Well, maybe I'm just naive, but I've always thought that fan writers do it for the love of it, not for dosh. How many printed zines make a profit, beyond a pocketful of beer money? Not many, I suspect.
There are persistent rumors that certain of the fannish presses DO regularly make a profit on their zines. However, we're not talking great wealth, more like the zine money covers the costs of their going to more cons than they could otherwise. And if you consider that the fact that they're selling the zines at those cons, I suppose the plane fare/rooming costs could be considered part of the cost of doing zine business.
would give the things away for free. At least, I would. Am I that unusual (in this specific regard, I mean:) )? Sticking a piece of fic up on the web is about as close to free as you can hope to get. I'd be doing it if I was still writing.
Nope. An awful lot of fan writers mostly want lots of people to read what they write. The bonus payoff being if some of them actually like the story enough to send feed back.
I still think paper fanzines will go extinct as soon as some e-book reader gets widely accepted.
Susan Beth susanbeth33@mindspring.com