the link is broken... and I wanted to see it!
It worked for me too but here is some of the article:
THINGS TO THINK ABOUT BEFORE STARTING A FAN CLUB Will I have the time? A fan club can take a lot of time to run. While it is a hobby, it shouldn’t be taken lightly. You will be accepting money to provide a service, and you should seriously review how much time in your day you have to spare and whether or not you want that time taken up with running a fan club. The exact amount of time varies depending on what you offer to your members. A fanzine published on a spare-time basis can take only a short time each month, not counting the time needed to research news, answer letters and stuffing envelopes. For a large, official fan club offering merchandise and special events, the time needed is greatly increased from a single fanzine. If you work full time and have other hobbies filling up your spare time, you might want to seriously consider what you would be committing to before setting anything up.
Do I have the money to spare? Fan clubs can cost money and very rarely make money. If you’re considering running a fan club to make money, you should reconsider it. Even professionally run clubs very rarely generate money from running a fan club alone (profits can usually only be seen if a large amount of merchandise is sold through the club, something which you must have permission from the celebrity and their management to do). There will be a cost to set the club up which usually the fan club president must incur themselves. Again the exact cost varies depending on what you want to offer through your club, but you can figure you’ll need to cover the cost of stationery, an initial fan club publication, photos, membership cards and postage, not to mention the cost of advertising your club in various publications. You should try to project the costs of these things with a variety of membership projections (50 members, 100 members, 1000 members) to see what you can really afford. Remember, it’s better to start small with just a newsletter and expand to offer more items as the membership grows rather than promise too much at the outset, end up with only a few members and lose a lot of money.
Official or unofficial? If you’re going to run a fan club for a specific celebrity, show or movie, it is always recommended that you try to obtain permission first. The entertainment industry is very careful about copyright laws in regards to shows and movies, and celebrities can fight a fan club legally if one starts without their permission (the same holds true for online clubs and websites). However, there is no set standard for fan clubs, and different agents, managers and studios have different policies when it comes to them. For instance, some studios don’t allow fan clubs at all, while others may not grant official status but will not take action against a fan club which is run as a hobby. You should find out what situation is involved with your intended honoree before embarking on a club. Bear in mind, though, that if you seek permission to run a club and are told not to, then you should NOT start a fan club or legal problems could arise. Some people do start unofficial fan clubs and let them run in the hopes of the celebrity eventually endorsing them. This DOES happen, and can be an effective way to get a club started, but if you do start an unofficial club you must realize that there is always a chance you might be asked to "cease and desist" operation of the club at any time if the celebrity does not approve of it.
Why do I want to run a club? This is probably the most important question you will ask yourself. Many people start fan clubs with the underlying hope it will eventually lead to some kind of communication with a celebrity. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as long as you realize that it should not be your sole reason for starting a club and that you can’t get angry or upset if this doesn’t happen, and there’s certainly no guarantee that it will. Because you run a fan club for someone doesn’t obligate them to have any contact with you. You should run a fan club because you want to communicate with fellow fans, share the information you have gathered about a celebrity with them and help them get in touch with each other to form a network of people interested in the same subject. Any other reason should be secondary, although wanting to help promote a celebrity you admire and wishing to make new friends are also good reasons for starting a club.
What will the fan club offer? You need to think out exactly what the fan club will offer and how much to charge for it. This should be based on your abilities and how much you feel you can do without overextending yourself. The variety of materials offered by fan clubs differs greatly. You may want to send SASEs to several clubs for information to see what they charge and what they offer for the price to get some ideas. The one standard in fan clubs is some form of publication. A newsletter or fanzine is almost always offered to the members as a means of keeping up communication between the club and the members. Other common items which are usually part of a fan club membership package are membership cards and a photograph of the celebrity. You can get as creative as you like, offering such things as t-shirts, bumper stickers, tapes or records or any variety of imprinted items to your members. However, we suggest you start small and let the club grow along with its membership, as incentive items can be expensive to have printed.
Do I have the equipment and resources to handle the job? You should have basic skills and office equipment to handle the job of running a fan club before you get started. You’ll be accepting money from members and budgeting it to cover the fan club expenses. Do you have some basic accounting skills? You need to publish a publication of some kind. Do you have a talent for writing plus access to a typewriter or computer? You will need to utilize the mail system to get members orders delivered. Is the local post office reliable? Do you have a local office supply store where you can purchase needed supplies? You will need to keep member information accurate and up to date. Do you possess secretarial skills? If you want to keep your home address private, you’ll need to rent a post office box. Do you have such a facility nearby with available boxes? Having fancy equipment and access to quality print shops doesn’t necessarily mean a fan club will be better run. As long as you have the basic skills and equipment to run a fan club, with the desire to do so and a little creativity you can do a great club with nothing more than a typewriter and a mimeograph machine. Bear in mind, however, that a computer is an important thing to consider, as it can greatly help organize your club faster and better than traditional methods.
Do I like dealing with people? Running a fan club means you will be dealing with people . . . all kinds of people, often from all around the world. They will write and, if you provide your phone number, call you. There will be wonderful, polite people and arrogant, rude people. There will be those you connect with and those you won’t connect with. But either way, when you run a fan club you devote yourself to helping people as best as you can. If you’re not the type of person who likes to deal with people, you probably shouldn’t run a fan club.
If the fan club brings fewer members than I projected,
will I still want to run it? You may have visions of grandeur when setting up a fan club, expecting thousands of people to join it. However, keep in mind that only a small percentage of people are fans of something, and even a smaller percentage will actually join a fan club. If you expect thousands of members and only end up with a few hundred, you might be disappointed. Many fan clubs have small memberships, anywhere from 20 members to 500. Few ever get into the thousands or tens of thousands. There’s almost no way to project how many members a fan club will have, since a lot of it depends on the popularity of the star, the type of fans they attract and how well the club is advertised, as well as how it’s run and how much it costs to join.
Do I love the celebrity enough to commit
to running their club? If you are an avid fan of a celebrity or subject and already collect on them, enjoy everything to do with them and really want to devote your spare time to talking about them and researching them, then you probably have the stamina to run a fan club. But if your interest in the celebrity is only passing, or you only like a few of their projects or don’t like an aspect of their persona, then you might not want to start a club for them. Once you start a fan club for someone, you’d better be willing to be enthusiastic about them at any given time or place within reason. Your running the club to share your enthusiasm of a celebrity with others, so that enthusiasm should be very heartfelt.
Do I have the ability to find information about
my star on a regular basis? Research is vital for a fan club. The fans depend on you to provide information they might not otherwise hear. Contact with a celebrity or their management is the best way to get information (another reason why official status should be sought!) but there are other ways. Be prepared to pore over magazines each week, watch all entertainment shows and establish devoted pen friends in other parts of the world willing to share information they find on the honoree. The better you are at finding out information about a celebrity, the better the fan club will be. And you can’t expect others to always hand information to you on a silver platter. A lot of it is hard research time and effort!
Do I have the writing skills to produce an informative
and entertaining publication? Being able to write clearly and effectively is a must for a fan club president. Not only will you be writing and editing your own club newsletter, you will be creating ad copy, as well as corresponding with people around the world. If you don’t enjoy writing or do not know how to construct at least basic sentences and use acceptable spelling, you might not want to run a fan club, as you will be doing a lot of writing.
Will I enjoy the work? It’s almost impossible to answer that question without actually starting a club and experiencing what it’s like to run one, but if you were unsure about any of the above questions or, more specifically, put off by any of them, it’s very possible running a fan club is not the kind of work you would enjoy. And because this is going to be a hobby, it should at least be something you enjoy! A fan club president should enjoy their work, otherwise there’s really no reason to be doing it. So consider all of these factors carefully before starting a fan club and if you’re still as enthusiastic as you were when you first thought of it, then you’ll most likely make a terrific fan club president!
