts about it, please let me know. Left to my own devices, I will be contacting the OTW and asking if they would include our book; however, I will take all opinions into account. Anon messages are on so you can safely send your thoughts.
With all that said, please also know that this blog will become inactive once the archive issue is settled. It will be left up for posterity as long as Tumblr exists in order to preserve the hard work of all our authors and artists, but there will be no ask box, and the email will no longer be monitored. If you have any issues with your copy of the zine after January 10, you should direct it to chaoticlivi on tumblr or gmail (it is my screen name on many other social media sites as well).
forgot to post this, but hereās my final piece for the @soulmakazine2018 !! this was an incredible experience and it was great to return to my first love, soul eater evans
I'm the anon who sent the "reignite" ask thing and LMAO I love your fantasy!! I CAN IMAGINE THESE ALIENS THINKING SOUL AND MAKA ARE OLD DEITIES OR SOMETHING??? THEN THE FANZINE KINDA TURNS INTO THE SOMA BIBLEāokay I think I went too far lmao
what iām picturing isā¦alien wikipedia
like when you look up a figure in greek mythology and get a huge, long wiki entry trying to summarize the role they usually play in stories
āthe abilities most frequently associated with this character are shape-shifting and playing music, which frequently has the power to affect human souls. soul eaterās shape-shifting usually involves taking the shape of a scythe, a tool widely associated with the Earthling concept of death, and the character is also frequently portrayed eating the souls of the evil. however, this character is typically portrayed in a heroic light with story themes surrounding loyalty.ā
āmaka albarn is a character from 21st century Earth mythology, found in records from the kingdoms of both Japan and Usa. usually portrayed as a teenage girl or a young adult woman, maka albarnās predominant motif is the angel wing and her most well-known skill is the ability to see souls. these traits do not appear in every myth featuring maka albarn, but together, they are common enough to have become the characterās trademark. maka albarn frequently appears in stories wherein gender features prominently, and it has been suggested that some of these stories reflect the Earthling struggle with historical gender dynamics.ā
āearth myths pairing soul eater and maka albarn are very common. the relationship is frequently characterized by the notion of āresonanceā, thought to be a metaphor for mutual growth.ā
āscholars disagree on the purpose of theĀ āmadness of boobsā. some suggest it was merely a type of Earthling humor.ā
I love the idea of having the zine in a university archive. It can be something that can reignite Soul Eater itselfāI may be thinking too far ahead but what if years later, Soul Eater is barely remembered? Then someone finds this zine and reignites the fandom flame? I'd really love that.
Sometimes I say that my fantasy is for aliens to find our fanworks in a thousand years, analyze it, and turn Soul and Maka into aĀ āmythā of 21st century Earth people, and that is like, only 50% a joke at most.
I'm not a contributor, just a buyer, but I love the idea of having fandom works archived!
I love the idea too! Fandom has been so, so important to me...to make it a part of a bona fide IRL library archive feels like the right kind of gesture.
It seems like a lot of the disagreement about whether you should get Academics involved in fandom happens when you involve the archiving of relatively older zines, from like the 70s and 80s, before fandom was Internet-based. People who created zines back then were sharing them in physical space, through conventions or mailing lists. They were counting on those works having very small audiences exclusively of their own social group, and more frequently used their IRL names in the works, too. It was also more common to get hit with copyright lawsuits for things that we take for granted now.
Now, people who create fanworks are usually putting them on the Internet, so weāre using pseudonyms and we create our fanwork with the full knowledge and understanding that anybody could access our content for any reason they wanted. I think weāre also more fatalistic about the fact that our content is likely to end up in some kind of long-lasting, corporate-owned data repository (ānothing on the internet ever really gets deletedā).
I still wanted to check with people, since you never know, but Iām glad the response seems pretty positive!
I contributed to the zine, and I would fuckin LOVE to see a physical copy be preserved in a university archive!!! I'm obsessed with the idea of fandom culture being studied--I actually incorporated the experience of contributing to this zine in a personal opinion essay for my final paper on plagiarism and creativity in the digital age for university this past semester (I quoted a line from the intro as the title for the paper, but didn't take from anyone's stories, don't worry!) so im down lol
Oh wow, now Iām incredibly curious about what line was good enough to be quoted! ;ā) But anyway, Iām glad youāre feeling positive about the possibility. I do too. Thank you.
The end~! The end of digital sales, what to do with extra copies, and the closure of this blog
Greetings, everyone! I hope youāre all having a good New Year.
I just wanted to let everyone know that the zine will goĀ āofflineā and digital sales will be ending in a little over a week (on 1/10/2019). The zineās publication date has long since passed, and it wouldnāt be appropriate to leave it up indefinitely. However, Iām giving it a little time in case anyone whoās really motivated to get it falls through the cracks!
If youāve been meaning to get the zine, you can still get it here until January 10. If you were a contributor or buyer who never got a download code to get it for free, please let me know!
Additionally, I have been contemplating what to do with the extra copies of the zine. One prospect Iām considering is donating a physical copy to the Fan Culture Preservation Project, a joint effort between the Organization for Transformative Works and the University of Iowa to archive real, physical copies of fan materials, especially fanzines.
The University of Iowaās collection is an archive, which means the zine could not be rented - a person would have to either request photocopied pages for a fee, or theyād have to physically go to the library to read the content. Nonetheless, it would be a chance to have our artwork professionally preserved by people who view fandom as a type of folklore which is worth saving for generations.
However, including it in the Fan Culture Preservation Project would also mean that scholars across many fields would have increased access to our work, including those who have no emotional investment in, or prior knowledge of, our fandom. Other fans in the past have strongly objected to having their works archived in an academic context, because they do not want to be scrutinized by complete strangers, or they suspect their identities would be put at risk. Some fans feel that having a formal academic fandom archive brings too much attention to a community that is supposed to be underground.
So for that reason, Iām putting the idea out there now and letting it simmer for a while. If you have any thoughts about it, please let me know. Left to my own devices, I will be contacting the OTW and asking if they would include our book; however, I will take all opinions into account. Anon messages are on so you can safely send your thoughts.
With all that said, please also know that this blog will become inactive once the archive issue is settled. It will be left up for posterity as long as Tumblr exists in order to preserve the hard work of all our authors and artists, but there will be no ask box, and the email will no longer be monitored. If you have any issues with your copy of the zine after January 10, you should direct it to chaoticlivi on tumblr or gmail (it is my screen name on many other social media sites as well).
All the zines were sent out almost a full month ago. Itās possible some could still be in transit to international destinations, but the vast majority should have reached their buyers/contributors by now.
If you havenāt received your zine, or if an item was damaged, please kindly let me know!
Hello everyone! It was like...a month or two ago...but someone asked me in a PM whether I had any tips for starting a zine. Itās been a long time and theyāve probably made their decisions about their own zine, but I did say I would write something that attempts to be thoughtful.
This was my first time modding a zine - first time beingĀ āhead modā of almost anything - and I feel like I gained some insights that might be worth passing on. Please take the following as suggestions and think about them based on your own needs. There is very littleĀ āone-size-fits-allā zine advice (except forĀ ācommunicationā, that oneās absolutely critical).
Thereās also a lot of existing info about zines out there from more experienced mods like this informative post here. What I write below will relate more specifically to my own process. Itās also informed by opinions that Iāve read on @zine-confessions.
COMMUNICATION
Out of everything you do when youāre running a zine or any other fandom project, communication is definitely the most important thing. Although of course communication is not enough to run an entire zine project on its own, itās the glue that will hold everything - you, the art, the writing, the participants themselves - together.
No, really. Everyone says that. Youāre probably tired of hearing it. But you do have to live and breathe it.
When thereās a lot of progress happening, post about it! When youāre just in a waiting period (like while participants are working on their projects), make a post every now and then to assure everyone that progress is still happening behind the scenes. (As an example that may not appeal to everyone, what I chose to do during quiet times was use the zine blog to post art/writing inspiration that I thought might be useful to the contributors.)
Nothing makes people anxious - and angry - like not knowing whatās going on. Even if everything is proceeding as planned with the project, regular updates on social media help the participants trust that youāre still diligently leading the work and their efforts will pay off. If things arenāt going well - for example, thereās been a scheduling problem or a technical snafu - your participants will really, really want to understand exactly what is happening so that they can plan their own work.
In fact, while itās not ideal to be making sudden changes, most people do end up understanding the need for a change in plans for the project - a change in the submission schedule or an alteration in image sizing, for instance - but find it very frustrating and upsetting to be left without any information for weeks or months.
If you take someoneās work (contributors) or money (buyers) and then leave them without contact, theyāll start to wonder if theyāve been stolen from, regardless of your original intention. This is stressful at best and a bit traumatic at worst.
CLARITY
If you think youāre being clear enough in the way youāre writing directions, let them sit, then, reread them, then make them ten times clearer. Then repeat.
Articulate key information in short, easy-to-follow sentences as a kind of āheaderā or ābullet pointā, and then elaborate on that same information below the header/bullet point. Doing it this way might seem a bit stilted at first, but it can help your readers organize a lot of new information in their heads.
Also, you can be clear about things that are undecided - by acknowledging straight out that they are undecided. For example, most people donāt know exactly how many pages a zine is going to have when theyāre just doing an interest check. Thatās okay; just be very clear that itās undecided, and let people give you feedback so you can see if the undecided factor affects peopleās opinions. If you give estimates on things like pricing and page numbers, make sure applicants and potential buyers know that youāre setting a goal, not that itās a sure thing.
The point is, what seems incredibly obvious to you may seem vague to someone else; also, people are busy, anxious, and preoccupied, even when theyāre reading about stuff that excites them. Youāll want your instructions to be as easy to follow as possible. It will help engage readers, and it might pull in contributors and buyers.
YOU WILL HAVE TO LEARN NEW THINGS
SO much effort goes into creating a magazine/book (which is what a zine is, albeit zines are less formal). Thereās a reason that the production process of mostĀ āmainstreamā books, from writing to distribution, is divided up.
The skills required for creating a zine are: the ability to graphically design a book layout, the technical ability to handle the software that will help you put your book together (like InDesign), the ability to plan your time and coordinate potentially dozens of peopleās activities and schedules, the ability to communicate effectively even with unhappy people, the ability to budget when you constantly have to figure out where your funding will come from, the ability to advertise and promote your zine, the ability to order and receive a potentially large and heavy shipment, and the ability to buy postage, package, and ship a potentially large number of packages.
Phew! The truth is, most people have a chunk of experience with a lot of the above tasks...but very few people come into zine making with experience with all of the above. I was lucky that some of the big parts of making a zine are kind of similar to my IRL job (as a care manager), but I still had to do a fair amount of research and learning. And although Iām very happy with the results of the project, I definitely made some newbie mistakes, which are...probably sort of inevitable. I could perhaps have benefited from doing a smallĀ āsoloā project first to get a feel for the InDesign program and the actual printing process.
The point is, if youāre heading a zine project, take long enough with it to learn what you need to. The more you know ahead of time, the less anxiety youāll have and the more time you can spend later just basking in the enjoyment of your project.
Inviting other mods onboard - or having people apply to be mods - can be a great idea, because many hands do make light work and working together may allow mods to fill in each otherās knowledge gaps. I canāt give much advice about this except just be careful who you give that power to. If you have to choose, go with the person whoās the most communicative, reliable, and invested in the project.
DIRTY UNSEXY MONEY AND SHIPPING
When youāre planning the financials of your zine, plan for the worst-case scenario - the highest expense you could possibly have, with 0 sales.
For example, letās say you have 30 contributors. You are giving away a free physical copy of the zine to each contributor. And letās say that according to your chosen printing service, the production cost for each of these zines is $10.00. Thirty contributors times ten dollars is $300.
Then, of course, the zines need to be shipped, and according to the weight of your package, you calculate thatās going to run you about $7 for a zine sent to the USA (if thatās where you live) and $23 for a zine sent internationally. Letās assume 1/3 of contributors are international. Thatās 10 international (about $230) and 20 domestic (about $140).
So the worst-case scenario for this imaginary zine is that if nobody buys your zine and you only have contributors, youād be on the hook for $670. And thatās assuming your zine is not for profit.
You can do things to decrease this - for example, decreasing the number of contributors will not only decrease the number of zines youāre buying, but it will decrease the size of the zine so each copy will be cheaper. Itās important to note - itās cruelĀ and unethical to just dump contributors from the project after theyāve already started, so please plan ahead of time if youāre only able to include a limited number of people!
You can also use resources like KickstarterĀ to raise funds ahead of time. Interest checks can also help you estimate your likelihood of getting buyers, although they can be wildly inaccurate.
However, the bottom line is that when you start a project, youāve made a promise to the people who will labor to create artwork. Please donāt start a project that you might have to drop after months of work from your contributors because there werenāt enough buyers.
In order to plan shipping costs, zine mods in the USA can use Pirate Ship or a similar site. Pirate Ship is an incredibly handy Web site that has a contract with USPS and will sell you postage at a significantly cheaper rate than youāll get it at the post office. The savings are better for domestic than international packages, though they do add up for international packages.
To buy online postage, you just enter the necessary shipping information (address, weight, package contents), pay for it like youād pay for any other product, and print it out and tape it to the package.
FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD, SELL A DIGITAL COPY (EVEN IF YOUR ZINE IS A PHYSICAL BOOK)
Okay, I phrased that kind of strongly for the sake of being cheeky. You donāt have to do anything you donāt want to.
...But! Having a digital copy can make a number of things easier, especially regarding shipping. Because shipping is pricey for you, the mod, you canāt really just write it off entirely. But because that price gets passed on to your buyers, they might be terribly put off by it as well.
Cue the digital zine. People who are interested in the zine but donāt want to (or just canāt) pay for shipping can get the digital copy. A bit of cash goes into your digital coffers, and youāre that much closer to covering the whole project, or earning a profit for contributors, or earning for charity, or whatever your zineās goal is.
Personally, I didnāt start out with the assumption that Iād make a digital copy right away because Iām one of those people who really likes physical books and I was afraid that making a digital copy would mean less interest in books. However, now I can see that definitely would not have happened in a way that negatively affected the project - and having a digital copy makes the zine much more accessible to folks who canāt pay for shipping!Ā
QUICK REFERENCES
Below is a list of references just for a quick glance. Obviously, youāll want to research and look into your own info, too!
Current (2018) shipping costs in the USA for a 1-pound package, using the discount available via Pirate Ship:
(Please double check these. They can change from year to year!)
To anywhere else in the USA: $6.53-$7.53 each
To Canada: $15.20 each
To anywhere else on the planet: $20.43-$22.33 each
And here are the sites I used to obtain the zine and the merch! You can judge the quality of the merch for yourself, but I had good experiences with all of these sites.
Printer - MIXAM
Charms and stickers - Zap! Creatives
Magnet - Blue Bee Printing
Bookmark - Smartpress
Mini Art Prints - mpix
DONāT GET DISCOURAGED BY CRITICS
Zines are, by nature, an extremely subjective kind of project. People are always going to disagree on whether itās okay to make a for-profit fanzine, or what charity your nonprofit zine should benefit, or whether the contributor rewards are good enough, or whether youāre selecting the right artists, or whether youāre approachable and friendly, or whether youāre professional enough, or whether your layout is an enjoyable read...
Listen. There are fundamental responsibilities to zine making. But there are also creative choices the mods get to make. If someone doesnāt like your choices, they can go make their own zine.
BUT ITāS FUN, TOO
Iāve written a lot of stuff here that makes zine projects sound all serious and unfun. I didnāt want to downplay the amount of work involved, but in reality, you can have a great time even while youāre hard at work on the project. Every zine has the potential to be an amazing, rewarding, inspiring adventure - the Five Years Later zine certainly was! And Iāll remember it with fondness for a lifetime.
hello everyone! i know this is my first post in a while since I donāt really frequent Tumblr anymore, and i know a lot of people donāt know about this since i never really advertised it here, but i used to be very into anime and making AMVs and writing fanfiction, and i stopped about 5 years ago when i entered university.
well itās also been about 5 years since Soul Eater, one of my absolute fave series, has ended and so one dedicated fan decided to create a fanzine called Five Years Later: The Music We Made TogetherĀ which focuses specifically on the relationship between Soul and Maka, the truest OTP in the world and the two main characters of the series.
since one of my New Yearās Resolutions was to write again this year, i went ahead and submitted something for the zine that iām actually super proud of! you can read the full version in the zine which you can pre-order hereĀ (NOTE: this project is not-for-profit and any extra money made after manufacturing and shipping costs will be donated to ImmigrationEquality.org!)
if youād like more info about the zine in general, check out @soulmakazine2018ā. otherwise, in the meantime, hereās a sneak peek of my fic below the cut ā¦
title:Ā love is a friendship caught on fire
author: Whinnie
rating:Ā PG-13/T for slight language, alcohol consumption, and slight suggestive themes beyond the preview
summary:Ā in which things stay at 0 for a while and go to 100 in the span of two weeks
My copy of the @soulmakazine2018 has arrived ! Iām so in love with everythingāIām pretty sure Iāll cherish these forever ;v; THANKS TO @chaoticlivi FOR ARRANGING THIS FANZINE !!! ššš
Positivity Pick is where we showcase a zine that has made you happy. Tell us which zines has made you feel good in any way! Whether it may be just because you are excited for it or may be because you had a good time working on it. Whatever the reason, letās be positive!
Finally, Iāve gotten to writing up the financial information for the zine.
First of all, the zine did not make any profit. In fact, it required some out-of-pocket payment. I am a little bit nervous about explaining this because I do not want anyone, especially not the participants, to feel like the project was a failure because it cost money. In fact, Iād say it was a massive success! We created a 250-page book filled with labors of love, and sent almost a hundred copies all around the planet. It was a moment of human connection in a tumultuous historical time when some of us (like me, and I donāt think Iām the only one) are feeling estranged from the rest of society.
Below the readmore, youāll find numbers without personal info, of course.
COST OF PRINTING THE ZINE ($1272.18):
SALES ON STORENVY (Marketplace and Storefront):
SALES ON GUMROAD (digital copies):
So...a total earnings of $1180.88.
Iām not including the cost of shipping packages and the cost of bonus items here because frankly it was my fault that I didnāt charge enough shipping and the bonus items were ordered so early they hardly affect anything now.
I realize that some people might have ordered the zine because they were hoping to see a donation to ImmigrationEquality. The only problem with not raising more money than the cost of production is that we couldnāt put a whole lot toward the cause. However, it was possible to donate a nominal amount: a dollar for every contributor, $44 plus fees.
So, there you have it! Thatās where all the money paid by the buyers has gone.
After this Iāll make a sort ofĀ āwhat I learnedā post, because I think I gleaned some info that might be helpful for future projects : )
Iām posting a bit late because Iāve been really stressed and exhausted from work because well black friday is a thing and I work retail but hereās the piece I did for @soulmakazine2018
It was super hard for me to settle on a concept for this ācause Iām a sucker for domestic fluff and this was the perfect excuse for it. In the end I went with a combination of cuddling, naps, and reading which is #goals tbh
titsay
kianamaiart
turnnoffyourmind
yousharknotpass
dailybridgerton
