Shelf Life: Indie Publishing and Its Future

Posted on 23rd Jan 12 by Jonathan Keane | 1

Photography: Sarah Bracken.

Originally published back in December in the Dublin student publication, Deadline, here’s a look at the rise in independent magazine publishing and the Dublin Zine Fair.

The digital age has many positives and negatives, but as a result of instant news and entertainment at the click of a button, the printed, physical product is at a horrible disadvantage. Some have already started hammering nails into print’s coffin, but like a lot of mediums, it cannot be killed too quickly and a renaissance of sorts has begun to emerge, nowhere near staggering heights though, rather existing in the underground.

The Dublin Zine Fair, which took place in August, proved this in spades. A variety of self-published books, comics, fanzines, art books, paintings and drawings could be found, not just from Ireland but also the UK. With live music and a film screening too, the success of the event showed that independent publishing is somewhat bucking the trend.

Sarah Bracken, an artist and publisher, organised the event in the Ranelagh Arts Centre – “I decided to organise The Dublin Zine Fair because I want the scene to grow in Ireland. I’ve had stalls at the London Zine Symposium for the last few years, and I absolutely loved the experience.”

Sarah published her first work in the contributor based publication Baby BEEF after becoming enamoured with indie publishing following a trip to New York. Baby BEEF would then be the name Sarah would take for her own independent publishing company, alongside fellow artist Andrea Byrne.

“We had a myspace at the time and we used that a lot to get international artists and writers to submit stuff to the zine. We made three issues, it did really well, and we brought it away travelling with us to different places and got submissions from around the world.”

After those three issues, Sarah branched out into more and different publications and art books, as well expanding on printing techniques, which all eventually led to The Dublin Zine Fair.

“At the moment I plan on running the fair annually. As for my own stuff I sell it in a few venues around town depending on what type of publications they are. I also travel to a lot of fairs in other countries. I never really make a profit but it’s a passion and an adventure for me!”

Meanwhile, Jenika Ioffreda is a London based artist. Originally from Italy, she moved to London in 2003 and in that time has seen the growth of independent publishing. “When I moved to the UK eight years ago, the small press scene was a bit different: there were much less big comic book events friendly to small press people, now they do much cheaper prices for independent artists. Also I noticed the quality of the printing has changed a lot from photocopies to very professional prints and I think the small press market is going stronger with more shops becoming small press friendly.”

Jenika is behind the comic book, Vampire Free Style, a tale of magic cats and witches all upon rooftops of the city at night and is published by Neptune Factory. “I started drawing the main character, the black cat Micia, around 2002-2003,” she says. “Slowly the cat I was drawing started to take a life of her own and so Micia was born.”

“When I moved from Italy to London, while I was on the train from the airport to the city centre I looked at the roofs and I thought I wanted to draw a story where characters were very familiar with roofs. That gave me inspiration to start the story of Micia: cats, a witch learning to fly, stars, and so on…”

Despite these goings on, print is still under the threat of online media and it’s not going to let up anytime soon. Dean Van Nguyen, editor of Dublin music and culture magazine, One More Robot commented: “Of course digital mediums have taken a bite out of the print business, but that’s not to say that print and digital publications can’t and won’t coexist.”

“There are some things that don’t work nearly as well on a screen as they do on a page, like art and fashion magazines, which rely on spectacular photography,” he says. One More Robot is just over two years old so why set up a publication in such times? “As a pop journalist I felt that there was a gap in the market for an Irish publication that catered to the needs of people like me, by which I mean guys who absorb a huge amount of media and are looking for writings on music, books, film etc. that are a little more analytical than your average band profiles and blog posts.”

“Another reason is that I’d just started working as a fulltime freelance journalist and business was slow at first so I had the time to dive into the project.” However, with online publishing’s ability to reach out to a greater number of people in a quicker time, the real problem lies in the advertisers’ exodus from the printed page to the digital screen.

“Mediums generally die over a long period of time, not overnight, so I don’t think there’s any immediate danger of the newsstand disappearing totally.”

“I don’t think people have forgotten about print just yet,” he says. “Whatever happens though I think there will always be print media in some form. It just might become increasingly kitschy.”

Tags: Dean Van Nguyen, Dublin Zine Fair, independent publishing, Jenika Ioffreda, One More Robot, Ranelagh Arts Festival, Sarah Bracken, Vampire Free Style