To begin making your zine, you have to fold and cut a piece of paper, which will become the skeleton of the zine that you will later illustrate. To begin, place a piece of paper on a flat surface, then fold it in half lengthwise so that the longer edges meet up. You can use regular 8 ½ x 11 inch (21.59 x 27.94 cm) printer paper, or any kind of thin rectangular paper. Some prefer to use A3 paper, which will make a zine that is exactly postcard-sized and therefore convenient for sending in the mail. A3 paper is 11.69 x 16.54 inches (29.6 x 42 cm). After you finish your first fold, fold the paper in half again, this time so that the short ends of the paper meet, making sure that the corners line up evenly. Make one final fold, this time folding in the same direction as the last fold to make a vertical fold. The shorter edges of the paper should meet when you make this fold. If you used A3 paper, the folded paper should be the size of a postcard. After you finish folding, unfold your piece of paper and lay it flat on a cutting mat. The paper should be divided into eight sections by the folds, with one fold dividing the paper horizontally and three folds dividing it vertically. Take an X-Acto knife and make a horizontal cut through the horizontal fold, starting at the point where the horizontal fold intersects the leftmost vertical fold, and ending at the point where the horizontal fold intersects with the rightmost vertical fold.  In other words, you are making a horizontal cut through the horizontal fold that doesn’t start at the edge of the page, but rather goes through the middle of the page up to the points where the left and right vertical folds intersect with the horizontal fold. Place a ruler along the horizontal fold and use it to make the cut so that the cut is straight. After you have made the horizontal cut, fold the paper horizontally so that the longer edges of the paper meet together. This should leave you a two-layered strip of paper with four sections. After you fold your paper horizontally, you should notice that the double-layered strip of paper you have has the slit you made running along the top of the middle two sections. This makes it possible to push the two ends of the paper together to form a sort of “mouth,” that also resembles a plus sign when viewed from above. After you have made your “plus sign,” fold the top and bottom legs of the plus sign over to the right, so that they sandwich the right leg. By this point, you should see that there is still one leg of the “plus sign” that is to the left of the other pages. Fold this leftmost page clockwise. You will see that you now have a booklet with four pages! Crease the spine of the zine with your finger to ensure that it keeps its shape!  You have just finished creating the skeleton of the zine, which you will illustrate and add artwork to. You can just make this one zine if you wish, or use it as your master copy, which you will make copies of if you want to reproduce the zine. If you want to add more pages, you can cut paper to the exact size of the spread of the zine and staple the pages into the central spread of the zine where the binding would be on a regular book. You can also use two pieces of paper at the beginning by putting one sheet on top of the other and cutting and folding them simultaneously. This will give you double the amount of pages.

Summary:
Fold a piece of paper in half. Fold it in half the other way. Fold the paper in half vertically. Unfold and cut the zine. Fold the paper along the horizontal fold. Push the paper to form a plus sign. Fold the top and bottom legs of the plus sign over. Fold the left leg over clockwise and crease.