Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Things Must Be Tough in the Magazine Business

And just think of us poor guys who still use desktops.....

THAT is the real reason Porta-Potties were invented.

We know we're old when we prefer to read real books and magazines, and we write in cursive.

I just read an article written by Craig Boddington. He has forgotten more than I will ever know about hunting but his article on custom guns was rambling and thin. I have tossed the mag but expected more detail. The main point was that custom guns can be chambered in wildcat cartridges and you can select your length of pull. Other point was that factory rifles are more accurate than they used to be. Where's the beef? Who didn't know this prior to reading the article? I much prefer John's articles.

Can't CBodd mail one in from time to time? He's been informational and intuitive in the past. Times have changed.

I was a magazine guy when I was younger but now I'm more about books. In the last two days I've bought books by Karamojo, Corbett, and O'Connor.

I grew up living for the REALLY old articles in OL, namely those by Jack O'Connor. the newer ones, by such as Petal, just don't seem to have much content. You shake them and nothing falls out.

Maybe Boddington was writing for relative newbies. There is only so much you can say without repeating, and those of us who have been around for awhile have already heard it. I remember O'Connor writing about how to be a gun writer, and mentioning that he kept recycling many of the same topics. I like "Guns" magazine and most things Barsness writes because there is usually something new in them. I like "Sports Afield" for the same reason.

Many of us here are older than whatever metric you choose to define the bulk of the population. I find that I don't read nearly as many articles in the print media simply because a quick skim of the opening paragraphs (or sometimes even the title) convinces me that I am not going to learn anything that I don't already know.

I do know that my grandkids, all of whom are pretty smart, don't subscribe to any magazines or newspapers--they get their news and information on the net. They still read books, both hard copy and on the net, but print periodicals are not part of their lives.

I still find it hard to pass up a bookstore and I always peruse the magazine racks. I have noticed that older folks will usually pick up a magazine that they seem to have been looking for, while the younger folks will pick one up based on what they see highlighted on the cover.

As we age, we always find that we live in a very different world than the one in which we grew up. That's the world with which the publishers of print periodicals have to deal.

From the teaser on the cover, I was expecting a shooting comparison between custom and factory rifles. Really was expecting conclusion to be that some factory rifles outshoot some customs. This would not be new news either but the data would be interesting. I was sucked into buying the magazine by the title "Are Custom Rifles Worth the Bucks". Honestly did not expect to learn much but was curious where the article would go.

This internet is the new world.

I never wrote a "letter to the editor" and neither did most of us!

Now we write and read here daily and even see pictures of the deer we have around here.

Great article. Loved the prose and the photography. You're gonna put Gray's Sporting Journal out of business.

LOL.

Regardless of the criticism of the Internet, I've learned an awful lot from this website and a couple others.

I liked reading several of the magazines 20 years ago. Now I open an American Hunter and don't see much worth reading. Haven't had an F&S or OL subscription in years.

One thing that seems to be lacking today is a consistent group of writers. I liked to read specific authors. Now I don't recognize many names. I always turn to Bill Heavy's column when I see an F&S in the docs office though.

Some more comments on the sort of magazines we're talking about, since I've been writing for them (and others) for 40+ years now:

The larger the circulation of any magazine, the more it's written for newbies and average guys, because they make up the vast majority of shooters and hunters. This is exactly why the bigger magazines don't run the in-depth handloading or shooting articles of much smaller-circulation magazines.

Those articles run more in smaller-circulation magazines, for more experienced readers who have out-learned the articles in the larger magazines. When I worked for FIELD & STREAM as a staff writer from the late 1980's to the early 2000's, there was a HUGE turnover in readers, because as they learned more, they moved on to more specialized, "advanced" magazines. This was considered normal by the magazine, another reason they offered low-priced subscriptions.

However, before the 1990's there weren't as many specialized magazines. Up until about 1990, large-circulation "general interest" magazines made the most money, whether in the hunting/shooting/fishing genre or other subjects, whether vehicles or news or whatever.

Toward the end of the 1990's, the Internet started fragmenting the market further. This wasn't because the Internet is superior to print, but because the Internet was yet another way to present editorial material.

Since then "publishing" has varied from major magazines to small websites. In general, the larger the magazine/website the less hard-core information is presented, but the more entertaining the info. This is because larger-circulation magazines/websites can pay for more entertaining writers.

At the same time, the smaller the magazine/website, the more hardcore info, but sometimes the writing is about as entertaining as gnawing on a stump.

The other trend is that writers who have some ability to entertain as well as inform often use the Internet to go directly to their readers, rather than depend on magazines which may or may not be here in another five years. Forty years ago the only option for all but a very few writers was to sell articles and books to standard publishing companies. Today the options are far more varied.

The hunting/shooting info highway has fragmented considerably over the past century, but that doesn't mean that one part of highway is superior to another. What it does mean is that readers have lots of options, whether they're readers like Savage99 who obviously has a short attention span, thinks simply, and considers black and white photos "composed" by a trail-cam really cool. He would have been pretty happy back when there were very few magazines in the 1930's, and the most affordable ran simple "articles" with B&W photos, much like his posts.

Other readers are looking for more in-depth information, more entertainment, or far better photos. The wide variation of publishing these days provides options for everybody's tastes.

John, excellent post - informative and thought-provoking. I particularly liked the comment "...sometimes the writing is as entertaining as gnawing on a stump". Among my many other shortcomings, I liked to be entertained while learning. Back in the days when "In-Fisherman" was a real magazine, they had some writers who could make their point in a fashion that kept you reading while others fell into the "gnawing on a stump" category. Heading off in another direction, I think that the constant effort to come up with something "new" (or deathly fear of saying something that has perhaps been said before) is one of the factors in what is constantly decried as the decline of the Wolfe publications. I for one don't mind being reminded of things that I already knew (or was supposed to know). At this stage in the game, I forget enough stuff to keep a lot of things fresh when they come around again.

Fur-Fish-Game is one that I like right now. It has a hokeyness about it, but I like it.

Since I am looking to move up north in a year, I am getting more interested in the state magazines.

The same camera's daytime pictures are in color!

RAS,

FFG has always been a great magazine--and unlike many others doesn't seem to change. Which indicates it always has a basic readership.

This topic hits home hard.

My hobby, principal pastime, is reading about guns. Not shooting them, or reloading for them but reading about them. Yeah I have many dozens of guns of all descriptions, have hunted and shot in competition and I love those things, but my number one pastime by any measurement is reading about guns.

It's a changing world for me. Favorite periodical titles are no more, other favorites are diminished.

I like to read articles that teach me something. Although I am an incredibly competent generalist from all my reading, there is a lot that I could still learn about the metallurgy of firearms, the chemistry of powders and primers, manufacturing technology, marketing (Yes, even understanding the marketing of manufacturers large and small would be entertaining to me.), shooting at upward and downward angles, reading the wind, leading moving game, historical instances of firearms use. But introduction 101 does not garner my interest any longer.

I like to know my authors. It is not requisite, but I read an article by an unknown author differently than one by a familiar author. If Mule Deer writes something that does not seem to agree with my own impressions, I will immediately re-examine my prior conclusions. If an author is new to me I take every assertion with a grain of salt until either the assertion is later verified or I have come to accept the bona fides of that author.

I have pursued this hobby for decades and have reached the point that very little is very interesting, but still I wait on every issue of Muzzle Blasts, Rifle, Handloader and American Rifleman and read every article. It's what I do.

If I learn one new, solid, interesting fact in a magazine it is a successful issue. If I have read any particular author for a long time and have come to hold them in high regard I pay attention to family details because it gives me insight to aspects of the gun culture that I was not raised with..

I look at every ad and if I don't recognize it I read it. I note the location of the advertiser and the man behind the ad if at all possible. I read every obituary, every name and town of every contributor listed in the NRA magazines and who was honored by in memoriam contributions and who made them.

But the decline in print media is affecting me. My pastime is being Future Shocked. I'll cope, luckily there are also books to be read. I peruse e-bay looking for lots of old gun books and search Amazon and Abe Books for classics mentioned by my favorite magazine writers. (Keep the suggestions coming!) That will hold me for a long time. I've read more Elmer Keith than I have Jack O'Connor, and more Ackley than Kunhasen, so there are more books to be found. But I like the technical stuff more than the hunting stuff.

In hunting I like to read the likes of Landis and other old-time small-bore, small game hunters. Technically I'd rather wade through hundreds of pages of Phil Sharpe than one more DBI book. Crossman, Whelen, Hatcher can fill many an evening. I don't think I'm going to live long enough to read all the books I would like to. That will be my saving grace as print periodicals keep falling by the wayside.

I hope someone values my library when I'm gone. It's a good one. But will anyone want to read that stuff anymore?

As Big Stick would say:

Congratulations?!