Spring has finally arrived in the great state of Minnesota – so I thought it was time to highlight a fellow Minnesotan who has also been suffering through this incredibly long winter season. Let’s just say small-talk about the weather has never been stronger in our state. Enjoy this quick read with Dave Maas, who has recently been named the Sr. Editor of Bowhunting World and Archery Business publications. I love his note below that he uses proper punctuation in text messages!! LOL, Dave.
Q1: Dave, I’ve known you for only six years, but you’ve been in the industry for much longer. You were Managing Editor of North American Hunter magazine for 13 years – and more recently you’ve been focused specifically on bowhunting with your new role as Sr. Editor for Bowhunting World and Archery Business. You have vast experience in the print and digital world – what do you think of the recent news of some outdoor magazines moving to digital? Is this a trend? Or will there always be a place for print?
Consumers want content delivered in numerous ways, and certainly digital is a vital tool for reaching everyone from 8 to 80, and even older. We live on our smartphones. We work on laptops. We sometimes scroll through Facebook instead of talking to our family members (sad but true). And this tidal shift in delivering content online will only continue to grow. That said, I don’t see a time in the foreseeable future when print goes away. Think about it: You’re in deer camp with little or no cell service. Or you’re on a plane and can’t go online. Or like me, at the end of the day you’re tired of looking at a laptop or your smartphone, and you want to relax in your favorite chair and page through a magazine. Call me old school if you must, but I love sitting down with a magazine. There will always be a place for good storytelling, and in my opinion an ideal tool for delivering that content, especially in long-form features, is a print magazine.
Q2: Ok, with that said, it seems more digital magazines are starting up – the cost is low – but is the content on par with traditional print publications?
Ask any freelance writer how the landscape has changed during the past decade and be prepared for a long and mostly sad story. It’s a fact that pay rates have declined for outdoor writers, but those who are making it do so by expanding their scope. This is an oversimplification perhaps, but instead of writing fewer long features per month, they now have to write a lot of shorter pieces, and of course, video is critical, too. Those who can write for print and digital, and produce video can still make a living in the outdoor space. As for the quality? Sure, you don’t have to look very hard to find typos and bad grammar in many start-up digital magazines. And it drives me crazy. I can only speak for Bowhunting World and Archery Business, but our quality standards remain very high. Great care is taken to ensure our print magazines are free of mistakes, and the same is true for our online content. (FYI: I use proper punctuation in text messages. You can’t turn off the editor side of the brain.)
Q3: You’ve been at Bowhunting World and Archery Business only a couple months and are joining an already strong team headed by Editor-in-Chief Jace Bauserman. Do you plan on continuing to pen articles yourself? I see you already have two turkey articles online at BowhuntingWorld.Com.
I’m very excited to work with Jace. He’s a passionate bowhunter and we’ve hit the ground running. My goal is to support him in any way I can on the print side of things, but my primary responsibility is the digital properties for both brands. Yes, I hope to contribute articles for print and digital. Of course, one of the benefits regarding digital content is I can take an experience in the field and quickly post an article online. Or if I brainstorm a tip that might solve a particular problem hunters are facing currently (example: bowhunting Midwest turkeys in 15 inches of fresh snow), I can write it up and publish it immediately before hunters hit the field for the weekend. That doesn’t happen with print. Having both print and digital properties is the perfect combination for delivering informative and entertaining content.
Q4: How do you balance being out in the world experiencing what your readers what to read – and then the time to sit down and write the content? What inspires you to find fresh content? Or how do you find the trends readers want to read?
My hunting buddies know that my real job description is “desk jockey.” Sure, I bowhunt a lot, and a good amount of my time is spent working on food plots, placing and checking trail cams, etc. But like most of the people reading this text, my time in the field is largely spent on weekends and vacations. Jace and I wish we were bowhunting all of April and May for turkeys and black bears, and all fall for various big game species, but then no one would receive our print magazines in the mail, or see new content published online. Jace and I have to strike a balance with travel and time at the computer. And of course, we rely on numerous freelance writers who are in the field hunting everything imaginable from coast to coast.
I’m not sure if this is more detail than you desire, but when I leave on a hunt, my mental notebook is totally clean. I don’t try to make a hunt . . . or a story . . . fit some preconceived notion. I let it happen and usually the story simply reveals itself. And regardless of whether I tag an animal or not, there’s usually something to be taken away that is suitable for coverage online or in print. I often make handwritten notes just before going to bed on multi-day hunting trips so I don’t lose track of what happened on what day. Sometimes I’ll begin writing about a hunt while flying home or while waiting for a delayed flight. Generally I like to write up a story sooner rather than later so I don’t forget many of the details.
As for trends: Because Jace and I live and breathe this outdoor lifestyle, and the same is true for our art director, Mark Kingsbury, we never have a shortage of ideas. From the latest and greatest gear, to new hunting techniques, to bucket-list destinations, there’s no shortage of what we want to cover.
-- Michelle Scheuermann, editor, Archery Wire