A List of Mistakes I Made Before Submitting My ZINE

It is fun to start making a ZINE.
You can do everything yourself, from the content to the binding, and you are the author, designer, and editor all in one.

But every mistake is also your own fault!!!

The many typos and errors you find after finishing the manuscript.No matter how many times you fix them, strange things keep appearing. Plus, there is the anxiety that you basically only have one pair of eyes to spot mistakes.

I have published three ZINEs so far, and I have had multiple people help me correct typos and other errors.

Even so.
Even with four or more people looking at it, corrections keep popping up right before the final submission.(In fact, they even appear after the final submission.)

I am an amateur at bookmaking, and it has only been four months since I made my first ZINE. Basically, I am the person I trust the least.So, before printing 100 copies or so in earnest, I do a test print (proof print) once.

In this article, I will introduce the mistakes I made as an amateur who dabbled in ZINEs—things I didn't know and messed up—so please learn from my failures.

Messing up the deadline

The Literary Flea Market or ZINE festival is on February XX... counting back from there, the final submission is on YY, and one week for proofreading and editing... and it takes 10 days for the printing company to ship it... so that means the editing deadline is January ZZ. Yeah, okay.

But sometimes it is not okay at all!!

I didn't count weekends and holidays, I caught the flu when I planned to edit, or it snowed in Kanto and caused shipping delays.

Therefore,Just make sure to work with plenty of time to spare!!That is all there is to it.

Messing up the cover

The cover is seriously troublesome, and if the design goes right to the edge, various points of caution arise, such as "Are you doing a full-bleed finish?" or "Are you including bleed margins?"

I still don't really understand what that's all about, but when an individual who isn't familiar with design makes a cover in Canva, it's safer not to design right up to the edge.

You have to create your layout while anticipating things like the four corners being cut off or turning white.

Even so, the day you get an email like this from the printing company, there's nothing left to do but look up at the sky in despair.

I didn't make this layout myself; I had asked a designer to do it, so we were communicating in the middle of the night.

I said, "What should we do...? Can you fix it by tomorrow!? If we don't submit it by 3 PM tomorrow, there's a possibility we won't make it to the ZINE festival...!! I am so, so sorry...!!!" It was a situation where it wouldn't have been strange if they had scolded me, saying, "You said this was okay during the proofing stage, didn't you!"

That's why I told myself over and over to leave plenty of time in the schedule!!!! There's a limit to how sorry I can be.

Messing up the margins

My first ZINE. I set it up with "Inside (wider margins)" and "Outside (narrower margins)" settings. In Word, the first page is on the left, and the second page is on the right, creating a spread.

However, when submitting to a printing company, the first page is not a spread; the second page is on the left, and the third page is on the right. In other words, all the left and right margins were reversed.

As a result, this happens.

You would think you'd notice before submitting, but it's surprisingly hard to tell when looking at the screen so please be careful. If the gutter is narrow, it's hard to read! Make the gutter wide.

Mistakes with indentation

Regardless of whether it is vertical or horizontal writing, indentation involves leaving one character space at the beginning of a sentence. I want to do this because it looks authentic and book-like. However, indentation leads to a series of troubles.The Word trap lurking in indentation.

Mistakes with ruby characters

Ruby characters are a pitfall. I will say it twice. Ruby characters are a pitfall.Ruby characters are often hard to see on screens like PDFs. You only realize the ruby is wrong after doing a test print.

Mistakes with inconsistent notation

Inconsistent notation for first-person pronouns like "Ore" (katakana), "Ore" (kanji), "Boku" (hiragana), "Boku" (katakana), "Boku" (kanji), and "Jibun" is common, but it is apparently better to avoid it. It may be better, but it is even harder to notice inconsistent notation in your own work. So, I created a "
proofreading turn to look only at inconsistent notation". I just look at the first-person pronouns. In novels and the like, characters are often distinguished by their use of first-person pronouns, so unnecessary inconsistent notation should be avoided. I will fix it.

Who on earth converted these to half-width characters?

It's a total mystery, but there are traps where full-width brackets "" become half-width "". You'll notice these when you do a proof print.

Messing up the table of contents

The page numbers in the table of contents don't match. This is fatal. An unbelievable mistake. I turned pale when it was pointed out to me. Sometimes they shift while you're editing the main text.Please, please, please check the page numbers in the table of contents at the very, very last minute.

There are still small typos scattered here and there, but I think these are the common mistakes. I think this proofreading and editing worktook about two weeks with four people working on it.I think you could do it in half the time if you focused, but everyone has a life, so if you're doing it in your spare time, it's better to give yourself plenty of time.

Asking a professional is also an option. We live in an age where you can ask for proofreading and editing on sites like Coconala. However,the more you outsource, the more the ZINE will go into the red,so deciding how much to do yourself, thinking of "mistakes as part of the charm," is something to consider.

Typos found after submission

They happen. Oh, how sad. A follower who purchased it pointed one out to me. I'm truly grateful.

In my case, what I do is fix them one by one with a label maker. I stick them on while thinking, "Why didn't I notice that at the time?"

Well, this is just... I'm an amateur... and even the "Proofreading Girl" had scenes where she had to use correction stickers, soif you notice them after the manuscript is finished, you can fix them with a label maker,so rest assured, this is an example of a last resort.

Now, for this tedious and seemingly endless verification process, there is one trick to keep from getting discouraged along the way."Loving the work itself" This is the driving force that will help you finish it to the end.

When you continue the lonely work of proofreading and editing, you may gradually feel your spirit breaking (especially if it's your own work). You start to get into a mindset of, 'What is even interesting about this...?'

But perhaps you (or I) are the only ones who can turn that work into a ZINE!!!

Because you have thoughts you want to convey, and because you love that work, you want to deliver it to the reader as perfectly as possible... right!?

In the past, the only option was to pay hundreds of thousands of yen for self-publishing, but now we live in an era where we can make books ourselves, sell them, and have people actually hold them in their hands. I think there are books you encounter and people you meet through events like the Literature Flea Market or ZINE festivals.

Even an amateur like me managed to give it some form.

The content and the binding of the book are up to you.
But the mistakes are also up to you!!!

That is precisely why picking out the noise called 'mistakes' from a work filled with your own thoughts might be a quiet and endearing task.

I hope that the ZINE culture, which allows us to give form to the thoughts we want to convey, will continue to spread.

This article by SHIGE-neesan, a great senior in ZINE making, was incredibly educational.

■ Books published so far

First book: "The World Seen by People with Dyscalculia"

Second book: Nan no Hanashi desu-ko, Issue 'Na', TABBY’s COFFEE ROASTER Edition (*Thank you for selling out online)

3rd Volume: What Am I Talking About? Issue "N" - What Am I Talking About? ~Konishi Kinoko & Emu's Maiton Edition~(Unveiled at ZINE Fes Yokohama)

Special thanks

Finally, I would like to introduce the two proofreading girls who helped me check the book.They pointed out typos, omissions, and strange line breaks.

Haru Shibuki
#WhatAmITalkingAbout Issue "Na"
TABBY's COFFEE ROASTER Edition
Proofreading & Poster Design

Miyu Amanu
#WhatAmITalkingAbout Issue "N"
Konishi Kinoko & Emu's Maiton Edition Proofreading

■ ZINE Fes Yokohama Booth C-28

◾️ Creative Flea Market Shibuya

◻︎ This ZINE has been corrected with a label maker

▽ What is the mentality for ZINE production?