Once you’ve been the zine scene for a while, you’re bound to make a mini-zine, and then you’re bound to show other folks how to make one. There is something a lil’ cool and lil’ magical about making a six-page booklet outta a single sheet of paper with just a couple folds and a snip. So here is my *official* mini-zine tutorial:

Take a piece of 8.5″ x 11″ paper, and fold it hamburger style, which means you fold it along the short-side of the paper. Next, unfold it, turn it 90°, and fold it hotdog style, or along the long-side of the paper. Unfold it again. Now, you’ll take each short-edge of the paper and fold it in to the center. When you unfold it, you should have 8 perfect boxes: these will become your pages and your cover. Fold that thing hamburger style one last time, and make a cut on the crease line from the center edge to the middle crease where all the folds meet. When you unfold your paper, it’ll have a little hole in the middle, and when you fold it hotdog style, you can push the ends of the paper together, into a rectangle. You can fold it one more time, and you’ll end up with your zine: the covers and 6 pages.

Confused? Don’t worry, it’s a little hard to explain in words alone, which is why I filmed a walk-through of the tutorial:

If you prefer to watch videos on your phone, I also recorded a tiktok video of the entire process that you can watch. And finally, for those of us who learn best by doing, I’ve put this tutorial into mini zine form (~mini-zineception~), and you can download and print your own copy, then fold it up while following the instructions.

Curious what you can put in a mini zine? Want some mininspiration? Here are some of my favorite minis that I’ve collected throughout the years:

1️: “Let’s Make a Mini Zine” by me!
📓: A mini-zine that shows you how to fold a mini-zine! Download and print, follow the instructions to fold-up this freebie, then make some mini-zines of your own!
🔗: Free! Download it, print it, and make your own mini!

2️: “Auggie’s Guide to Queer DIY Garage Punk” by Auggie
📓: This informative little zine is a funfetti cupcake of tips for burgeoning baby punks. Created by one of the teens in the Shawnee Mission East Zine Club, it succinctly covers some tough topics, like dealing with creeps and racists infiltrating the punk scene, as well as the basics, like tips on getting gigs, finding instruments, and starting your first DIY band.

3️: “Mending” by Heather Anacker
📓: This zine is a masterclass in mini zine creation… and it’s also full of some super-useful resources for mending your clothes. Instead of sticking with the traditional 8-page, fold-with-a-cut format that I’ve outlined above, Heather has sliced out a gatefold and added in some pages with machine stitching to create this 14-page mini. Its worth picking up just for the intricacy of how it is assembled alone, but the information in this zine is absolutely fantastic. The perfect resource to keep handy in your sewing kit.
🔗: email • etsy

4️: “Photosynthesis” by Alex Svoboda
📓: Another mini assembled unlike the traditional fold-with-a-cut, this one is put together like a standard half- or full-size, with all of the pages cut from a single sheet of paper, then folded together and stapled. Equal parts science and poetry, “Photosynthesis” is a crash course in biology, and botany, and the many ways our human lives are improved by the plants around us.
🔗: instagram • website

5️: “What Does Defunding the Police Mean and Why Should I Care?” by Breahna Upton
📓: One of the best things about mini-zines is their small size and how it forces you to boil down what you want to say. Bre Upton’s “What Does Defunding the Police Mean and Why Should I Care?” does just that: it tackles a topic that has been misconstrued and misunderstood by the mass-media, and clarifies it in a way that is succinct and easy to understand. Share this one with your centrist co-worker the next time they grumble “why can’t we all just get along” at the sight of a protest against police brutality. PS: if you’ve come here from my TikTok, go give Bre a follow there, too: their zine-content is top notch.
🔗: shop • tiktok

6️: “Iowa” by Julia Eff
📓: What can I say about Julia’s zines that hasn’t been already said before? They’re a goth-zine institution with some of the best damn layouts in the scene, and their mini “Iowa” is a bite-sized example of what makes their zines oh so great. Like, they’re the only person who could get me to read a thirsty, existential Slipknot fanzine and flat out love it.
🔗: shop

7️: “Home Today” by Emma Casey
📓: Besides being a great reminder that you can make horizontal minis, too, “Home Today” by Emma Casey is a shot-thru-the-heart poetry zine that highlights all the things I love about their writing: the tenderness, the attention to small details, the longing, the way their words take you time and place and you feel like, yea, maybe you could be there too, a transference of memory.
🔗: instagram

8️: “Welcome to: Carrot Facts” by Gabby Bass
📓: This zine is part of a whole series of food facts by Gabby, and they are just. so. dang. good. “Carrot Facts” combines Gabby’s delightfully chunky illustrations with fun facts both true and possibly fictive, and the “mundane absurdity” of it all is one of my very favorite niche moods.
🔗: instagram