doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Got Double Gun Journal

Sorry. I owe a number of you an apology. I forgot that many of the members here also write for the DGJ.

I did not mean to offend.

Again, I agree with Joe. A lot of the articles in the DGJ read like first drafts. It's the editor's job to work with the writer to create a piece that's ready for publication. Perhaps that is what is lacking?

OWD

Mine came today. My favorite all time article (next to any about Model 21s) is the one about the gentleman who found a gun case that originally contained a gun owned by Dennis Finch Hatton. Then several years after he bought the case, he found and bought the gun that belonged to the case. I believe it was in 14-2. Great story!!

I have found the DGJ to be a model publication in presenting "everymans" view of his favorite or near favorite subject. When I visit other countries and friends there who I am shooting with, and subsequently give them a copy of DGJ, they are overwhelmed.

Doublegun fans may not necessarily be educated as writers, but they know how to express what they feel and like. I enjoy reading what they have to say, notwithstanding that it could have been written differently.

In my case when I subitted an article (which was published) to DGJ, I re-wrote it at least 5 times before I was satisfied with how it read. and it was published as I wrote it and the photographs printed as I submitted them.

I can appreciate how difficult it must be for Mr & Mrs. Cote to put together a journal of the quality of DGJ four times a years. One thing for certain is that they cannot please all their readers all the time. Some of their Journals I find really "zero" in on what I want to read, other times they do not. Errors are sometimes made and I think that it is less than prudent to make negative comments about the DGJ in a public forum like this. In the interest of helping DGJ become even better, such comments are (in my opinion) better and more wisely made one-to-one with DGJ.

I think that Daniel and Joanna put out a wonderful product. It has a sweet down home feel to me. I like some issues better simply because I am more interested in the specific articles. I feel that their publication has done more for double collecting that any other periodical out there.

Tim

PS Love all the sexy gun porn also.

If I might - I'm a newby here and to DGJ, with limited hunting and shotgunning experience. Yes I appreciate that stunning photography. The very pictures lift me to daydream about what's pictured. By the way, I think buying extra copies and giving them as polished gifts is a wonderful thought.

While being aware of the criticism in the earlier post of the "errors in articles, ignores the basics and prints the most useless, awkward stuff I've ever read" I must exclaim rather that the DGJ is like sittin' down with everyone ! With learned and experienced enthusiasts, with family, with less learned uncles, or with a father, or friend, who though they might sometimes be longwinded and don't exactly get to the point the way in which an academic might, it's as REAL as it gets and I feel like I'm in a dusty yet proper club room (or a basement with a plywood liquor cabinet nearby) sampling what everyone has to say about what they enjoy. Who doesn't read any article within and not picture in your mind the fellow writing it?! Who doesn't actually relate in some small way at least to any writer therein? The magazine is a 'conversation' to me. Plus, that fellow's writing will be there in those beaut pages long after you and I are gone so two drinks to them!

The quote from Dicken's Oliver Twist of "There is a passion for Hunting something deeply implanted in the human heart" goes a long way in explaining that search of my interests. And besides, when i'm on the can and follow-up on articles to which I am less inclined I find after a reread there is much to like. And to close with Dicken's Pickwick Papers "She'll wish there was more, and that's the great art o' letter writin'" - DGJ is a classic, and in a great way, in having you wish the next issue comes quickly.

For whatever this may/may not add to the discussion as regards the quality of written articles within the DGJ, it seems there is a purpose to Mr. Cote's madness. It seems he has intentionally elected to feature the work of non-professional writers; and although his authors may not be the most skilled at penmanship, they are always passionate and typically know their specific subject matter better than almost anyone else in their chosen field of research. This is the reason why the DGJ has for years been one of the most valuable tools available to double gun collectors and enthusiasts. And wheather you or I agree with Mr. Cote's approach or not, that one decision is what has made his publication so unique in my opinion. If, on the other hand, one seeks the work of one of today's "named", and more accomplished gun writers there are ample opportunities avaiable thru other publications. Personally I believe I've checked everything avaiable as regards vintage shotgun/shooting publications (and even subscribe to a couple), but they always disappoint someone like me who is disireous of more than just the basic stuff I've read and re-read dozens and dozens of times over the years. So whevever I want indepth information on a vintage make double and no book is available, the DGJ is always my resource of choice.

I agree with the fans. Is it perfect all the time? No. Is there anything else to compare to it? No.

Sure, the American classic articles bore me to death, not my thing, but they make others happy. The articles on vintage British stuff, or quirkly Continental stuff, by Ross or Sherman, that makes me happy, probably bores the Parker and LC Smith boys. To each their own, and we make ALL make the magazine better.

I don't think the beefs are as much about content as editing. An editor's job is to make the writer look better. Professional writers produce lousy copy. I fail often with character and structure. Kids stop me sharply: What are you trying to say, Mr. Brown? Isn't that clunky? With very few exceptions, all manuscripts can be improved. DGJ is respectable but needs better editing to become remarkable.

I got a whole strapped bundle of DGJ's yesterday. There was mine on top along with about 5 or 6 others in the bundle, from all over east Texas (sorry I didn't take note of the names). I dropped them at the PO this morning for proper delivery. So if you live in east Texas and you haven't gotten your DGJ yet be patient, it may have been one of the bundle delivered to me.
Steve

I guess I've been published about as much in the DGJ as anyone ought to be. My first article in 1994--"Supply Side Economics"--led to a publishing contract with Safari Press in 1995, and 4 books since. The old saw about "Yesderdae I coundt eban spel auther an know I R won" is a perfect fit. And Dan C is responsible. However, the style sheet for the DGJ is quite different than, for example, Shooting Sportsman magazine, and a world apart from book publishers who pay rather than get paid.

Dan's DGJ emphasis is on what he calls "eye candy." Every publisher has a readership-demographic template (style sheet). And while the readership of SSM and DGJ has some cross-overs, the articles I write for the SSM must be more generalized and with wider appeal than those for the DGJ, which can be more technical (but less Parker-centric than what I write for Parker Pages). An exception was my DGJ article, "Why Parker?", which was a "fetcher" (a pure play on controversy), the idea being to rile up the LCS-Ithaca-Lefever-Fox-Baker and other gun-specific true believers to get them to write something about their favoriate fowling pieces. It worked! Dan had a flood of retalitory articles about other guns and even published a "poison pen" rebuttal from one who otherwise would not have seen his name in print.

The trick to being published in the DGJ is to have good pictures. The trick to not looking silly to those who actually read the accompaning article is to do your own editing (use Spel-Check, know a complete sentence when you see it, have a peer reviewer). And don't go off half-cocked--there's nothing timely about old doubles; set the article aside for some time before you final edit, to see if it still strikes a responsive chord some time after the "heat of the moment." Destry's Golden Plover article was two or three years, and twenty or more re-writes from pulling the trigger in Scotland, to the photo shoot on my farm in Illinois, to submission and final publication.

From a dollar-denominated standpoint, writing for magazines sucks; there's more money in standing behind the counter at McDonalds, and you get free French fries. Yet there is great satisfaction in having a story bottled up in one's mind that finally sees the light of day in print, even if it's just on a forum like this. My latest book, Parker Guns: Shooting Flying took a lifetime of research, four years to write and photograph, and a year of composition and production at my publisher (and no free French fries).

In summary, small circulation magazines that publish articles about narrowly defined subjects of little or no interest to a broad spectrum of readers cannot command the writer-originated content or technical or editorial help of, say, Sports Afield or the New Yorker. The miracle is that we gun writers get published at all. John Houchins told me at Vegas in 2007 that he fronted $171,500 of his own money to see his book to fruition. The Parker Story co-authors dug deep into their own pockets to produce their tome. On a best case scenario this writing gig is a break even proposition. So don't be too critical of the written words which appear in magazines of narrow interest (like the DGJ).

To put this in prespective, I just cut a check for $38.75 to re-up another year's 4-issue subscription to the DGJ( SSM is under $30 for 6 issues); meanwhile, to get 4 issues of Parker Pages costs $40, and the LCS newsletter is $25. Let us not bite the hand that feeds us the double-gun eye candy and associated reading material that we crave. However, if I were to wish one thing different, I would like to see less of the "same-old same-old"; IMHO there's too much in the DGJ about British gun auctions in the UK; and in SSM, much too much about Americans posing as European nobles and British Lords-of-the-Manor, plus there's an excess of Argentinean dead birds for my taste. But "different strokes..."

This Forum has some talent and knowledge as yet untapped by the magazines of our genre. Have at it guys. Anyone can post on the Internet; try your hand at the real thing. EDM