So I’ve been researching this and there was this thing called the Fan Club Directory

The Fan Club Directory. Published between 1979 and 2002, the Directory was a two-staple, roughly 75-page booklet, produced annually by the National Association of Fan Clubs (NAFC). It listed alphabetically every fan club that elected, for free, to become a member of the NAFC, giving readers the U.S. mail address of the current president and/or contact person. The NAFC was an organization dedicated to representing “all fan clubs in all fields of entertainment,” and so the listings in the Directory were unintentionally jarring: announcement of The Amazing Pudding, the fanzine for Pink Floyd, sat right across from the Annette Funicello fan club (both are listed alphabetically under “F”); “The Celestial Affiliation of Time Lords: A Time Travel Fan Organization” was next to the “Charlie Daniels Band Volunteers;” Elton John and Al Jolson were side by side. It read like a fantasy middle-school classroom before everybody went off to become famous in their various pockets of the world.

Oh my god look at this this is amazing

Some of the clubs were focused on stars or shows that I don’t recognize anymore–Becky Hobbs, Secret Oktober, etc. But full-page breakouts were allotted for entertainment stars with more than one club, including Englebert Humperdinck, Tom Jones, Barry Manilow, and Elvis Presley. There seemed to be a mixture of both “official” fan clubs, run by an artist’s management, and “unofficial,” run by fans out of their homes. Of equal historical interest were the details in the Directory’s ads. You could learn, for example, that The Flying Nun Fan Club “has been looking for the original hat and dress from ‘The Flying Nun’ for the 25th Anniversary.” (One can only wonder: did they find it? What did they do with the artifacts?). Or that there was a new Keith Carradine Club in Gronau, Germany, “searching for new members who are interested in international contact with other Carradine fans all over Europe.” Or that a group called “Operation Tribbles” helped to coordinate Star Trek clubs to donate stuffed “tribble” toys to people in rest homes, hospitals, and hospices around the world. In all, the Directory offered a heterogeneous slice of late 20th century popular culture in the English-speaking world.  

There were also fanzines and one commenter says:

There was a fabulous fan print publication back in the day for the original Star Trek fandom. I don’t remember the name of it but it was analogous to an online bulletin board. Readers would send in comments which the publisher would print. Then readers would respond to those comments which would be published in the next issue, and on and on ad infinitum. If you kept your copies you could follow a “thread” from beginning to end. Sometimes new threads would split off the original and the publisher would separate those and the conversation would continue. It was quite ingenious for a print publication.

Then I looked up 1970′s Star Wars fanzines (because it just seemed like it’d be easy to find info on) and here’s this from fanlore.org:

Star Wars zines began to appear in 1977, not long after the first movie was released. The zines were often focused on one or two characters, with Han Solo-specific zines, Luke Skywalker-specific fanzines, etc. Some focused specifically on Leia Organa, Darth Vader, other Sith Lords, Imperials, or Jedi. Original characters were fairly common, especially early in the movie series when the number of canon characters was still limited.

A few Star Wars stories were initially published as part of Star Trek fanzines but there was some resistance from Star Trek fans. At the start start of 1977, the Star Trek Welcommittee’s Directory listed 431 Star Trek zines. By the end of the year, however, many fans were planning Star Wars and other “media” fanzines.

Boldly Writing describes fandom’s initial reaction to Star Wars in 1977. The fanzine “Spectrum 34…had Luke Skywalker on the cover. Inside, the editor, Jeff Johnston writes, "Behold! the fandom of Star Wars. Even as you read this a new fandom for Star Wars is developing, and growing. A fandom some people see as just a fluke, and that others see as the replacement for Star Trek fandom…”

Not all of Star Trek fandom reacted favorably to Star Wars, however. Two extremes have already formed, one saying that 'Trek is doomed’ (a new slogan) citing Star Wars as its killer, and the other faction maintaining a grin-and-bear-it attitude, assuming that the enthusiasm will wane eventually leaving ST fandom intact and Star Wars as 'just another…movie.’

This is so exciting look at this: Hyper Space #1, June 1977 Artist: Kevin Baxter. Hyper Space ties with The Force as the first Star Wars zine, coming out in June 1977

Look here for a bunch of old fanzine covers: http://www.therobotsvoice.com/2013/12/the_20_coolest_illustrations_from_star_wars_fanzin.php

AND THEN there’s the beginning of published fanfic:

The modern phenomenon of fan fiction as an expression of fandom and fan interaction was popularized and defined via Star Trek fandom and their fanzines published in the 1960s. The first Star Trek fanzine, Spockanalia (1967), contained the first fanfiction in the modern sense of the term. (Wikipedia)

Unlike other aspects of fandom, women dominated fan fiction authoring; 83% of Star Trek fan fiction authors were female by 1970, and 90% by 1973. (Wikipedia)

the first slash published in a zine was A Fragment Out of Time by Diane Marchant in 1974. (Fanlore.org)

This is so exciting I live for learning about things like this

So I’ve been researching this and there was this thing called the Fan Club Directory

The Fan Club Directory. Published between 1979 and 2002, the Directory was a two-staple, roughly 75-page booklet, produced annually by the National Association of Fan Clubs (NAFC). It listed alphabetically every fan club that elected, for free, to become a member of the NAFC, giving readers the U.S. mail address of the current president and/or contact person. The NAFC was an organization dedicated to representing “all fan clubs in all fields of entertainment,” and so the listings in the Directory were unintentionally jarring: announcement of The Amazing Pudding, the fanzine for Pink Floyd, sat right across from the Annette Funicello fan club (both are listed alphabetically under “F”); “The Celestial Affiliation of Time Lords: A Time Travel Fan Organization” was next to the “Charlie Daniels Band Volunteers;” Elton John and Al Jolson were side by side. It read like a fantasy middle-school classroom before everybody went off to become famous in their various pockets of the world.

Oh my god look at this this is amazing

Some of the clubs were focused on stars or shows that I don’t recognize anymore–Becky Hobbs, Secret Oktober, etc. But full-page breakouts were allotted for entertainment stars with more than one club, including Englebert Humperdinck, Tom Jones, Barry Manilow, and Elvis Presley. There seemed to be a mixture of both “official” fan clubs, run by an artist’s management, and “unofficial,” run by fans out of their homes. Of equal historical interest were the details in the Directory’s ads. You could learn, for example, that The Flying Nun Fan Club “has been looking for the original hat and dress from ‘The Flying Nun’ for the 25th Anniversary.” (One can only wonder: did they find it? What did they do with the artifacts?). Or that there was a new Keith Carradine Club in Gronau, Germany, “searching for new members who are interested in international contact with other Carradine fans all over Europe.” Or that a group called “Operation Tribbles” helped to coordinate Star Trek clubs to donate stuffed “tribble” toys to people in rest homes, hospitals, and hospices around the world. In all, the Directory offered a heterogeneous slice of late 20th century popular culture in the English-speaking world.  

There were also fanzines and one commenter says:

There was a fabulous fan print publication back in the day for the original Star Trek fandom. I don’t remember the name of it but it was analogous to an online bulletin board. Readers would send in comments which the publisher would print. Then readers would respond to those comments which would be published in the next issue, and on and on ad infinitum. If you kept your copies you could follow a “thread” from beginning to end. Sometimes new threads would split off the original and the publisher would separate those and the conversation would continue. It was quite ingenious for a print publication.

Then I looked up 1970′s Star Wars fanzines (because it just seemed like it’d be easy to find info on) and here’s this from fanlore.org:

Star Wars zines began to appear in 1977, not long after the first movie was released. The zines were often focused on one or two characters, with Han Solo-specific zines, Luke Skywalker-specific fanzines, etc. Some focused specifically on Leia Organa, Darth Vader, other Sith Lords, Imperials, or Jedi. Original characters were fairly common, especially early in the movie series when the number of canon characters was still limited.

A few Star Wars stories were initially published as part of Star Trek fanzines but there was some resistance from Star Trek fans. At the start start of 1977, the Star Trek Welcommittee’s Directory listed 431 Star Trek zines. By the end of the year, however, many fans were planning Star Wars and other “media” fanzines.

Boldly Writing describes fandom’s initial reaction to Star Wars in 1977. The fanzine “Spectrum 34…had Luke Skywalker on the cover. Inside, the editor, Jeff Johnston writes, "Behold! the fandom of Star Wars. Even as you read this a new fandom for Star Wars is developing, and growing. A fandom some people see as just a fluke, and that others see as the replacement for Star Trek fandom…”

Not all of Star Trek fandom reacted favorably to Star Wars, however. Two extremes have already formed, one saying that 'Trek is doomed’ (a new slogan) citing Star Wars as its killer, and the other faction maintaining a grin-and-bear-it attitude, assuming that the enthusiasm will wane eventually leaving ST fandom intact and Star Wars as 'just another…movie.’

This is so exciting look at this: Hyper Space #1, June 1977 Artist: Kevin Baxter. Hyper Space ties with The Force as the first Star Wars zine, coming out in June 1977

Look here for a bunch of old fanzine covers: http://www.therobotsvoice.com/2013/12/the_20_coolest_illustrations_from_star_wars_fanzin.php

AND THEN there’s the beginning of published fanfic:

The modern phenomenon of fan fiction as an expression of fandom and fan interaction was popularized and defined via Star Trek fandom and their fanzines published in the 1960s. The first Star Trek fanzine, Spockanalia (1967), contained the first fanfiction in the modern sense of the term. (Wikipedia)

Unlike other aspects of fandom, women dominated fan fiction authoring; 83% of Star Trek fan fiction authors were female by 1970, and 90% by 1973. (Wikipedia)

the first slash published in a zine was A Fragment Out of Time by Diane Marchant in 1974. (Fanlore.org)

This is so exciting I live for learning about things like this

I made a Patreon :)

I made a Patreon :)

I made a Patreon :)