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<\/a>In general, amateur press associations, or APAs, are groups that bring together people who like to print, publish, or write as a hobby. Basically, people join an APA and then send in copies of their submissions, which may be pages or even a full journal, or they might contribute to journals that others publish. These submissions are then gathered into \u201cbundles\u201d or \u201cmailings\u201d and sent out to all the members.<\/p>\nThere are national groups as well as regional ones, along with those with specific focuses, like science fiction or comics.<\/p>\n
To a degree, this may seem similar to fans publishing fanzines, and there are some commonalities. Many people who produce fanzines might also be involved with an APA and often submit their fanzines as their submission.<\/p>\n
But a big difference is that amateur journalists are amateurs. They print, publish, and write as a hobby. They produce their submissions at their own cost and pay an annual fee to be a member of an APA.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a kind of \u201cgive and get\u201d hobby. Members submit their journals and, in return, get everyone else\u2019s. Fanzines charge a subscription fee and often run ads to offset costs. While they might not make much money, they certainly don\u2019t want to lose money.<\/p>\n
The best-known amateur journalist was H.P. Lovecraft<\/a><\/strong>. As a youth, he was actually creating his own journals, with a handful of copies each, before he was introduced to the United Amateur Press Association around 1914. He joined and was soon publishing his own journal, submitting work to others, and even was the national president of the group.<\/p>\n Several of his weird-fiction works actually first saw print in amateur journals before appearing in places like Weird Tales<\/a><\/em>. He would later also join the National Amateur Press Association<\/a> and would become national president there as well. He stayed active with both groups until his death.<\/p>\n Most of the history you hear on amateur journalism says it started post\u2013Civil War, with the availability of relatively inexpensive small printing presses. But it did exist before that. Those small printing presses made it possible for many people, often teens, to create and print their own journals or papers. They soon formed local amateur press groups to share their work among others.<\/p>\n The National Amateur Press Association was formed in 1876 and is still around. It was actually formed by a group of teen amateur journalists. Another group of teens, unaware of NAPA, formed the United Amateur Press Association in 1895. Strangely, various political infighting within the UAPA led to it splitting into the UAP and UAPAA groups sometime in the 1930s. Both no longer exist, with UAPAA ending around 2006.<\/p>\n A group within UAPAA left in 1936 and formed the American Amateur Press Association<\/a>. It is still around and is a little larger than NAPA. Several are members of both groups, and the two send out monthly bundles of submissions. NAPA seems more focused on printing, whereas AAPA focuses more on writing. NAPA holds an annual convention, usually in July, and AAPA often has conventions as well. Sometimes the two have joint conventions.<\/p>\n Sometime in the 1930s, you started to see the establishment of what are called \u201cfan APAs,\u201d starting with science-fiction fans that combined fanzines with APAs. This then spread to comic-book fans as well.<\/p>\n Putting aside the national APAs, which are a little different, most APAs work this way: The APA will have a limited membership, usually around 30, with a copy limit a little higher. There is a subscription fee to cover the cost of printing the \u201cofficial organ\u201d and mailing the bundle. Mailings are usually quarterly but may be bimonthly. Everything is sent to the official editor (the OE) or central mailer, who collects all the submissions and binds them, including the official organ of the APA, and mails them out to members. Submissions are usually called \u201capazines.\u201d The official organ is the apazine created for the APA and usually has information on that month\u2019s submissions, a financial report, news, and other information for the membership, like the roster and rules of the APA.<\/p>\n APAs will have a set minimum activity rule, the \u201cminac,\u201d that requires members to submit a minimum number of pages either each mailing or every other mailing. A “page” is usually one side of an 8.5-by-11 piece of paper. So the minac is usually something like two to three pages each mailing, or six every other. Submissions have to be original, so previously published work by the author doesn\u2019t count, nor does reprinting works by others. But most APAs also expect members to comment on previous submissions, so that does count as original work. This element of conversation via commentary is a major part of these groups.<\/p>\n As noted, as most APAs are quarterly, most would have you do two to three pages every three months. People submit reviews of books and stories they read, movies and TV shows they watched, and conventions they attended. Some will submit fiction or poetry. So a lot of things can be submitted.<\/p>\n There are national APAs, like NAPA and AAPA, both of which have websites.<\/p>\n Among science-fiction fans, there still exist two long-running APAs: the Fantasy Amateur Press Association<\/a><\/strong> (FAPA), founded in 1937, and the Spectator Amateur Press Society<\/strong> (SAPS), founded in 1947. Both are still active and can be found on Facebook. I’m not sure if they are print or electronic.<\/p>\n The Pulp Era Amateur Press Society<\/a><\/strong> (PEAPS) was formed in 1987 and is still going strong. There is a website for it<\/a>, and I recently took over as official editor. We are always looking for more members. Members submit a wide range of items that are pulp-related. They recently hit 150 mailings and are approaching their 40th anniversary.<\/p>\n For fans of Robert E. Howard<\/a><\/strong>, there is the REHupa<\/a><\/strong>, the REH United Press Association, formed in 1972 from the merger of several sword-and-sorcery-oriented APAs. They are still going strong, working with the Robert E. Howard Foundation<\/a> to put on the annual Howard Days. They don\u2019t have a website, but you should be able to contact them through the foundation. They have put out more than 300 mailings at this point.<\/p>\n For fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs<\/a><\/strong>, there is the ERBapa<\/a><\/strong>, the ERB Amateur Press Association<\/a> formed in 1984. They are still going strong, run by OE Scott Tracy Griffin<\/a><\/strong>. They have pages at the ERBzine<\/a> where you can see listings of past mailings and contact the OE about joining. They have done more than 165 mailings so far.<\/p>\n For fans of H.P. Lovecraft and other weird-fiction authors, there is the Esoteric Order of Dagon<\/a><\/strong> (EOD), formed in 1973. They are still going strong under OE S.T. Joshi<\/a><\/strong>, having put out more than 200 mailings. They don\u2019t have a website, but you can contact Joshi through his website<\/a>.<\/p>\n There may be some other pulp-related APAs, but these are the ones I am aware of. Being part of an APA is fun. Members submit different things. The more research-oriented submit the results of their work. Others submit reviews and comments about stuff they\u2019ve read or collected. Some submit fiction and poetry. Everyone comments on past submissions, so there is a sense of community.<\/p>\n APAs aren\u2019t for everyone, but at the same time, don\u2019t feel that you\u2019re not \u201cgood enough\u201d to join. If you think you are, you probably are. Reach out and find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So I have touched on the matter of amateur press associations, but felt a longer posting on them and highlighting several pulp-related ones would be a good idea. In general, amateur press associations, or APAs, are groups that bring together people who like to print, publish, or write as a hobby. Basically, people join an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":21751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at the world of amateur press associations.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[58,56,39,1],"tags":[1094,2390,103,2387,2389,201,1879,295,1095,2388,81,1184,2121,1878],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-20761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-fanzines","category-non-fiction","category-pulps","tag-amateur-press-association","tag-american-amateur-press-association","tag-edgar-rice-burroughs","tag-erbapa","tag-esoteric-order-of-dagon","tag-h-p-lovecraft","tag-national-amateur-press-association","tag-peaps","tag-pulp-era-amateur-press-society","tag-rehupa","tag-robert-e-howard","tag-s-t-joshi","tag-scott-tracy-griffin","tag-united-amateur-press-association"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2025\/12\/lovecraft-photo.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-5oR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20761"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21903,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20761\/revisions\/21903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20761"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=20761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Some history<\/h3>\n
<\/a>Another group to be aware of is The Fossils, which is devoted to the history of amateur journalism. They put out a quarterly journal and work to record the history of APAs and ensure that APAs are archived through the Library of Amateur Journalism at the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison.<\/p>\nHow do APAs work?<\/h3>\n
What APAs are out there?<\/h3>\n
<\/a>CAPA-Alpha<\/a><\/strong> is the long-running comics-focused APA. It\u2019s on Facebook and may be entirely electronic at this point.<\/p>\n