The Future of Literature and Zining                                            by Wred Fright, PhD.                    [an excerpt from Doc Fright's Kent State University PhD thesis] [The] community of zine publishers will likely represent a force in the literature of the new century. Hoffman, Allen and Ulrich in The Little Magazine: A History and a Bibliography argued that one of the major reasons they studied the little magazines was that they found the experience of publishing in the little magazines exerted a considerable influence on the writers who published in them, writers who would form much of the canon of 20th century literature. The same may be true of zines, and perhaps even more so, as Jim Munroe, a zine publisher who published his first novel with a major corporate publisher, HarperCollins Canada, before publishing his second novel on his own, writes in "Zinester Millennium": But the industry is in for a bit of a shock. Many of the best young writers of today view publication not with gratefulness but with cool suspicion. They've published their own work, had complete creative control, and have a more focused idea of what they want and where they're going. This makes them more demanding, less easy to handle, and maddeningly independent. On the other hand, the zinester also has developed a work ethic, meets deadlines, has created her own structures for editing and pre-publication feedback, is more media-savvy, has a small but loyal base of fans and is unafraid to package and sell her writing. Having going through a very similar process herself, she has a better idea of what can and can't be done, and a realistic appreciation for how much work it is. Harder to gauge but certainly significant is the amount of craft-honing that has gone on behind the scenes--often a person will have been writing intensively for many years, uninhibited by the worries of whether it would sell. Written for its own sake, or at least for an audience sick of mainstream culture, the best zine writers aren't just as good as real writers--they're better. Indeed, Munroe's predictions seem to be already coming true, as the Underground Literary Alliance, a group of zine publishers, declared a jihad against the mainstream publishing industry in the fall of 2000. They have protested the awarding of fellowships to wealthy mainstream writers such as Rick Moody who they claim don't need the money while more talented zine writers are forced to work menial jobs to survive, and they have disrupted the readings of other mainstream writers whom they consider preened and irrelevant lapdogs for the lords of corporate publishing. In addition, the ULA have staged their own events daring the mainstream literary world to attend, attracting such "literati" as George Plimpton (Frey). The ULA are currently publishing their own zine The Slush Pile and working on publishing their own books in order to achieve their goal of turning literature back into a relevant force for expression and ideas in contemporary society, a role they believe has been lost due to the insular ways of the mainstream writing world composed of timid and formulaic writers schooled in creative writing departments, greedy and short-sighted corporate publishers who treat selling literature like selling widgets, and bored and boring trust fund babies who work as critics and editors. By contrast, the democratic, diverse, and raw world of zines represents to the ULA and others a saving force in literature, so much so that some members of the ULA such as Wenclas have rejected opportunities in the mainstream publishing world for adventure in the world of zines instead. The Future Of Literature In fact, though the tactics of the ULA may put off some, those in English studies and elsewhere interested in contemporary literature would be well advised to turn away from the latest hypertextual "novel" and start paying more attention to the work appearing in the humble printed zine. For despite the claims made by hypertext theorists and other proponents of electronic publishing, I saw no evidence in the work I studied of any linguistic, literate, or literary revolution occurring as a result of the use of electronic publishing technologies. Instead, the zine publishers publishing online seem to be using the hypertextual medium of the World Wide Web to publish traditional linear texts with links connecting such texts to one another. Surely the nonlinear and dynamic qualities supposedly inherent in a hypertextual medium, even one as imperfect as the Web, would have appeared more often than they did in the study. Even the lauded weblog was used as little more than an electronic annotated bibliography. Clearly, electronic publishing technologies can be used in the nonlinear ways enthusiasts suggest, but then so can a print dictionary or a print phonebook or a print "choose your own adventure book." Such uses are possibilities the technologies can be put to, such as the publishers of The Toucan using Wiki-Wiki to allow readers to edit their publication, but, in contrast to the beliefs of technological determinists, there appears to be nothing inherent in the technologies which compels users to use them in such a manner. However, the study did suggest that electronic publishers will often incorporate multimedia into their publishing efforts due to the ease with which digital technologies enable handling such material as animation and sound as well as alphabetic text. Perhaps new literary forms will develop out of this phenomenon eventually, and some of the literature of the 21st. Century will be more akin to contemporary video games than to the contemporary novel. Michael Basinski thinks this will be the case, stating in an interview, "I do think that the web will produce its own poetic--and that will be essentially the rise of visual poetry/sound poetry" (Basinski, Email interview). However, most zine publishers in the study used only words and pictures online, and expressed sentiments similar to Doug Bassett, a zine publisher and ULA member, who stated in an interview, that "Electronic publishing is a tool, not a revolution" (Bassett). However, electronic publishing does offer exciting possibilities for the future, particularly in multimedia. And, doubtless new forms will arise online that one can only guess at today, serving as additional options for those who wish to express themselves and communicate with one another, but it is doubtful that these new forms will simply replace the old ones. For example, narrative emerged in orality, translated quite well to paper, and now works swimmingly in pixels. So, I suspect that in the future people will still tell stories, propagandize, complain, rave, rant, profess, and all the other human things they do today. They'll do these things in whatever media available to them, speech, the telephone, print, and electronic publishing, among others. Cost and accessibility will no doubt continue the drive to electronic publishing for many, though, just as it has done for some zine publishers already. Especially for corporations interested in financial profit, the bottom line will dictate and that will probably be the motivation for major publishers to publish electronically by passing the printing bill to the reader or reseller through print on demand or avoiding the printing bill altogether by offering work electronically. In fact, some texts make more sense published electronically such as phonebooks and other reference works that are out of date almost from the moment they are printed. Similarly, other publications such as newspapers and magazines that make most of their money through advertising already, with the price the reader pays usually just serving to cover production costs such as printing and delivery, will find it easier than book publishers to move to electronic publishing. Technologies being developed today using liquid crystal displays with resolutions near to that of paper will likely be the electronic publishing vehicle they will use, and the advertising money will fuel such efforts so that costs to readers may be negligible beyond the initial purchase of the device. Of course, as Ben Bagdikian has pointed out in The Media Monopoly, the "broadcast model" of publishing always has hidden costs to the consumer through higher prices for consumer goods and, on a societal level, when publications catering to advertisers rather than readers avoid covering issues of importance to readers and society that threaten the material interests of advertisers. But, as A. R. Wolff points out, avoiding such issues may be more difficult when there are other voices such as zine publishers making themselves heard on the mediascape. Wolff writes: The Web, after all, makes the First Amendment's promise a reality. Any person with a computer and a modem can broadcast just about anything he wants, world-wide. Better yet, next-to-nothing publishing costs means Web writers are not beholden to sponsors. If the Nightly News runs a damning story on Brand X Cola, Brand X pulls $10 million worth of advertising--which kills the Nightly News' million-dollar budget. A Web writer, operating out of his apartment with a $20/month Internet account, can say whatever he wants about Brand X. (Wolff) Such utopian media possibilities exist, but whether they come about is another question. Wolff's free marketplace of ideas may become a swamp as such voices may be drowned in a torrent of information. It is reported that more information will be created in the next two years than in all of previous human history combined, a trend that will only continue (Pertman). Would the public relations industry not take advantage of this situation by confusing people in the same way that they do now with industry groups with misleading names releasing reports and documents in hopes of swaying public opinion to the side which supports their vested interests? Nevertheless, such propaganda work will thankfully be made more difficult than ever, but it will also as a result become more sophisticated than ever. But, of course, the question that has worried most people about electronic publishing and the future has been the question of what will happen to the printed book. Although major publishers have been hesitant to embrace electronic publishing, perhaps for fear of the ease with which electronic texts can be pirated (Levy, "The Day I Got Napsterized'), as Roger Fidler, the director of the Institute for Cyber Information, notes, "Publishing is being transferred into digital technology. Everything up to the printing press is already digital. The next phase is the delivery and display of publications electronically" (Fischer). Indeed, as Jason Epstein suggests in Book Business: Publishing Past Present And Future, such a transition would shake up the publishing world, and, as he hopes, return it to its cottage industry roots. Electronic books certainly will permit further democratization of book publishing. However despite the presence of electronic books, the study suggested that print will continue to exist as well, and there will be no "death of the book." But as print publishing is not the only option for publishers, the printed book may take on a different role. Perhaps work will appear in print after perhaps first earning a reputation online. And, since electronic publishing will likely be the choice of readers who want written material as cheaply as possible--since there are no printing or postage costs associated with its production, electronic publishing should be cheaper for purchase--there will probably be increased attention paid to the book as art object when works are printed. As a result, the materiality of the book will be a characteristic that moves to the forefront, and the printed book of this type will not be seen as merely a transparent vehicle for the written material inside, but as an integral part of the message. However, the printed book will not just be the object given as a gift. There will also be prosaic printed books for those who prefer them, probably through print on demand as every medium has its uses. Just as it's lovely to read a document online from anywhere in the world, it's also lovely to read a document in the bathtub without worrying about electrocution. Similarly, printed books are heavy to carry around whereas one's electronic book presumably will not be, but one needs a power source for those whereas printed books can be read when the electricity is out (o.k., at night you might need a candle as well). Every medium has its advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, the study suggests to expect the relationship between electronic and print publishing to manifest itself in unanticipated ways, well beyond the either/or dichotomy of the print versus electronic publishing debate. Whatever the case, in print and online, the writing in the books, literature, will endure, as will the literary communities such as zine publishers which organize themselves around the activities of reading and writing. Concern over the loss of the world of aesthetics and ideas that printed books represent to many people clearly drives much of the anxiety over electronic publishing. As noted earlier in the study, this was a result of confusing some of the material means of production by which such activities and functions are manifested (printed books, etc.) with the activities and functions themselves (literature, etc.). The study found little evidence that the zine medium could not exist online with its characteristics that were forged in print intact. However, there were complications and challenges for zine publishers online from such areas as mainstream audiences and the desire for immediate gratification from readers. Technologies such as password protection would filter out the mainstream audience if they prove undesirable, and nothing inherent in electronic publishing technology prevents zine publishers and readers from approaching electronic publishing with the same care and reflection with which they approach print publishing. Clearly, there are differences among media, but often too much significance is attached to these differences rather than to the similarities of the functions they can serve In short, the spirit of zines is not bound to print. This suggests that the spirit of literature is not either. In the future, it will flourish in print and online.