I was reading over this weeks fisherman and Toby had an into discussing his fishing library. I have a similar one and for a while collected a lot of cool fishing books. I went down to browse over it and pick out something to look at the other night and noticed there is a lot of repetition in this library. I have read all of them some are very old and not current with today's methods of fishing at all but interesting none the less. But they all talk about fishing of some form.

With all these books out... say, on how to catch striped bass (for instance) how is it that there is any money in this? The market is limited by SB fishermen, I looked this up on the internet (average $ authors make) and if you divided the approx money they make by the time they had to have put into it... It appears that a minimum wage job would actually pay more. Am I wrong? I know they are doing it because they love it.

I know the article rate is absurdly low, I would charge more just for typing up an invoice they then get for an article in these fishing mags. But how much do you think a decent author makes for a book on surf casting? Just a thought...I am not thinking about writing a book nor do I want to know how much any individual makes ...really. Just curious about the ballpark royalties an author makes on fishing

Its probably like plug building.....you put alot of time into each article/plug and in the end make very little! Its all about the love of sport! Along with plug building I have done a few articles......I love doing both so I speak from my limited experience! :)

(which is far more than I have!!!) :)

I doubt it's significant, unless you can do like Frank D. and have a series of books with some cross-over appeal and brand recognition.

That being said, I'd think completing a decent book is still pretty rewarding.

-spence

Heard they make clams
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I read all of John Gierach's flyfishing books, on my last one in print now, and I know he makes enough to not work any other job and flyfishes everywhere all year long. If that suits you then thier is some kind of success there. I know what you mean though. How many times can you spin the same yarn? O'Reilly would call it bloviating about fishing. All of the SB authors probably have those same dreams and it doesn't pan out.