How I ended up in the bargain box before I was published.

Last Updated on February 18, 2023

A few years ago I wrote a (sort of) true story about a night I spent trapped in a NCP car park in Catford, it was quite a meaty tale so I published it as a standalone zine called ‘A Short tale of a NCP car park nightmare’. All four or five hundred copies trotted out of the door to punters and zine distros and I thought no more of it. Until last week that is…

Last weekend I took a trip to the Brighton Zine Fest to catch up with old friends and marvel at the healthy state of the UK zine scene. While doing the rounds I caught up with Mr.T from Lights Go Out zine/ distro and noticed he had a box under his table labelled ‘free – please take one’. I asked Mr.T if there was anything in his freebie box that I had published, he grinned and pulled out a copy of my NCP zine!

I laughed, he laughed, and the story could (and should) have ended there, but not content with consigning me to the freebie box Mr.T then tried to talk me into taking copies of my own zine back home with me.  I laughed, he laughed, and then he said,

“No, seriously, please take it.”

Ho-hum, for every little step forward we get a little push back…

Note:

That title is a bit of a lie I guess, I’ve been published plenty of times (mostly in zines) but I’m yet to publish a book.  This whole post is very tongue in cheek – Mr.T is an enthusiastic advocate of underground publishing, and we could do with a LOT more folk like him in this world!