SF’s 17th annual Zine Fest places value on ideas, not money

Gavin Morgan dives into reading a zine at the S.F. festival for self-published authors in Golden Gate Park. Gavin Morgan dives into reading a zine at the S.F. festival for self-published authors in Golden Gate Park. Photo: Peter DaSilva / Special To The Chronicle Photo: Peter DaSilva / Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close SF’s 17th annual Zine Fest places value on ideas, not money 1 / 15 Back to Gallery

Hundreds of writers who don’t care about making money came to San Francisco, where they didn’t.

That’s how it goes when you publish your own book on a copy machine, one at a time, and sell it for a buck or two.

These kinds of works are called “zines.” The 17th annual San Francisco Zine Fest was held Sunday in Golden Gate Park. What happens at a zine festival is that hundreds of writers sit at long tables and offer up their zines, mainly to one another. Everyone goes broke together, all in one big room, instead of one at a time at home.

“If you do this for capitalistic reasons, you’re not very bright,” said Breanne Boland of Berkeley, who was selling a self-help book about creativity. At $2, it was half price because she hadn’t been paying attention when she printed it on the copy machine. It came out off-center, which is something that doesn’t happen at Random House.

“When you’re your own editor and publisher, you know that all the mistakes are yours,” she said. “You get to make all the choices.”

Boland has another job. She’s a software engineer. That’s because she needs to eat, she explained. Another zine writer with another job was Rachel Scheer, of Seattle, who teaches second grade to pay the rent.

“I’d love to be published by someone besides me,” Scheer said.

Scheer was selling, for $2 a copy, a comic book about how, when she was a kid on a White House tour, Bill Clinton borrowed her ballpoint pen during an autograph session and never gave it back.

It’s a great book, and says more in eight pages about the Clinton presidency than many longer ones. The copy she sold to a Chronicle reporter was, so far, her only sale.

Scheer said it was “fulfilling” to get money for her writing, even if only $2, and that she was not frustrated by the economics of the single copy sale.

“I believe in the product,” she said.

Aptos Middle School of San Francisco had a table full of student-written zines, and school librarian Lisa Bishop said the price was whatever a customer wanted to pay, which is not how they do it at Random House, either. Student Oscar Withrington, 12, paid $2 for a copy of his friend Owen Basore’s insightful book about video games.

“Pretty good book,” Oscar said.

“Thanks,” Owen said.

Meggie Remm of Oakland was selling copies of a book called “I Have No Idea What I’m Doing.” There were 10 copies of the book in existence and all 10 of them were on the table.

“You don’t do this to become rich and famous,” she said.

The giant hall was filled with charming, earnest, colorful opuses, almost all held together with the miracle of staples. The subject matter included monsters, rock music, nature, cookies, nuclear war and an illustrated guide to the world’s cemeteries.

Admission to the zine festival was free but, said festival organizer Anand Vedawala, each zine author had to pay $90 for table space. At that rate, breaking even was not an option.

Zines have always been part of America, Vedawala said. Thomas Paine wrote a famous one called “Common Sense” that got the U.S. off to a good start a couple of centuries back. Ben Franklin and Ralph Waldo Emerson did zines, too, although not on photocopiers.

“This is how political movements and marginalized voices can get themselves heard,” said the festival organizer, who may have been the only person coming out ahead at the festival.

“You get a voice,” he said. “You’re your own censor. When the gatekeepers say they don’t want to publish your work, you can still be in print.”

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF