CAROL ADDRESSES FAN MAIL

“One of the real delights of my life is fan mail. I think the fact that someone cares enough to sit down and to try to communicate with me by writing a good ol’-fashioned letter is wonderful—I so appreciate the effort.

“But…and there’s almost always a ‘but’, isn’t there?!” she laughs, “My assistant, Karen and I were discussing fan mail the other day, trying to come up with a better, more efficient system to answer my mail! She suggested that we spend a little time clarifying some ‘hidden truths’ about fan mail in the hopes that we can all work together to make this process move more quickly, so that you get your photos signed and your responses back! I thought that Karen was right! We decided to use my blog on my website to try to help you help us with the process, so that you can get your collectors photos more quickly and easily!

“The following info comes from years – no, make that DECADES – of handling fan mail! I hope it helps.

“First of all, I want everyone to understand that whatever you mail to me first goes thru the Post Office and, well, let’s just say that people are human! The mail sometimes never gets to its intended destination as the Postal mail is NOT like email- it is not a sure thing! Snail mail can go astray! However, if it does get to its intended destination, that address is usually my agent’s office. It never comes directly to my home or to my own office. And my agents office gets lots of fan mail for lots of celebrities–so you are at the whim of the assistants at the agency who collect all of my mail, stockpiling it until they get a bunch together, to make it worthwhile to make a trip to the Post Office and to forward it on to me…..(Let me just say that that is usually at their convenience!) Therefore, depending on circumstances, mail can take weeks to reach my agent and then several more weeks to reach my office.

I understand that meanwhile, the writer is probably anxiously awaiting a reply! I can also understand that it feels like that reply may never arrive! They may even assume (perhaps) that I didn’t even bother to read their letter. Well I want to reassure you that nothing could be further from the truth. I PERSONALLY READ EVERY PIECE OF MAIL I RECEIVE.”

Karen picks up and explains further:

“Carol is a rarity is this respect, because she really does read every piece of mail that arrives here and sometimes it can be overwhelming. If she’s out of town on a shoot, for example, she might be gone for several months. All of the fan mail accumulates, unread, until she comes back. Then she has to designate hours and hours of her time to reading and answering the mail, all while she is trying to catch up on the rest of her life.

“That was why I thought if I could explain how the fan mail works in our office, and to set down a few easy ‘guidelines’ we could all help Carol to get thru the fan mail more quickly and thereby get responses back to anxious fans!

“First of all, if you’re requesting an autographed picture, please, please, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE). If you live in a foreign country, it is better to put U.S. stamps on the envelope then to buy the postal coupons for foreign postage. The Post Office in America will NOT redeem those coupons and we end up buying the stamps again anyway, thereby having given the Post Office twice the price for one piece of mail!!

“But seriously, the main reason for the SASE is because we put mail into piles and Carol gets to them in a hierarchy! Believe it or not! We choose who we answer first as it is not on a first come/first served basis because the mail arrives all together in a big pile from the agency! Depending on how much time she has to allocate to mail, Carol does the easiest and fastest mail first–those with a photo AND an SASE! Then she does those with just an SASE, moving onto those which have photos and no SASE– thereby leaving the most time-consuming fan mail of all until last- those that have no SASE and no photo included—and that can mean that it may be months that that mail sits in our office, since Carol is answering fans while juggling work and family!

So my suggestion to fans who want a more instant answer to their fan mail? Put the photo you want with an SASE into your envelope with your letter—by the way, some of the celebrities who I have worked for are really LAZY!! If you do not include an SASE AND a PHOTO they just toss your mail unread (I hope that answers any questions as to one of the reasons why you may not have received an answer back to your letter- no SASE, no autograph!) That, or their assistants read, sign and answer their mail FOR them! Not so with Carol, so we ask for patience in order to get an authentic signature!

“Keep in mind also, please, that we don’t keep huge piles of different photos in the office just for the purpose of supplying fans with them. If you want autographs on several different photos, supply them! Also, we sometimes run out of photos and we have to wait until the new prints arrive before mailing them to the fans. And, too, we may send you a photo that we are using at that moment to answer mail but you may not like the photo or the size of the photo! Or you may want your own special photo signed to you—not just whatever we have in the office. To be sure you get what you want, help us out! The last thing we want is for you to be unhappy or dissatisfied!

“Carol, like many other celebs I have worked for over the years, prefers to autograph a photo specifically to the person requesting it. If you’re asking her to sign one for every relative you have (oh, please don’t do that unless you supply the photos, then you have to give her their names. Otherwise, you might wind up with the same name on every photo you send! And that name would be yours–NOT good for gifts!! LOL!

“Next, if you write a return address, please make sure we can read it. I can’t tell you how many times Carol has written to someone, only to realize that neither of us could make heads or tails out of their return address. But because Carol is so intent on writing back to people who have written to her, she has been seen (because I have seen her) trying to copy illegible writing so it looks exactly the same as what appears on the incoming envelope. Or else she cuts the return address off the correspondence hoping that the Post Office or Postman can decipher it! It is funny really to watch her frustration, but sad when you don’t get your response, which we have worked so hard to get to you, because it comes back to us by our return address….

“Then there are the requests for donations. Carol has spent a lifetime donating to various causes and this is what we look for (oh, and just an FYI? We only have books left): Carol will gladly autograph one of her four books that she has written provided we receive the appropriate paperwork verifying the charity’s status. That is fair, right?

“Speaking of ‘requests’…Carol feels awful when something marked ‘urgent’ has been sitting in her agents office for months while she is on location, only to arrive in a pile of mail to sit in her office for some days, weeks or months! We realize that something urgent to you is not urgent to the Post Office or to Carol’s agents. Even though it is important to Carol to get it back to you ASAP, time has already been wasted. We apologize that the fan mail process is so lame! We apologize that we cannot figure out a way to make it any faster or any better. So if something was urgent and did not make it back in time for that birthday or holiday, please forgive us– it is not for lack of caring! And we will send it back anyway– even if I we already know it will arrive late!”

Carol picks up the thread again: “I think the most important thing is for my fans to understand that I’m not ignoring them. In fact, some weekends all I do is answer fan mail! It is SO important to me that I will spend my entire weekend – 10 hours a day – answering mail. So you can understand that it truly hurts me when I get an angry note from someone, because he or she thinks I’ve been ignoring him or her– though I certainly understand why he or she might think that. You might write to me in March, but I might not even see the letter until November, or later! And then, of course, there is always the possibility that a piece of mail can be misplaced or never even arrive. I am a natural target for people who have been mistreated by other celebrities who have ignored them. But please know that each celebrity is different and to keep an open mind. Remember that perhaps your mail never even made it to my attention!”

“And may I take this moment to thank all my fans throughout the years who have written to me! I have read some of the most heart-warming, most incredible letters from my fans! As I said before, it is what I LIVE for! So keep ‘em coming!”