Who will write the next great Fox book?

[Silvers]

Yeah I hear ya Stan and I value your comments, but IME this labor of love stuff gets real old after a while. If you have time, take a look at my Sept 19 gunsmithing post on the MF, titled Restoring Barrel Bluing.... 212 "views" as of this morning but only 6 replies from members. Another example is my Aug 17 MF post.... Another Heads Up on Recoil Pads..... 147 views and only 2 replies from members. Those and earlier gunsmithing posts took me some time to do with pics, and it seems many gents are interested but not enough so to recognize my effort. There are other examples with other posters. All told, I think after a while most anyone would think, why am I spending my time doing this?

Although it wasn't my career, I have plenty of real life experience in publishing. A decent book, even a compilation, would need thousands of sales to recover the up front costs like the the layout, proofing, IP attorney review, quantity printing for low unit price, delivery from the printer, inventory, marketing, product insurance and shipping effort. Then our friendly IRS will take its share from the net. Author rarely gets more than a few cents per hour unless the book can sell well into the 1000's of copies, and s/he would have been way better off doing work like pumping gas or at a convenience store counter. So.... we have about 300 members and even if all of them bought a book..... then what? Silvers

[Big Friend Ten]

"Roger that" on a lot or work to get it right!

My artical in the recent AHFCA newsletter was but 2 hours pen to paper for the initial draft but editing, editing, editing took many times longer. As printed it is in hindsight rather amaturish. Also, the artical is an opinion based story rather than technically factual. Getting the few facts correct was accomplished by Researcher rather than me. Somehow my paid work kept getting in the way...

Then there are photos... I have a Parker B Grade lifter action recently restored by Brad Bachelder which I need to photograph. That photo session will require at least 4 hours when I include editing. Posting on the Parker site will take another hour or so. Yup, it takes that long and even longer sometimes!

So, the next great AH Fox book will come from who? Maybe a combination of articles and photos by AHFCA members might be the best means to share our knowledge? As I gaze on the cover of THE PARKER STORY sitting on my coffee table I see the names Gunther, Mullins, Parker, Price, and Cote'. Team approaches seemingly work!

Respectfully to all,
Mark Ouellette

[Researcher]

In that I worked in Washington, DC, I did a lot of the research that went into McIntosh's Fox book. I spent a lot of my evenings at either the Library of Congress or the National Archives. Wasn't really such a bad deal leaving work, finding a parking spot behind the Adams building, spend four and a half hours in the reading room and then driving home at 9 pm, well after rush hour traffic!! I spent a lot of my days off at the Maryland Archives, the Patent & Trademark Office, the Baltimore Historical Society and the Thomas Balch Library in Leesburg, Virginia. But, that research is all 20 or more years old now. Yes, we've found quite a bit of new information since Mike's book went to press, but enough fo another book?

It was Mike who encouraged me to try my own hand at writing, resulting in my Tobin articles that finally got published back in 1994. About five years from first draft in 1989!!

[Stan Hillis]

Frank,

i do understand about the time involved. My last post was not intended to try to convince you, Dave and others to collaborate on a book. I well know the work necessary to publish. My oldest son, at age 19, took his own money and had 200 copies of a genealogical book on our family printed. I told him he was crazy, that he was throwing his money away. But, lo and behold, it was I who was wrong. He sold the 200 copies very quickly, mostly by word of mouth. He moved to Arizona and I had to return people's checks, for years after that, who wanted to buy a copy.

I think the work involved is the biggest deterrent. Selling enough to recover costs would come second, IMO. Small printings and nothing too fancy in the way of paper quality and picture quality would save a great deal.

Anyway, just know how much we appreciate the effort you and Dave, and others, have put in to information dissemination. When we have failed to recognize it in the past, please forgive.

Stan

[fox-admin]

I have written 4 Fox articles for DGJ three have been published to date. I receive $650 per article which I consider to be fair compensation because I expected zero. I don't think of it as a dollars and cents endeavor, my compensation comes from my self satisfaction. I find writing very difficult but a real challenge for a retired manufacturing executive who struggled with English throughout school. My wish is more of you would write, like Mark and others have done for the Newsletter.

[MARSHFELLOW]

I think that I understand/appreciate the time involved in writing a really good article, as well as the time & perhaps expense to have subjects phtographed for that same article.

I think that many, if not most of the excellent articles that most of us have enjoyed over the past decades have been written as a " labor(s) of love"...lets use the Double Gun Journal for an example. Yes, the authors do get some remuneration for their work/works but it is not a large sum of money or prizes...it is some compensation for their creativity/time/expertise but probably not enough to change their tax bracket. They write or wrote about things that they really enjoy and wanted to share. Many times, I imagine, their contributions have brought them contacts by/from people who have enjoyed their work.....we'll call that a residual benefit of sorts.

As a matter of fact, before this internet thing (tool of immediate gratification) , their work(s) were published, read and thrown on the coffee table and they probably never got too many "atta boys!!" from ALL of us guys that read their work. Most of us never even knew how to get ahold of these people if we wanted to.

When it comes to writing/publishing a gun book, car book, knitting book or whatever I dont think that any of them turn into "best sellers" bringing their authors a fortune. Probably a good percentage of them are guilty of returning nothing but red ink. There is a limited number of people that are truly interested in the subject and a SMALLER number of "enthusiasts" that will spend $30, $40, $50, $100 whatever for a book. Many, if not most, of the most popular gun books that I can think of are printed in small numbers I guess as it is not uncommon for their value to skyrocket a few years after they're out of print and demand outstrips supply. The same book that languished around for $30 bucks many times will sell for several hundred....BUT the author never got the big money. It was a "labor of love" or pride (the good kind of pride) or whatever....and perhaps their reward, in some cases, was well deserved recognition in their field that took them years to earn. Winchester collectors (thousands and thousands) all have a copy or copies of "the Madis book" by the late George Madis but I dont think those books made Mr. Madis a wealthy man...but if ya collect or deal in Winchesters you know (and respect) his name.

Tom Kidd's articles in the past Double Gun Journals have been mentioned time and time again by us "Fox guys". Mr. Kidd's articles were stellar...content, photo support,etc. Years ago I couldnt wait to tear into a DGJ hoping/expecting to find another work by him. I miss his articles now. I've got to believe there were countless hours invested by him, many deadlines that needed to be met and a whole bunch of other stumbling blocks (bird season) that had to be overcome to get those articles on our endtables. I am grateful to him for writing them, photographing them and SHARING so much information with US. Heck, those articles were probably written on an "old fashioned" typewriter well before these computers with spell check & auto this and auto that. I really dont think those articles were really written for payment in folding money.....he shared his passion with us. Yes, he has been recognized for it, we all know (and respect) his name....and rightly so.

So, anyway, what's my point???................I think an awful lot of these writings are a labor of love. "Attaboys are nice"....so is personal satisfaction.

tjw

[Silvers]

Well we've certainly heard a wide range of perspectives here ..... ranging from those who've written a single article, to those who've contributed to and helped manage the production and marketing of technical books with 250+ pages. As I see it there are perhaps five current players in the Fox world who could contribute a good level of collector and/or practical-oriented content to a new Fox book. Let me share that I recently saw a perhaps similar book project (shared authorship/compilation) kick off in a totally different field of endeavor, and unfortunately it fell way short. My perspectives: I know some of the authors and was told that some of their starry-eyed enthusiasm waned because they never realized the time/effort required, and were unwilling to put their lives on hold. Others were looking for a return on their investment of time, came to know it wouldn't happen, and shortcutted their section, and it showed. Perhaps one saw it as a means to get (their) name out there for crossmarketing, and their manuscript section read their separate biz aspect loud & clear and that cast a shadow on the work. Others seem to have thought of it as more a vanity publication with personal plaudits likely to come for posterity, and could care less about the financial big picture..... but the publisher who was putting up the rupees had to stay within the book outline, cost target parameters and marketing realities - and that caused problems. Not to say any/all of that would happen here but there are some definite watchouts. Yep I sure would like to see a new Fox book with all the knowledge we now have thanks to many in the AHFCA. Something like a prefect bound, hard cover, dustjacketed, quality printed work - as compared with an el cheapo paper/pamphlet/stapled format. Sorry for my ramblings here. I am signing off on this topic now. I have some fun things in the offing. Silvers

[vaturkey]

Interested topic. Steven Dodd Hughes utilized many of the same articles he had written for Shooting Sportman and then rolled them into his first book. Those articles coupled with how he built/developed modified a Fox Sterlingworth into a custom gun lead the path for many to do the same ( including me). I've written one article on Grouse hunting that made it to press and ended up in the "Fish and Game" magazines and was published in the New York, Pa and New England editions. Interesting enough it wasn't printed in the Virginia edition because the editor decided there were no grouse hunters in Virginia and thus the topic wouldn't have any interest for those in the south. I found that to be pretty easy to write, but it wasn't a technical piece in any way shape or form. I'm sure some laughed at the article, but it was fun to see the pictures of my Goldens in the article and also a few Virginia Grouse.


I've got zero expertise in the technical side of Fox guns. I just know I like them and most of my other double guns (including a pile of Merkel's) have left the stable to be replaced by Foxes. I'm not a collector for the most part just a user. Have nothing higher then an A grade in the stable and for the most part I've gone the route of customizing a couple of Foxes to make them unique. Probably will never recover what I have in them, but that's fine. Never planned to make much money in the first place.

If someone decided to put all the articles provided in the new letter into a nice comprehensive package with good photo's I'd buy it in a heart beat. I think there's a pretty good start to a book right there.

PS. Steven Dodd Hughes didn't rich writing his books and those books were well received by most and he sold quite a few. There's frankly not much of a market for these books in the general population. That said, I bought both of his books because while they aren't written as "how to" books, they provide a novice like me a lot of information and they are easy to read and have great photos.

[AmarilloMike]

Methinks it's better for an author to put out material in smaller increments like Fox Newsletter articles etc, and then do a compilation at some point. But then many potential customers will probably think and say, hey I already read that. Why is this author charging me for duplicate information?

One of my favorite books on double guns was written by Gough Thomas / G.T. Garwood and it was compiled from articles he wrote for a magazine (Shooting Times?). But I don't have a clue how his contemporaries in England felt about buying that compilation. There is evidence that it was well received as there are at least three editions of the book.


Best,

Mike

[Researcher]

It has been going on for a long time. Pigeon Shooting by "Bluerock" was a compilation of sporting paper articles Capt. A.W. Money wrote. Second to None is a compilation of articles written for Sporting Classics. McIntosh's original book The Best Shotguns Ever Made in America was a compilation of articles he originally wrote for The Missouri Conservationist. On and on. There was another book that I don't have that was a compilation of the Headrick/McIntosh articles from one of the slicks. I never purchased it because they didn't correct any of the mistakes that were in the original articles. The one on Baker was esspecially bad.

[ASavageFox]

not much to add other than to say that the MO Conservationist is probably one of the best state run magazines on the outdoors in the US... it is completely free to anyone in the State and I believe that you just pay shipping outside of MO... the nearly 30 years that I lived there I really, really enjoyed when that magazine showed up every month.