"if you are tired out from the deluge of commercial shite" head down to your local Borders and buy a copy of "the disobedient current affairs quarterly from the UK" that is actually quite obedient when it comes to corporate distribution deals..........Maybe I'm being unfair!

do you actually want people to read it or not! I am sure it would be much more right on if it only got distributed from Freedom bookshop but then no-one outside the ghetto would ever see it.

We are in an unfortunate position, not YZ but all of us who want to make `different` magazines/papers/pamphlets etc.
We need to distribute the magazine or there is no point in making it. The whole idea behind Yearzero was to sell it to as many people as we could. Otherwise we just end up preaching to the converted. Eventually in that scenario you just fold after having blown all your money.
In the UK there are hardly any independent bookshops as a result of the Retail Book Agreement. Around 20 in the whole of the UK, we are always on the lookout for more but we cannott sell many copies in a group of 20 shops.
This is part of a wider question, I feel, about how you operate within a system that you despise. We have no advertising in YZ but we'd take some if we liked the people who wanted the adverts. We don't like the chains but we have no alternative if we want to reach a larger audience. We would do more commercial tie-ups if it meant we could do the magazine full-time. We do want to market the magazine as hard as we can just like New Internationlaist who are the arch-marketeers.
What you can do is read the magazine (or the stuff on the site) and if you think the copy/pictures supports the system then we can argue about that. The methods we have available to reach people are very limited (hence we put up announcements on Indymedia) so we try and do everything we can.
If tomorrow we were able to print 100,000 copipes and go through WH Smiths and Menzies we would do it. We could reach a much bigger audience. What we wouldn't do is change the copy or the ideas. We'd prefer to be judged on that than on commerical considerations over which we have virtually no control. To retain YZ as a just-for-us publication is not an option.
Having said all this its completely fair to question us, no complaints.

Yours sincerely
Adam Porter

it is a difficult decision but I would much rather mags like yours were in my local newsagent where someone like my Mum could buy it than it only gets sold - or more realistically left gathering dust - in radical bookshops most people don't visit.
obviously everyone wants to do the right thing and not get sucked into corporate tie-ups. but if being rigidly right-on about it means no-one gets to see it what is the point?

only stupid bastards make punk records no-one gets to hear!