The day my zine got rejected from 3 shops in one afternoon

Honestly, I thought my latest zine about bus stop graffiti in Portland was solid. I printed 50 copies at the library for $1.50 each. I walked into three different shops downtown and all of them said it was too niche. One owner told me, 'Nobody wants a zine about scribbles on plexiglass.' Ngl, that stung. But now I'm thinking maybe they're missing the point of what makes a DIY zine personal. Has anyone else had a shop totally misjudge your work like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

kevin_roberts411mo ago

3 shops turned you down, but 47 copies still need homes.

gray_gibson9d ago

47 copies total and 3 shops passed on them, that's a rough math lesson for those guys. @kevin_roberts41 sounds like the real winner here, sitting on a mini goldmine.

cole_mitchell81mo ago

Wait, didn't you say on the original thread that it was 47 copies for the whole run, not 47 that still need homes? I mean maybe I'm misremembering but I thought the printer messed up the count and only made 47 total. So now those 47 are all that's left for everyone. That changes the math a bit for those shops who turned them down, since they probably thought there'd be way more copies floating around. Idk just seems like the scarcity makes it a different situation than it sounded like before.