Snail mail flyers:

I still spread them like crazy with all my trades/orders....But i've sadly noticed that less and less people use snail mail flyers as a method for promotion.

Anyone else notice this as well?

i havent noticed it (yet). but i dont do nearly as many trades as you, so you would prolly notice it sooner.

one thing i do notice, is that putting a year on the flier comes in handy, gives people a rough idea if that distro/zine is still around..

I've been thinking about making a sub label with no website and only have snail mail contact info/snail mail flyers, for black metal releases only.

I realize people will have to spend $ via writing me letters to confirm the release is still available for sale/trade, but that would be the interesting part I think.

too make it really obscure and like the old days

worshipsatanzine wrote:

I've been thinking about making a sub label with no website and only have snail mail contact info/snail mail flyers, for black metal releases only.

I realize people will have to spend $ via writing me letters to confirm the release is still available for sale/trade, but that would be the interesting part I think.

too make it really obscure and like the old days

thats a cool idea man!! you should totally do it!!!
just as long as you dont limit the releases too too much, so that as the flyers make their way through the grape vine, they dont become too outdated

Samizdat wrote:

thats a cool idea man!! you should totally do it!!!
just as long as you dont limit the releases too too much, so that as the flyers make their way through the grape vine, they dont become too outdated

yeah man! It would basically be the most obscure tape label in the underground this way, of course i'd still operate SFM the same way, on facebook, email etc but a sub label for extreme raw bm stuffs lol.

I'd have to date the flyers for sure to make sure ppl know its recent.

Anything to make my life difficult huh Keeg
But seriously that sounds like a pretty cool idea since I missed all of that what with only being 18 haha.

worshipsatanzine wrote:

I still spread them like crazy with all my trades/orders....But i've sadly noticed that less and less people use snail mail flyers as a method for promotion.

Anyone else notice this as well?

What I've noticed lately is that most people send me a fuckload of flyers for their own shit (which is fine, of course) but nothing else, like they don't spread anybody else's flyers they get, but they send out like 1000 copies of their own. Not always the case, but it seems that way a lot for me. And then a lot of stuff with no flyers at all, so I think you may be right. Nothing wrong with self promotion, but I used to get letters with all sorts of different flyers in them (rather than 100 copies of the same flyer), and I don't get that so much anymore.

Yeah pretty well the only people I ever get fliers from are you two. Which I keep all of and then when I mail something (which is rare honestly) I fill the damn thing full of em.

blackstar wrote:

Yeah pretty well the only people I ever get fliers from are you two. Which I keep all of and then when I mail something (which is rare honestly) I fill the damn thing full of em.

Awesome!

It would be interesting to know the proportion of people that actually respond to flyers. I wouldn't be surprised if it was less than 1%.
For example, I left around 50 flyers in a local record store for people to pick up. They were all gone in a few weeks, yet I haven't had a single email or letter from the local area (in fact, I've only ever had 1 letter for the whole of the UK... I get far more from Australia .).

Time dependant, I'll stick as many flyers into a package as I can.

christkum wrote:

It would be interesting to know the proportion of people that actually respond to flyers. I wouldn't be surprised if it was less than 1%.
For example, I left around 50 flyers in a local record store for people to pick up. They were all gone in a few weeks, yet I haven't had a single email or letter from the local area (in fact, I've only ever had 1 letter for the whole of the UK... I get far more from Australia .).

Time dependant, I'll stick as many flyers into a package as I can.

I usually respond to flyers, even if its just to say hi and promote SFM.

circleofdestruction wrote:

worshipsatanzine wrote:

I still spread them like crazy with all my trades/orders....But i've sadly noticed that less and less people use snail mail flyers as a method for promotion.

Anyone else notice this as well?

What I've noticed lately is that most people send me a fuckload of flyers for their own shit (which is fine, of course) but nothing else, like they don't spread anybody else's flyers they get, but they send out like 1000 copies of their own. Not always the case, but it seems that way a lot for me. And then a lot of stuff with no flyers at all, so I think you may be right. Nothing wrong with self promotion, but I used to get letters with all sorts of different flyers in them (rather than 100 copies of the same flyer), and I don't get that so much anymore.

I send a lot of flyers, but receive much fewer...
I think in 2010, the peoples who spread the most flyers are labels/ distros and maybe bands or fanzines... Very often the peoples who only listen to music don't send flyers, maybe because they don't have any or because they don't think about it, or don't bother...

I remember that 10+ years ago, some peoples used to collect flyers... To paste it on their walls or something like that.

In 1998 you could sell more than 150-200 copies of a zine, only spreading flyers! (I mean direct sells, peoples sending you money to order 1 copy or more... But you had to send a shitload of flyers and do a lot of mail... But it worked well!)

I used to collect flyers that I liked.

Quote :

In 1998 you could sell more than 150-200 copies of a zine, only spreading flyers! (I mean direct sells, peoples sending you money to order 1 copy or more... But you had to send a shitload of flyers and do a lot of mail... But it worked well!)

In the 90s I mainly sold/gave away my zines at local shows, not as much through the mail, but even then I seemed to get a lot more responses to flyers in the mail than now.

What also seems different to me is that, in the 90s, a huge number of prison inmates would write me, wanting my zine and paying in stamps, I never really understood why that was, but I don't get any inmates writing to me anymore. Could be different prison/postal system regulations as well.

I do think a lot of flyers these days just disappear into the void somewhere and don't get passed on, though.

circleofdestruction wrote:

What also seems different to me is that, in the 90s, a huge number of prison inmates would write me, wanting my zine and paying in stamps, I never really understood why that was, but I don't get any inmates writing to me anymore. Could be different prison/postal system regulations as well.

I used to get letters from inmates alot back in the day. Or people in institutions looking for reading material. I'm pretty sure, yes, they have toughened up on inmates since 9/11's events. Espically in the states the government likes to call anything "terrorist" releated if they can get away with it! Which could affect metal zines ie black metal murders etc

Yeah, that's probably it. I know I had to remove the staples from zines a lot back then. I wish I had the old letters people sent me (I lost a lot of stuff moving a few years ago), there were some inmates that always sent bad "poetry" they wanted me to put in my zine. It was hilariously bad. I used to get more stamps from prisoners than money from nonprisoners, which sucked because I didn't have much money to print the zine then, I was just a kid with a paper route so I didn't have much money of my own, but I had tons of postage.

I truly feel as if I missed something in life by not being into metal before the internet age lol.

blackstar wrote:

I truly feel as if I missed something in life by not being into metal before the internet age lol.

You missed corresponding with murderers, mainly, heh.

blackstar wrote:

I truly feel as if I missed something in life by not being into metal before the internet age lol.

It does feel weird to remember the days of replying to adds in the Metal Manaics "shorts" section and trading tapes before cdrs were around. Getting old feels weird at times.

Yeah blackstar, you still have getting old to look forward to. Have I mentioned all my white hairs lately? Heh.

circleofdestruction wrote:

Yeah blackstar, you still have getting old to look forward to. Have I mentioned all my white hairs lately? Heh.

I'm starting to get some grey hair myself

I'm just bitter because I know my mom was at least 35 when she got grey hair, and my dad was in his 50s (and still has mostly blond hair at 59), so it makes me feel old because I started going grey at 26. I'm not sure I mind very much, I just find it surprising.

circleofdestruction wrote:

I'm just bitter because I know my mom was at least 35 when she got grey hair, and my dad was in his 50s (and still has mostly blond hair at 59), so it makes me feel old because I started going grey at 26. I'm not sure I mind very much, I just find it surprising.

Better to go grey young then bald young haha!

circleofdestruction wrote:

Yeah blackstar, you still have getting old to look forward to. Have I mentioned all my white hairs lately? Heh.

I can't wait to get old and be a crazy grandpa or some shit lol.

blackstar wrote:

I truly feel as if I missed something in life by not being into metal before the internet age lol.

You could still find peoples who like to write snail mail letters...

Yeah I probably could that's true.