Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters How much do gunwriters make?

Good thread right here!!!!!

How much do gunwriters make?

Too much in most cases
and not enough in the others.

I think that's true for a majority of writers and other artists. Can't imagine Hemingway flippin burgers for a living.

Brian.

Oh, I dunno. I may not be typical but I had three other careers besides writing, and did just fine in all of them, IMHO.

Might not have turned out that way if you'd started as a gun writer!

It is easier to write full-time for a living if you have other sources of income (pensions, social security, long term bank accounts, family money, etc.).

I had a friend that wrote for military journals (got some neat flights off carriers, Mach 3 SR-71 flights, tank rides, etc.) but earned about $75-$200 for each one published. He did have a full time job on the side thought that paid a considerable sum - it helps.

Some writers earn a lot (think fiction writers like John Grisham) and others earn nothing (like technical journal writers). I�ve published over 30 articles in technical journals on navigation and electronics and have been paid zero � the going rate for such knowledge transfer!

I have often wondered if writers had outside sources of income that allowed them to go on expensive hunting trips and own very expensive rifles and shotguns.

Two examples are Jack O'Connor and Warren Page. I could never understand how they could afford to go on the guided hunting trips they did on what they could make writing. Also, they both had some very nice and expensive guns.

Col. Charles Atkins made many trips to Africa, and African safaries are not cheap. I don't believe the pay of a retired Col. was that good, and he also owned a lot of guns.

Put another way, I just do not think some of the writers make enough to go on the hunting trips they go on, without another source of income to subsidize their gun and hunting addictions.

1234567,

Many of Jack O'Connor's hunts were paid for by Outdoor Life, especially from WWII through the 1960's. The editor wanted him to become one of the big stars of the magazine, partly to attract readers from competing magazines. And it worked.

Later in life O'Connor paid for many of his hunts himself, because he made a good deal of money on some of his books, and invested it well. OL paid him pretty well, too.

Warren Page didn't make nearly as much as O'Connor, and Field & Stream didn't pay for many of his hunts. But many outfitters were (and still are) willing to take writers on free or discounted hunts for the publicity they get. The writer still usually has to pay his travel and license expenses, but that's still not nearly as expensive as paying for the entire hunt.

When I worked for Field & Stream, they would pay my expenses on one of two outfitter hunts a year, or hunts I did on my own, as long as the hunt appealed to them. Other magazines have also picked up expenses that way, or even paid for a major part of a hunt. The most expensive hunt I've been on in my life was a 10-day safari in Botswana. The outfitter gave a 1/3 discount because of the publicity he'd get, a magazine picked up another 1/3, and I paid for the final third, plus my airfare and tips. It ended up costing me about $10,000, but it was worth it.

I don't know how Askins paid for his hunts. He made pretty decent money writing, and some of his hunting was done while stationed in various places during his military career, but neither he nor Elmer Keith ever worked for a magazine that was likely to kick in any significant expenses toward hunts. From what I can glean from Keith's writings, the few hunts he went on outside of Idaho (and other nearby states) were paid for by manufacturers or outfitters.

One of my friends is an M.D. (in fact he used to be mine) and works about half-time doctoring, and half-time at writing. I suspect he makes a lot more doctoring than writing, which enables him to travel around the world hunting and fishing.

Around 30-40 years ago there was one guy in the hunting/shooting writing business who went on an awful lot of free hunts he cadged from various outfitters. But too much of the time the outfitter never got much out of the trip, because the guy really didn't write all the much--or that well. Mostly he made money as a photographer and sold the photos from the trips, which didn't get the outfitter much publicity. He's been out of the business for quite a while now.

Hmmmmmm.....You know, you may be right.


Again, dammit

Shutter-trippers are notoriously treacherous. ;O)

A buddy and his wife ran into one of our noted PA writer/photographers, during a deer hunting trip down in Alabama many years ago, at the White Oak Plantation.

The shutterbug said he wanted some current pics of women hunting whitetails, so they obliged him often during that week in Alabama.

He did actually use some pics of her not long after that trip, along with attribution and my bud's wife was pleased to be shown in a magazine article or two. Ten years later, there were still pics of her in magazine articles, sans attribution.

She took offense at her "dead buck" pics showing up all those years later, but I pointed out that she just wished she still looked that good. ;O)

I think publishers make the big bucks, writers, editors, etc. make wages or fees, depending on their status as employee or contractor. The good ones are going to be at the top, as in any profession.

The work I did on the Charles Askins Sr. 1933 Superposed as seen over on the Shotgunworld web site, revealed that Major Askins was the highest paid gunwritter of his time. I have an original copy of his book, Modern Shotguns and Loads. In the flyleaf are advertisements for several books by known authors of the time, including Capt. Edward Crossman, Major Julian Hatcher and Townsend Whelen. Major Askins's book sold for $4.00, the others from $3.00 to #3.75. BTW, Hatcher and Whelen were both at $3.75, still less than Major Askins.

As the old man got older, he developed dementia. His son, the Colonel, reportedly did some ghost writing under the old man's name. Legend has it that Jack O'Connor found out, blew the whistle and the old man got canned. Charley Askins hated O'C for the rest of his days. So goes the legend.

DF

Well I am a Pilot and Flight Instructor by profession. If I go and take a job at a flight school here looking for CFI's I will get the same rate of pay as a kid with a wet certificate. I been flying and Teaching the Skill for almost 36 yrs now and the time in my log,I am well pass 16K on fight time is worth nothing not even coffee. But the flying has given me something that few professions can give, I get to fly and work in out of the way places that are good game and fish country. So my addictions for hunting and fly fishing are fed for very little out of pocket, or I has been horrifically expensive both in terms of money and personal life. Pilots for the most part don't make much. Truck Drivers do better but that is another can of worms.

(can�t he afford a new shirt?)
..... possibly not.
It is not a road to riches and fame (unless you marry the rich daughter of a gun industry magnate) Recently there were a couple of surveys on two busy internet gunboards naming gun culture denisons from history and the present time. Almost all respondents had heard of John Browning, Ted Nugent and Massad Ayoob but few recognized gun writers who had been deceased for a significant time, top level pistolsmiths, master level competition shooters. Current gunwriters frequently fell into the +/-50 percent range- even one who started his own fan club a couple of decades ago and some that have published high quality coffee table books.
Walk into a gunshop or shooting range with the same lists and likely the numbers would fall off drastically

Are we counting the kickbacks from endorsing everything tested?

You mean he traded off that beat up Toyota he was driving??

No, because for the most part, "kickbacks" to gun writers don't exist, you idiot.

I believe this comment oversteps fact, and assumes fiction.

John

does overstate fiction by a shot. There are other, reasonable assumptions that are also not true:
1. gunwriters get specially selected T&e samples- Would that it was true. It would certainly make good business sense. Some of them don't send out tested samples even if you ask them to do so.
2. Free samples- occasionally but rarely
3. Court a gunwriter like a virgin princess- Some of them will send out samples but don't return telephone calls or answer e-mail. A lot of the media rep jokers are basically retired in-situ. They spend a lot of time getting face time on the cable shooting shows and going on vacation.
4,Gunwriters fake their results. Generally not. If a sample is a real turkey, you send it back with thanks but no thanks. There are exceptions. One media type received two AR rifles that had been sent to other gun writers and received rave reviews. When he went to shoot them, they wouldn't go off. It turns out that the firing pins had been removed for the SHOT show and not replaced before they send them to the writers. Never could get him to name names. Things like this tend to happen when the industry is in Chaos roughly between November 1 and a month after the SHOT show.

The average shooter doesn't even know what make and model their firearm is most times, let alone who certain gun writers are.

Brian.

"...the hot babes that chase gunwriters."

Yes you can feel the ground shake. they answer to the name "Tantor" and have "Property of Hell's Angels Oakland California 94605 www.hellsangels.com tatoed on their right buttock.