A couple of rather disparate thoughts were rattling around my head for the past few days, but they did not completely congeal until I read this comment from Oliver Perry:
It was discussed, perhaps here, the notion that we are able to develop a shitstorm when something goes wrong, but the author could not recall an atta boy resulting in a built business.
I currently carry in a crossbreed, but my next holster will be a Dragon Leatherworks. By all accounts, all subsequent holsters will likely also be by Dennis.
I first noticed the notion he is referencing here:
I agree completely with you. Plus, bloggers are going to have to learn how, as a group, to give ‘treats to the dog’.
They certainly know, as a group, ‘how to beat the dog’, but they have yet to learn the opposite.
When they do that, then you might see that $20,000 back page ad payment. Otherwise, the ‘dog’ is continue to give money to those that do give it ‘treats’ and don’t beat it or throw stones at it all the time…
All The Best,
Frank W. James
… And responded with:
Otherwise, the ‘dog’ is continue to give money to those that do give it ‘treats’ and don’t beat it or throw stones at it all the time…
Right, because those bought-and-paid-for “reviews” that are nothing more than multi-page, effusive advertisements for the product in question have nothing to do with print media’s declining readership.
Oh. Wait. Was that too much of a “stone”?
… But, really, my comment falls short in one primary fashion: Frank James is simply wrong. Coincidentally, he is wrong for much the same reason that Paul Helinski is a bleeding moron, hence the "disparate thoughts".
Consider, as Oliver did, the story of Dragon Leatherworks. A little over a year-and-a-half ago, Jay G. introduced us to the Fugly, and in those intervening 20 months, Dennis’ business has grown from "just a hobby he was doing because someone encouraged him" to "he barely has time for anything other than work and holsters", all through the power of the gunblogosphere. Yes, Dennis did have one ad photo on the back of the Concealed Carry Magazine, and his Quantum IWB/OWB Holster just got reviewed in Shooting Illustrated, but fully 99% of his business growth has been a direct product of word-of-mouth blogging, commenting, and communication.
I dare say taking a man from a hobby to an almost-sustainable primary business constitutes "giving ‘treats to the dog’", but what do I know?
Pretty much the same thing could be said for Michael’s Custom Holsters – so far as I know, the vast majority of his advertising and support has been by way of weblogs such as this one, and, hey, look, his leather is going to be on cable television. Oh, and by the way, his holster fabrication is his primary form of employment (I believe), and it has been made possible through the positive exposure through weblogs.
So, we "have yet to learn the opposite", huh?
Which brings us to an all-too-amusing email I coincidentally received very shortly after Oliver’s comment:
I’m stunned at the recent comments by Paul Helsinki of GunsAmerica — as you have pointed out, he seems to think that gun blogs are somehow "secondary" media, at least for the purpose of obtaining Shot Show credentials.
My new book‘s ONLY exposure was a mention on a couple gun blogs. The Kindle version now is outselling 96% of all Kindle books on Amazon (and Amazon now sells more Kindle editions than paper books).
Message to Paul: There’s nothing "secondary" about the gun blogosphere. A few positive words from a couple gun bloggers are going to put a nice dent in my three kids’ college tuition. Take the hint.
Kind regards,
Phil Mulivor
Director of Media Relations
Ohioans for Concealed Carry
Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said about the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
Wow. That was a mighty big "stone" we webloggers threw at Phil, what with his climbing to the top of a very competitive stack within only a few weeks. Shame on us and all that.
No, we "nobody" webloggers are nowhere near being movers-and-shakers amongst the media elite, and that is ok, because we have something better: public opinion. Not only do we report on it, we can shape it with nothing more complicated than a few hundred-word post and a few pictures, the ripples of which can still be felt years and (small) fortunes later. And, yes, it is far easier to generate a negative public opinion wave than a positive one; helpful hint to those who have been residing in their ivory towers for a leeetle too long: it has always been that way. Reputations are difficult things… it takes you forever to generate a good one, and all it takes is one solid slip-up for you to destroy all that hard work; and that holds true regardless of the medium of communication.
If companies do not like getting negative reviews from upstart webloggers like me, I would suggest they stop producing/selling items that are deserving of negative reviews. If self-absorbed jackasses like Paul Helinski do not like being crowded by "nobodies" with a keyboard and a processor, I would suggest their get over their faragosis and stop being a dick. The introduction of the Internet and, specifically, "social" systems like weblogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. has created an arguably more-substantial sea-change than the fielding of long bows at Agincourt; only a true idiot would bitterly cling to the supposed superiority of knights when barely-skilled craftsman are equipping barely-armored farmers who are knocking down human tanks left and right.
Get with the times or be left behind – for someone genuinely interested in his business, or maintaining his position in the world, I would think the choice would be simple.
Yeah as I said over at Uncle’s when this subject first came in it really strikes me as a knee-jerk reaction to an industry that is ACCUSTOMED to bias. Given that there is near-zero money in blogging and every other gun blogger I know has day-jobs, we have unlimited freedom to cheer OR jeer products we review. This means when so-and-so says such-and-such product is awesome, they MEAN it, because you read several reviews where such-and-such other product was pure crap.
BTW another success story could be Larry Correia’s book empire. I can’t imagine it was much more than blog traffic that took Monster Hunter International from a self-published work (and this was before ebook formatting) to an Amazon best-seller and spawning of a half-dozen more books, and a bunch more to come.
That carries far more power than print magazines that know that a negative review means no more T&E samples.
Seriously, any one who reads more than one gun magazine can see that there is nothing bad at all about any gun ever. It goes beyond “scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,” it’s just ridiculous. You do a google search about said firearm and find a bunch of blog reviews, and the difference is obvious–even a glowing review usually has a “I liked it but…” somewhere in it. This is a good thing. You can like most of something but still realize there is room for improvement.
Here’s a hint, manufacturers: If You Want A Good Review On The Internet, Make A Good Product. That’s it. You don’t have to spend $20,000 on a pretty full page ad. JayG notwithstanding, you don’t even have to provide your product to the blogger for free. If it’s a good product, someone out there will be interested in it, and in search of good blogfodder, will purchase it with their own money and put a review up where anyone with a keyboard can find it!
Isn’t that just amazing! I just saved you manufacturers millions of dollars in marketing fees!
Hey! I’ve reviewed *plenty* of items that I have paid for with my own money!
Now, if manufacturers would like to send me more, I ain’t sayin’ no…
The reality is this: those buying the $20,000 back page ad aren’t buying a one page ad; they’re buying a one-page ad along with a four-page write-up explaining why everything on that advertisement is “teh wonders.” It’s only taken a hundred years for us dummies to figure it out.
Mr. James is wrong. Sadly he is more concerned about his status as a professional writer than as a gun owner.
[...] While respecting Frank James a great deal I have to conclude he is as wrong as GunsAmerica after reading this post at Walls of the City. [...]
“Yes, Dennis did have one ad on the back of the Concealed Carry Magazine…”
That was just a photo, not an ad. CCM has been advertising-free for some time now.
SGB,
“Sadly he is more concerned about his status as a professional writer than as a gun owner.”
That is the most full-of-shit thing I’ve read on the internet today, and that counts a quick skim of the headlines at HuffPo.
Tam,
I disagree. How else do you frame what he has said. Whilst I respect him and his writing, his views on this are, not to put too fine a point on it, absurd.
If I could have just one thing today, I’d like a complete moratorium on the expression “give ‘treats to the dog’,” please.
At least in this context. If you’re actually giving treats to actual dogs, I suppose it’s all right. Otherwise it’s pretty demeaning.
@ Joel:
Give catnip to cats??
@ Weer’d Beard: Prexactly. We are not dependent upon those $20k payoffs from the companies whose products we are reviewing, so we are quite comfortable telling those companies – and the world – exactly what we think of their products. If anything, that level of deatchment gives us more objectivity than those who know they have to keep kissing up to these companies in order to keep getting a paycheck.
If anything, the number of negative reviews regarding firearms and their accessories by private webloggers is an indication of how well that situation has not been working of late…
Also, good call on MHI; bit ashamed I forgot that.
bluesun wrote:
QFTMFT, THISx1000, etc.
@ Jay G.: Goes without saying, eh?
@ chiefjaybob: And “bought-and-paid-for” “reviews” are one of the reasons I neither buy nor pay for magazines any more
.
@ SGB: Wrong, yes, but I am in no position to judge his motivations.
@ Tam: Good to know. Post will be amended appropriately.
@ Joel: No disagreement to me, and, likewise, I was wondering how Frank’s $20,000 check-writers felt about being analogized to dogs…
@ SGB:
How else do I “frame what he said”?
How do you transform a discussion of the nuts and bolts of business of firearms sales and manufacturing and the advertising thereof into “he is more concerned about his status as a professional writer than as a gun owner”?
If your statement is to be taken as literally true, then Frank would prefer that the gun industry went away and he was left to professionally write articles for the Ladies’ Home Journal, which is farcical on its face.
Don’t let ideological purity lead you into making statements that are provable false.
@ Linoge:
I am not in a position to judge his motivations either and I erred in not explaining myself fully. I extend an apology to him and the blog.
@ Tam:
Ideological purity? Provable false?
No, I erred in my response by not fully explaining my thoughts which I apologized for. That’s what people do when they make errors. Unlike, say, others who simply continue to make the same errors over and over.
Further, have you read Nausea by Sartre? It is the epistle of the autodidact. You’d find reflections there.
@ SGB: Like I said over your way, I am not sure there is any reason to apologize to me or the site, but thanks regardless
.
Let not forget this comment on GunNuts…
On this blog post: http://gunnuts.net/2011/07/07/kydex-vs-injection-molded/
Weer’d said: “http://www.dragonleatherworks.com/index.php
Can find many models less than $100 and right around the price of a cheap Kydex holster.
Of course if you go crazy with the trim options the price can go north of $100 Quick, but it’ll look better than any plastic holster ever made!
Of course I just like leather better anyway…”
To which Caleb responded: “Dennis seems like a nice guy, but whenever a “new” leather holster dude comes around I like to wait a couple of years to see how their holsters hold up in the long run. Two years of range/carry use will really put the screws to a leather rig.”
Which I have no problem with, really. But a follow up comment by someone named Andy was this: “Glad you said it and not me, most people who shill for them are more “gunowners” than shooters. There are plenty of more established holster makers out there for people who compete or carry for duty. Just sayin’”
I think this is the example of the Beat-downs that you can get in Teh InterWebz, by someone who doesn’t know or never tried the product, and who assumes that gunbloggers are not *shooters*, they are just barely above the general carrying public who truly are just gun *owners*.
That post, and the responses, still are a thorn in my side, but I’ve never said anything about it until today.
Oh, I will certainly not deny that bloggers of all sorts can cast all manner of stones against pretty much anything they get an ill will towards, and that will definitely continue for the forseeable future. It sucks, but, by the same token, people have been giving negative word-of-mouth recommendations for as long as there has been verbal communication… just the reach is farther now.
Regarding the specific instance, Caleb is a dick. Sure, he occasionally has useful insights into the shooting sports and training and such, but bear in mind that this is the guy who simply could not comprehend why people would go to the range just to have fun, and basically told those folks they were wasting their time and money.
In other words, a dick, and birds of a feather and all that. I like how he jumped on the ER bandwagon right off, though… *sigh*