As big magazines lose readers, home-made “zines” are springing up

NOVEMBER’S issue of Glamour, a popular women’s glossy, will be the last monthly edition to be printed. After losing half its readers in a decade, the title is retreating to the web, promising only biannual “collectible” print issues. Its predicament is not unique: British paid-for magazines lost 6% of their readers last year. But as the big names struggle, tiny titles put together with staplers on kitchen tables are enjoying a boomlet.

“Barely a week goes by without a new launch. I keep thinking we’re going to reach peak indie mag soon, but then some new genre will open up,” says Ruth Jamieson, author of “Print is Dead, Long Live Print”, a book about the micro-publications known as zines. Since 2011 half a dozen zine fairs have popped up around the country, from Bristol to Hull. At the Offprint London fair in May, 140 independent publishers squeezed into the turbine hall of the Tate Modern gallery. Stack, a subscription service that delivers a different indie magazine every month, saw a 32% increase in its turnover in the year to March.