March 27, 2025

🚂 How to sling a zine in ten days

Well, technically seven. But ten sounded better.

Hello there, Train Songz subscribers!

As Spring ‘25 Tour approaches, I wanted to give subscribers the first shot at applying to be a Print Media Dealer in St. Augustine, Tampa, Savannah, Charlottesville, and Cary.

• Please fill this form out if you’re interested!

If you’re going to a non-Billy show that might be a fit to hand out zines at, please fill out the “other” column.

What’s a Print Media Dealer do?

You get to the show a little early and hand out zines to folks who might be interested!

To get the zines, you’ll meet up with each city’s lead volunteer, who will give you both a stack of the latest Train Songz and a “Print Media Dealer” tee that’s yours to keep and exclusively available to volunteers.

Before the shows start, I’ll send you a few helpful sheets to guide how you talk to first-timers about the zine as you’re handing it out. I’ll also send you a quick form to sign, to make sure we’re both on the same page about being kind, generally of sound mind, and not forcing zines on anyone who doesn’t want one. I trust all of you, but this is just a little extra peace of mind as this thing grows beyond my direct control.

Introducing the Train Songz Mini

We ran the Print Media Dealer program in earnest last tour really for the first time, and it was (mostly) a huge success. It’s really meaningful to get the zine in front of people in the wild, and it definitely helped find new subscribers.

For example, there are folks who are aware of and maybe follow @train_songz on Instagram but haven’t taken the jump offline into the zine yet, and there are people who don’t have an Instagram (jealous) but are totally interested in a weird little print mag about our shared special interest of old tunes and new things happening to them in 2025.

When running the program, though, shipping free boxes of 44-page zines for distribution got quite costly. Additionally, they are pretty thick and not the easiest thing to put in your pocket if you’re handing them out, compared to when the zine was less pages. (Remember, this last one was 44. Before it was 20. Then 12. Then 8! Zine puberty comes at you fast…)

To address the size and cost issue, we’re debuting a miniature version of the zine that will only be available on lot as a sort of “free preview” of the full version, with eight of our favorite pages on display.

To emphasize: What you get in the mail is not changing. This is only available for free distribution at shows.

Tell a friend about the zine!

We are still very much a “dollar in, dollar out!” operation and investing everything possible back into the zine, and for that reason it’s insanely helpful if you tell a friend about the zine and they choose to subscribe or buy an individual copy to get a taste.

Projecting out for the rest of the year, as long as we continue to sell 12 or so sponsorships per issue, we should have $36,000 in the bank to get through the next three issues: April, July, and October. Each issue costs between $9–11,000 to produce, with about half those costs going to printing and shipping and the other half going to contributors to be paid a fair rate towards work that people are paying for and they are contributing to the value of. (So far I’m only paying myself by writing off attending a few Billy shows per year on my taxes.) So say we spend $30,000 over the next three zines, that leaves $6,000 for software dues, taxes, and marketing efforts like the Print Media Dealer initiative.

There are 799 active Train Songz subscriptions! You are one of them, if you’re getting this email. Thank you for your support and literally making this project possible. It would not be there without you, and we certainly wouldn’t be able to work with the caliber of artist we’re currently working with to improve the zine’s look and feel, while I focus on the writing and content direction.

I’m no math guy, but I think if each of you told a friend about the zine, we could be up to 1,598 subscribers. And if they told a friend, and if they… Before I start daydreaming, let me emphasize: I’m focused on making the highest-quality print media product possible for a side-hobby-turned-basically-second-job that I love deeply and have a ton of fun doing. Still, I can’t pour every waking hour into it, but maybe one day…

Until then, keep your day job! (I actually quite like mine, and feel fortunate it allows me to do something I love on the side, while still making rent.)

Again, thank you…

I really, truly cannot say thank you enough to this group of 799 subscribers. Your support means the world, allows me to continue to bring in cool and talented contributors to improve the zine, and fills me with motivation to keep on going and building this thing into whatever it’s meant to be.

This next issue, out April 11 and mailing to you—fingers crossed everything goes smoothly—the following day, is looking more interesting inside than it ever has before. We’ve been putting a lot of time, energy, and conversation on the aesthetics of the inside of the zine, so it looks less “Word Doc” and more “punk rock.” I’m really proud of how our artists have brought that vision to life. Once you get it, let us know how we did.

Thank you again. I’m grateful.

-The Conductor