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Fantascience Digest, v. 3, issue 3, whole no. 15, November-December 1941
Page 21
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Page 21 more than an hour would be consumed. That hour-per-page works because I first dummy an entire issue, then stencil, then run off; by doing that, all the little details that take so long, if one page at a time is done, are eliminated.) I don't dummy HORIZONS; the material is written as it's typed on the mastersheet, and that consumes about a half-hour per page. The other half-hour is given over to hektoing, caring for the hekto, changing ribbons when hekto ribbon is being used, etc. Of course, there is more work than that connected with issuing fanzines. Sorting and stapling an issue of SPACEWAYS requires about 3 hours. The same processes consume only an hour or a little more for HORIZONS, since the magazine is much smaller. Two or three hours more go into each issue of SPACEWAYS devoted to making up the subscription list and addressing and wrapping the magazines. Allow another hour for stamping and checking them, and the issue is ready to mail. HORIZONS, being distributed through the FAPA, doesn't require any time for bothering with subscription lists and wrapping individual copies. In other words—about 250 hours per year go into the actual publication of SPACEWAYS, and about 65 for HORIZONS. Not so terrible after, all, is it? An average of an hour an evening, six evenings a week, put out the fanzines. But there're lots of other things to do in fandom, Correspondence, for instance. I write one letter per day. If I skip a day, I write two the next; if two must be written in the same day, none is written the next. My letters average perhaps two pages in length, or about thirty minutes of typing them, and another ten minutes for addressing the envelope, finding a stamp, taking care of the carbon copy, and such little details. We have seen that less than an hour per day over the course of a year must be devoted to fanzines; therefore, fanzine publishing and letters together take an average of about an hour and a half per day. Those were the two easiest things to figure. The remaining time consumers don't work on a schedule. The time it takes to read pro-mags for instance, is very difficult to average up. I read an average of something like seven a month, I've found. But just how much time is required to read one is the hard thing to determine. ASTOUNDING takes much longer to read than any other, partly because it has more pages, and partly because the stories can't be skimmed through in search of occasional gems, as is the case with other magazines. I'm a fast reader when I'm reading anything except good stuff, and than means I sail through all promags except ASTOUNDING and UNKNOWN in a hurry. Less than an hour a day spent on reading the professional magazines would be a safe bet; a precisely accurate estimate isn't to be had. So now we've found that fan activities for those three items consume something over two hours each day, and less than two hours and a half. The one way in which I differ from almost every other active fan is in traveling around to conventions, conferences, and the like. Virtually every fan in the country has been to at least two of the fan gatherings in the last two or three years, and many belong to local clubs and societies and take a large amount of time. I don't. The little time I spend with stf readers here in town is negligible, and I'm still not doing any exploring for fans in other towns. So no time is consumed that way. Where many fans who attend, for instance, just the
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Page 21 more than an hour would be consumed. That hour-per-page works because I first dummy an entire issue, then stencil, then run off; by doing that, all the little details that take so long, if one page at a time is done, are eliminated.) I don't dummy HORIZONS; the material is written as it's typed on the mastersheet, and that consumes about a half-hour per page. The other half-hour is given over to hektoing, caring for the hekto, changing ribbons when hekto ribbon is being used, etc. Of course, there is more work than that connected with issuing fanzines. Sorting and stapling an issue of SPACEWAYS requires about 3 hours. The same processes consume only an hour or a little more for HORIZONS, since the magazine is much smaller. Two or three hours more go into each issue of SPACEWAYS devoted to making up the subscription list and addressing and wrapping the magazines. Allow another hour for stamping and checking them, and the issue is ready to mail. HORIZONS, being distributed through the FAPA, doesn't require any time for bothering with subscription lists and wrapping individual copies. In other words—about 250 hours per year go into the actual publication of SPACEWAYS, and about 65 for HORIZONS. Not so terrible after, all, is it? An average of an hour an evening, six evenings a week, put out the fanzines. But there're lots of other things to do in fandom, Correspondence, for instance. I write one letter per day. If I skip a day, I write two the next; if two must be written in the same day, none is written the next. My letters average perhaps two pages in length, or about thirty minutes of typing them, and another ten minutes for addressing the envelope, finding a stamp, taking care of the carbon copy, and such little details. We have seen that less than an hour per day over the course of a year must be devoted to fanzines; therefore, fanzine publishing and letters together take an average of about an hour and a half per day. Those were the two easiest things to figure. The remaining time consumers don't work on a schedule. The time it takes to read pro-mags for instance, is very difficult to average up. I read an average of something like seven a month, I've found. But just how much time is required to read one is the hard thing to determine. ASTOUNDING takes much longer to read than any other, partly because it has more pages, and partly because the stories can't be skimmed through in search of occasional gems, as is the case with other magazines. I'm a fast reader when I'm reading anything except good stuff, and than means I sail through all promags except ASTOUNDING and UNKNOWN in a hurry. Less than an hour a day spent on reading the professional magazines would be a safe bet; a precisely accurate estimate isn't to be had. So now we've found that fan activities for those three items consume something over two hours each day, and less than two hours and a half. The one way in which I differ from almost every other active fan is in traveling around to conventions, conferences, and the like. Virtually every fan in the country has been to at least two of the fan gatherings in the last two or three years, and many belong to local clubs and societies and take a large amount of time. I don't. The little time I spend with stf readers here in town is negligible, and I'm still not doing any exploring for fans in other towns. So no time is consumed that way. Where many fans who attend, for instance, just the
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