Nonetheless, with the mainstream taking minor notice and now that review zines like Broken Pencil are out there, I think the general population has more awareness and access to them. Concerning format, zines can be just about any format, and cover any variety of topics. There have been fierce debates in the zine community as to whether glossy UPC labeled zines are in fact zines and not magazines, but it's really up to each individual to decide, and given the great variety of backgrounds zinesters come from perhaps the question will never be resolved once and for all. I'll spare you a lengthy dissertation on the topic, but my own feeling is that glossy and UPC labeled rags generally are not zines. Then your concerns are deadlines and money and not pissing off the advertisers, and those are not zinester motives.
Motives are one of the the fundamental differences between zines and magazines.
An amusing cartoon about zinesters . I've gone to here. And the biggest, baddest zine resource page ever .