Interest Check

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An interest check is an activity sometimes performed by a zine mod or exchange mod prior to organizing a new zine or exchange. The purpose of an interest check is to determine whether there is sufficient interest among a group of fans (which may be a specific fandom, a set of fandoms, or Exchange Fandom) for the proposed zine or exchange to be a success.

In addition to interest in the proposed project itself, interest checks often involve polling the fandom(s) in question to determine what schedule the responding fans would prefer for the project, in order for the mods to schedule it to suit the needs of the greatest number of prospective participants.

Format

Interest checks can take different forms. Among zine mods, it's common to create a Google form to link in various fandom spaces, asking questions like whether the respondent is interested in the zine, what (if any) kind of work they would be interested in contributing, and which schedule from a set of potential schedules would work best for them. For exchanges, the interest check is often less formal and may take place on an anonymous platform with a large Exchange Fandom presence, like Fail-Fandomanon, asking if anyone would be interested in participating and what time of year would be ideal for the exchange to run.