Does a fan letter really have to be handwritten? I’ve been trying to write one to Joey King, a young lady who was one of the stars of “Ramona and Beezus,” to tell her how much I enjoyed that film and also how much I appreciate her as a public figure (in that she’s not letting her fame go to her head, at least IMHO). A lot of these tip sites say that you must handwrite it so that it does not come across as mechanical, but I’m much better at typing than I am at handwriting, so that’s scaring me.
I’m sure it varies from recipient to recipient. Some will respond to every letter, others will respond to none of them, and still others will respond to a select few. For this last category, handwriting your letter may come across as more personal and therefore more likely to be selected for a response.
Ah! I kind of figured as much. Another thing that I should mention is that I tried to send her an email, but never got a response, for reasons unknown (I’m guessing that her publicists, or maybe Joey herself, saw it and discarded it/ignored it).
One more thing: it is said that one should not “write a book,” no matter how much there is to say to any performer; rather, your letter should be kept short and sweet. Is this also true?
I have no experience whatsoever in writing fan mail, but I do have experience receiving it. I can only speak for myself when I say that while I personally respond to every e-mail I receive (often with many months’ delay), I absolutely dread the ones where the writer spends more than a couple paragraphs telling me their life story. I have very little time available for reading and responding to mail as it is, and I feel bad about not being able to put as much effort into responding as the writers did in their e-mails. I worry that writing a couple sentences in response to a three-page letter comes across as dismissive and unkind. I could prepare some longer form letter responses and add then personalize them a bit, but I think this also comes across as cheap. I’m also not so rich and famous that I can afford to hire a publicist to answer my mail for me (which would feel dishonest to me anyway).
The person you’re writing to is by no means an A-list star, but is still many orders of magnitude more famous than I am, and therefore probably receives many orders of magnitude more fan mail. If they personally responded to every one, they wouldn’t have any time left over to do the good work you wrote to express your appreciation for! So please don’t take it as an insult if your letter goes unanswered, or if you get back something which seems terse or formulaic.
It is no insult, really. It’s just that I’m a duffer/neophyte in the art of fan mail, and I was wanting to make sure that I did it correctly, that’s all. After all, as you said, Joey is much more famous than you or me, and based on what you said, it’s hard for her to find the time to respond to everything that her fans send her.
I’ve often heard from celebs themselves that hand-written letters get picked out of the pile over typed ones - but if your handwriting is very bad (because you’re not used to it?) you could also ask a friend with a nice handwriting to write it for you.
After all, if your hand-written letter is chosen, but not readable, you haven’t gained much.
Do you simply want to tell her that, or do you also want a response? I think if you put a small note at the end of the (short) letter that you understand that she gets a lot of mail and therefore you don’t expect a personal answer, might help her.
There was one Simpson episode, where Marge re-discovered her painting talent, and it was mentioned how as a young woman she painted one of the Beatles and sent him the portrait. Later there was a cut with the now-old Beatle sifting through his mail, writing an answer letter back … some 30 years later.
That’s why they usually have assistants whose task it is to sort the mail and answer the simple ones, and a lot of stock letters are used. If you prepare for that, you won’t be disappointed later.
That could be the real reason why I didn’t get one: I didn’t ask for one. I think you’re absolutely right. Like I said, I’m a neophyte at this fine art, and any assistance (both yours and that of the previous poster) is very much appreciated. I’ve been doing some serious editing to try to make it long enough/short enough, because I’ve really become a fan of hers. Heck, I’ve even seen pictures on Flickr of her signing her John Hancock (signature/autograph), and that’s part of it too.
Oooh - what a good idea! (Also, I saw that movie on a plane and quite enjoyed it as well.)
My one experience with this was not so much a “fan” letter, but more of a “grievance” I had with David Letterman. (LOOOONG story, but I’ll tell it if anyone is interested.) My letter was typed and an entire page long, with skinny margins. I was worried about it ending up in the “Viewer Mail” pile (which I assumed they’d pick through a few until they got enough for the segment and threw the rest away) so on the envelope I typed “personal correspondance, not intended for comedic purposes.”
Apparently this lands your letter smack in the middle of Dave’s desk, because two days later I got a phone call at 8:30 in the morning from his personal assistant at the time, Laurie Diamond, apologizing profusely, saying Dave was very upset, (especially since I was from Indiana, lol) offering me tickets to a show, and some Letterman swag. (I assumed it would be something lame, like a bumper sticker and a key chain. Fed Ex knocked on my door the next morning with a box containing a really high-quality Late Night hoodie, t-shirt, baseball cap and the number to call for tickets. Easily $100+ worth of stuff.)
So if anyone has anything bad to say about David Letterman they’d better say it to my face and expect a punch in the nose.
Can I say it to David Letterman’s face and expect free stuff instead?
hahaha! 
One more thing concerning this: as I’m typing this, what is the proper type size for this to be short enough, yet readable to Miss King? I’m wanting to make sure that she can read it, yet not have to wade through it.
Oh, please do!
She’s a 12 year old girl. I’d guess 18pt Comic Sans. In pink.
Actually, default of 12pt Times New Roman or Arial is probably plenty good enough.
Another vote for the story!
OK cool, but I don’t want to hijack the thread - look for it later in…I guess Cafe Society? It’s getting late here so I’ll probably type it up tomorrow when I’m at work, supposedly being productive - ha!
Given that she’s only 12, it wouldn’t surprise me if her parents and/or publicists exercised considerable restrictions over which fan mail she sees and even more over which she responds to.
I once typed a letter to David Duchovny that – in my opinion – was reasonably funny explaining how my then-wife and two other female friends adored him and his work, and how it would be really cool if he’d just send an autographed picture to each of them.
Whether it was through laziness, or his sense of humor, or both, I’ll never know. But what I got in response was a single picture signed to all three ladies. (Since, I had orchestrated the whole thing, it was fairly easy to determine that my wife got to keep the original, while color copies were doled out to the other two.)
Still, it was a response!
I personally find that Facebook works pretty well with younger stars. But I think she may even be too young for that.
She’s on Facebook, and has an official page and a personal page, but while I’m subscribed to her official page there, I would link with her on the personal page (friend her, IOW), but I do not know her personally (I’ve only heard of her), and as such, I’m very afraid to do so.