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The Need for the Capitalist in Fandom
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Need for the Capitalist in Fandom |
| Creator: | Edwina Harvey |
| Date(s): | 1985 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | media, science fiction |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Need for the Capitalist in Fandom is a 1986 essay by Edwina Harvey.
It was printed in Kalien #5.
It is somewhat tongue-in-cheek at times, but at other times, not so much.
Some Topics Discussed
- "It starts off with an innocent fan becoming dissatisfied with his/her lot in fandom."
- starting out as a regular fan and then figuring out how to make money doing it
- huckstering as an addiction
- justifying making money to cover the expenses of being a fan, justifying to one's self why money needs to be made
- hucksters aren't rich, they take the bus or train like everyone else
- huckstering as fun
Some Similar Essays
While the topic of fandom and profit is a very large and complicated one, the sample essays below focus on fans selling fannish goods to other fans at conventions.
- Ancillary Merchandising: The Selling of Other Products to Defray Costs by Carolyn Cooper (1986)
- Seven Reasons Why Selling Fanzines Isn't Bad, Wrong, or Hazardous to Your Fannish Health by bluecove (2006)
- Advanced Fandom Economics: It's Okay To Be A Capitalist by Leva Cygnet (2008)
- more at Category:Fandom & Profit Meta
The Essay
Go into a Huckster's (Dealer's for the uninitiated) Room at any convention and you will find rows of tables offering choice wares from around the galaxy. They will be either purely professional concerns, such as the specialist bookshops who deal in S.F. (They are allowed to be capitalists. If they didn't exist where would we go to meet friends， hang out and sometimes even buy things, huh?) or they will be Fan tables. When you look at a Fan table don't scream "CAPITALIST", at least not without giving the matter some thought.
I do not know of one huckster who drives a Mercedes Benz to conventions. Most of us go via public transport and swear and curse as we manipulate bags through impossible corridors, doorways and the like.
You may see us folding twenty dollar bills into our wallets and kitties and some of you no doubt think "Ah they made a bundle". Not go gentle reader, I assure you.
Most hucksters are fans first and foremost, with a touch of merchant/spruiker thrown in for good measure. They suffer a terrible addiction! They have to sell things to other fans.
It starts off with an innocent fan becoming dissatisfied with his/her lot in fandom. When seeking achieves no satisfaction the soul turns inward for enlightenment and what cannot be bought. The fan begins to create what they want (i.e. Fanzines, Badges, Stationery, even... whisper, whisper; Hat-Stand stories).
Then comes the revelation that perhaps there are others out there questing for the same item, so a few "extras" are made, in an effort to locate other people who share your tastes. (For example, My Hitch Hikers fanzine, Pangalia, was first printed in an effort for me to locate other Hitch Hikers Guide fans. Seven issues later, I'm still discovering other fans. I also make a little spare cash out of Pangalia. Spare cash is always important, dear reader, not only in fandom, but in all walks of life.
I'm sure you have noticed this. The most humble of us need spare cash, but somehow it doesn't stay spare for long. There is always a new Fanzine to buy or notepaper or an annual. Hucksters buying from other hucksters probably makes up about a third of huckster's room transactions.
There is also the problem of initial outlay - cost of purchase of paper, badges, books, second-hand Tardis parts, etc.
By Huckstering you have now regained (and then some) the money spent weeks/months/years even, that you spent on stock. The cash flow system is equivalent to Bistromathematics. Closing one eye to all the facts makes the whole thing look a bit better. If the huckster forgets just how much money it cost to get to the point of sale (i.e. Cost of table. Cost of transport. Cost of accommodation...) he/she will feel that money is being made. If he closes the other eye to the facts of spending money on telephone calls, stamps and petrol getting the item he had just sold, he may lapse into feeling that a handsome profit had been made. I tell you a mathematician could write a theory about this.
On a personal level the huckster gains a great deal of satisfaction from talking to people at the con. Few other con-goers have such an opportunity of starting up a conversation, albeit at times it is only to say, "No sir, the man over there will sell you Vulcan sex aids. I don't carry that line." Naturally there are other things to get talking on as well and many a poor huckster is just waiting for you to pick out an item so that he too can prove how loyal he is to a certain area. There are friends and pen-friends as well as business contacts to be gained from the other side of the table...
Unfortunately no one has advertised the addictiveness of dealing. It gets into your blood after a few goes and can get so bad that a huckster doesn't feel fully clothed at a convention without a table full of goodies. As a convention approaches, the huckster develops a fever and become agitated in an effort to meet all those publishing deadlines. The huckster also becomes hyper-aware, sizing up what (and who) to take and sell. Those uninitiated in the ways of fandom can only look and wonder at this strange phenomenon. (Mundanes) Then after the con is over and the huckster packs up to go home there always seems to be just as much, if not more, stuff than what the huckster brought. It always includes items that he/she assumed everybody would want, but which almost nobody did. A little disillusioned or just aggrivated [sic] by the heaviness of a multitude of bags, the huckster may decide not to hucket again...at least not till next con.
The Fan-Huckster is not a mere Capitalist, but an aider and abbetter [sic] to the monetry [sic] flow at conventions, remember that! Also without the hucksters there wouldn't be half as much to see, do and BUY if it wasn't for that dedicated hand of individual entrepreners [sic]
so willing to take your money.