doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Death by Internet--Obituary 2010

One Gun Book publisher that is still very much alive is Wolfe Publishing of Prescott, Arizona which also produces "Rifle" and "Handloader" magazines. I have bought numerous gun and hunting books from them including one on Double Rifles, but I cannot recall any double shotgun books published by them. They obviously do lean toward the single projectile, but a budding writer might keep them in mind for a prospective publisher.

Tis an interesting time and a painful time for many americans.

My son who at one point very much wanted to be a writer graduated from college a few years ago with a degree in English. In this awful economy jobs were incrediably scarce. Coupled with a major (English) that was virtually worthless in the "real" world it took him over a year to find anything that was remotely tied to his major and his primary love (books, including all the classics). Finally, he found a part-time job at a Border's. He discovered the realities of the real world. Little pay ($8.50 per hour), and management under intense pressure to cut costs wherever they could. And just more importantly a public who didn't want to pay retail for anything. He said every day people came in and said, they could find this book cheaper at Walmart or Amazon.com. Some would still buy, others would walk out the door believing that Border's was trying to rip them off.

What he also discovered that the never ending desire to cut costs by management meant that employee's were constantly rotating. Not because they couldn't do their jobs, but because after x amount of months, employee's (even PT employee's) were allowed to purchase very reasonably priced health insurance subsidized by Borders. So once you put in your 6 months to get vested enough to purchase discounted health insurance, you were on the list for replacement. How you performed your job became secondary, as you were clearly now in managements sights for replacement as a cost cutting move. 30 days before he was laid off, he was approached by management and asked to take a pay cut. He wasn't the only one asked, many employee's who were now eligible for subsidized health insurance were also asked. He declined, as he was already driving 50 miles per day in No. Va. rush hour traffic for that $8.50 per hour job and frankly there was a pride issue involved.

His Black Friday (along with many other employee's who refused to take that pay cut) was two weeks ago. So now there's another disillusioned unemployed young man out there wondering what's next for him.

In short, everything is tied to this economy now. I'm not sure whether death by internet is indeed the primary culprit or just the plain fact that folks are hurting and books on hunting and fishing and by extension other niche area's don't sell.

What's I'll also say is this country appears to be headed down the wrong path. The only thing that should matter right now is jobs pure and simple. Unemployment is killing this country right now. I've got relatives scattered throughout this nation who can't find work, any work. They have families and kids and they are sitting at home waiting for the unemployment check to arrive and trying not to be depressed and hoping they can hang on a bit longer and dreaming about a brighter tomorrow. I've also got three kids I put through college and all are living at home. Only one has a job. So I'm somewhat jaded when I hear education is a primary focus of the current administration. No point in being educated when you walk out any institute of higher learning into the current abyss.

Ok. Off the soapbox and where's my Prozac?

Hope is on the way!

Over a decade ago, I was approached and asked to co-author a book. It was a technical book that related to my job. There were 5 of us involved. The publisher rejected the 1st draft. The reason, "It is not thick enough". The publisher wanted a book that was at least 2" thick. This was so it would "stand out" on retailer's shelves. We complied by adding a lot of fluff. For one reason or another, a fight ensued between the lead author and the publisher. The book got shopped around. Another publisher picked it up. It lasted 1 month on the shelves. During all the haggling and bickering, the field had changed resulting in a book with dated technical information. My total profits amounted to less that $1.00 per hour.

That was the end of my book fantasies. I admire anyone who undertakes it today.

Pete

Seems to me that colleges and university do a rotten job of guiding students into fields that have prospects of success. Too many students end up in fields which interest them, but have few prospects of employment.

Here's the problem, in the outdoor writing business: Books don't do that much for you financially, and that was true even before things went downhill. What they do, mostly, is allow you to put "book author" on your business card. In Ed's case, his "Old Reliable" has sold very well, comparatively speaking, for a book in that niche market. But then there's a pretty solid group of Parker fans, which helps a bunch.

I recall another writer, who shall remain nameless, who wrote a hunting book and complained in print that it hadn't even sold 1,000 copies. While that's not good, it's also true that many will only sell 2-4,000 or so, even by pretty well-known outdoor writers.

So let's do a little math: If you also write magazine articles, you can make from maybe $300-1,000 for an article averaging around 2,000 words. If your book is 50-60,000 words, that means you've got to make the equivalent of 25-30 magazine articles in order to make "bottom line" sense. If you average $700/article, which is pretty good in the outdoor business, you need to make something like $17,000 off your book. If your book wholesales for $20 and you're getting 10-15% of wholesale . . . let's say $2.50/book, which is on the high side . . . it has to sell 7,000 copies minimum to be worth your while, economically. And most do not come close to that.

What I did to boost my income on my pheasant book, both editions, was to strike an agreement with the publisher that I could buy X number of them at wholesale (or maybe slightly below, not positive). I then turned around and sold those, signed, for the jacket price (plus shipping costs, if I had to mail them). What that meant, on my $27 2nd edition, was that I was making about $10/book I sold, in addition to the royalty percentage. If you can sell a couple thousand copies that way, it's a different situation. I've sold a few hundred, which is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. But I'm still better off writing magazine articles.

Another key problem is you are serving a dying market. Today's youth, for various reasons, either don't read or don't want to read books about guns. There are only so many old guys left to buy such books.

And I'll tell you, it takes a special kid to read a book about sitting for hours in a cold cornfield waiting to shoot something. Moreover, who thinks a kid is going to get excited about some story that involves some old guy bitching about his creaky back, getting hot coffee, and doing something people are no longer allowed to do anyway?

I still wish for ,and would buy, a really comprehensive book on double gun repair oriented toward the mechanical end of things and eschewing the refinishing end of it.I also would like a book on antique painted or folk art furniture that would really cover the field,plus a book on field or emergency medicine/first aid that would really get into treatment of wounds.Nothing compares to sitting down in your favorite chair and reading something that interests you. I love my computer but it can't take the place of a book.

GregSY: (1) The problem is that books, in general, are not selling and publishers are going or have gone out of business; gun book distributors like Discount Books of WV went out of business; big gun show dealers like Tom Rowe don't attend gun shows any more. Big box stores like Borders and Barnes & Noble are going down; they order books to fill their shelves, let customers take them to their in-house Starbucks to dribble coffee on them while they rest on sugary goo from fat bombs, and then return the damaged goods to distributors who back-charge the publishers...things ain't what they used to was!

(2) There are good and bad books. Books that had to survive a publisher/editor's scrutiny in order to be published are quite different than self published books that get into print simply because the author has the $$$ to do the deed. Most gun book authors do not have any professional qualifications as writers and simply rely on a knowledge of the subject matter to see them through. The problem is that if the budding author gleaned his knowledge of the subject matter by reading the last several books on topic, he doesn't add anything to the body of knowledge.

(3) "Good books are driven by subject matter waiting to be told" sayeth GregSY. A best-case example is The Parker Story, where the authors obtained the long-sought Parker factory records, spent almost a decade putting the info into two volumes, had a readership base of almost 3,000 current and former PGCA members, ran (as I understand) about 3,000 copies in 1998-2000, and Dan Cote was still selling them (personally) at the Yooper. The Parker Story has benefited from constant full-page advertising in the DGJ since as early as 1993. No gun book author(s) could possibly justify the cost of such constant advertising...yet, looking at a recent DGJ, I notice that Cha's Semmer is still advertising his Remington Double Shotguns in a 1/4 page ad and after 15 years his Signed Ltd. Ed. of 300 is not yet sold out. This has gotta be a labor of love.

(4) The "culprit" is the Internet and websites like this, plus Blackberries, FaceBook, Twitter, cell phones, and all the instant gratification venues that siphon away time from the waking hours,thus, making a path of least resistance away from hard-copy books, newspapers and magazines. I do not subscribe to any magazines anymore; We do not have a newspaper delivered; I do not need the WSJ to keep up with the markets. The first thing I did as I got up this morning is turn on the computer, then I got a cup of coffee, checked out the Yahoo! home page for the news, checked my Mail Box, clicked Yahoo! Finance for the markets, and here I am wasting time blogging when I could be reading a book. To paraphrase Pogo, the possum of comic strip fame, who famously said, "I have found the culprit and he is me." EDM

An English degree is not necessarily a "poison pill" when it comes to employment. My daughter went away to the University of Illinois Business School (top 5% of SAT's) and after her first year was apologetic when she changed her major to English (bottom 5%--as an aside, at NIU where I graduated, 90% of the bottom 10% of test scores were clustered in the teaching department). However, her aspirations were for a career in advertising, and the English degree worked for her at Time/Warner (Time Life Books) and at AOL (since retired). The trick with an English degree is to use it in some off-topic profession; the world is full-up with would-be writers and English teachers out of work.

When I was in college I wanted very much to be a professional boat racer, but there were no jobs posted on the bulletin board for such occupations. There was a job for an accountant and another for a biology major; then another job for an accountant and a job for a chemistry major; and another job or two for accounting majors and maybe one for a teacher; then several more for accountants and I don't recall any jobs for English majors, except maybe as teaching assistants pursuing advanced English degrees.

While there were no jobs posted for bank robbers, I reflected back on Willie Sutton's famous career move: While in jail he was asked by a not-too-bright journalist why he robbed banks; Sutton said, "Cause that's where the money is." There were no jobs listed for journalism majors, so I took up accounting. EDM