facetious,
Welcome to the Campfire!
There's a lot of truth in your post, but in the magazine and book business (where I've spent my writing career) the transition still isn't as abrupt as in newspapers. Most hunting/shooting magazines are finding what might be termed a synergistic mix of electronic and print media works well, in order to find both younger and older readers.
The traditional book-selling market--mass publishing and selling in bookstores--hasn't worked for most hunting/shooting books for years. It still works for big-market books, whether murder mysteries or books like GUN DIGEST, but selling hunting (and even fishing) books through bookstores is just about dead, though some publishing companies keep trying.
What is working is self-publishing specialty print books, which the Internet made possible. My wife and I have been doing exactly that for almost a decade now, because we were dissatisfied (or had been royally screwed) by half a dozen book publishers, some of whom apparently had no clue about marketing. We do sell a few books through stores, though probably 98% are sold on the Internet.
But I also write for a couple of Internet sites, including our own. This resulted in an interesting example of how the Internet and print publishing can work together. For around 7-8 years we've been publishing a quarterly Internet magazine for hunters and shooters, RIFLE LOONY NEWS. It's a mix of short and long articles, including game recipes, book and product reviews, technical gun stuff, and hunting stories--and doesn't have any advertising, being totally supported by subscriptions.
It's done pretty well, but after five years one subscriber asked if we'd consider printing a paper edition of all the issues of RLN published to that point. He said he'd sure buy one, because his deer camp didn't have Internet service.
We thought this really odd, but then asked other subscribers if they'd buy a copy. A bunch said YEAH, and the common reason was a book would work better in bathrooms than a computer on a lap, or a pile of print-outs. So we decided to try it.
Usually we print 500-1000 copies of any of our books for a first run, but in this instance only did 250 of RIFLE LOONY NEWS: THE FIRST FIVE YEARS. They sold out so quickly we had to order another printing within a couple months, and it's been selling steadily ever since. While not one of our best-selling books, like my wife's big game cookbook or THE BIG BOOK OF GUN GACK, my rifle handloading guide, but it keeps plugging along. And a bunch of new subscribers to the Internet RLN have signed on because a friend had a copy of the book.
