Starting a Firearms Blog

[Tamara]

Also, with what few monetization methods are open to the gun world, if trying to earn a sizable income or maximize profit blogging in the gun industry, you will almost immediately sell your soul.

Oh, man, don't get me started.

CrapCo: "Here's this useless piece of complete garbage that you'd throw away if it fell right at your feet out of a vending machine you hadn't put any money in. We'll let you keep it for free if you say nice things about it!"

Social Media Influencer: "Okay!"

I have lots of thoughts on these leeches and the marketing types that they are in symbiosis with, obviously.

It's why I blog for fun. I can write elsewhere for cash. My integrity is all I have.

[SCCY Marshal]

Forget the surface web. Start a site on the Gemini protocol and have a text-only gun blog. Photos downloaded and then viewed outside the browser.

You can still route a leased (no one owns their domain, not even the registrars) domain name to it. Bonus points if he spins up his own server to self-host.

Hard Mode: Start with a SDF or Tilde shell account and start off with their half-broken command-line system.

[TCinVA]

Content creation is like trying to fill up a bottomless pit with a small shovel.

No matter how much you shovel, the limitless gaping maw remains.

Greg Ellifritz worked his ass off building his blog and it's one of the best resources for anyone who has any remotely serious interest in any defense related topic. He's struggled with readership because people don't actually like to read things. This whole textual interaction thing we're doing on PF is not desirable for large percentages of the population.

I am by no means a great writer, but compared to what I see among the typical population I'm practically Hemingway. It's not much good in a world where Tik-Tok and Instagram is how people get their information.

If you're going to do it, you do it because you enjoy the process. Writing forces you to be disciplined and coherent in your thinking. It helps make your arguments and insights sharper. It's a useful discipline in and of itself. But if you don't enjoy the process it feels like you perpetually have a paper due. Occasionally something hits my craw and I can't stop myself from writing about it...usually here...but that's a different sensation than having a regular contribution that is required of you. With a regular writing deadline I always feel like I'm back in English class writing up notecards for a paper on Percy Bysshe Shelly and his contributions to the Romantic movement. I fucking hate poetry.

If the goal is getting free stuff, that is conditional upon eyeballs. Getting eyeballs on a blog is work. Like constant, unending work. The stuff that is received is rarely truly free. The gun business is no different than the automotive business in that your ability to receive nice things from the manufacturers is dependent upon being in their good graces which is why every new introduction of a crossover that looks exactly like every other crossover will have articles written by tame autojournos who can't drive their way out of a parking lot without crashing discussing "handling" like they actually have any appreciable idea WTF that means.

If you get somebody who tells the truth ("The Lamborghini Anus is incredibly fast because it has an enormous technologically advanced engine controlled by sophisticated computer systems that are necessary at all times to keep the ponderous monstrosity under control, for it is certain that the kind of person who wants to drive around in the automotive equivalent of hardcore scat porn is far too busy licking the skidmarks in their own underwear to bother learning how to capably pilot the thing. This is automotive Sodom and Gamorrah, marketed to people who have incredible amounts of money and not the slightest bit of taste, self-awareness, or a functional cerebral cortex to go along with it. It is made to fit into a Jake Paul video where he markets the latest crypto/NFT scam. You would think it is impossible for something to be thoroughly banal and yet so vulgar the mere sight of it makes you despair for the future, and yet the Anus has achieved the unthinkable. Merely having been in it makes me feel a combination of numbness, shame, and hopelessness that makes you look forward to death. Because all good and beautiful things are dead. And this thing killed them.") the manufacturer gets mad and that outlet doesn't get any more press cars or lavish junkets.

[jetfire]

The absolute best maxim I've read on the topic came from the blogger at Say Uncle, who was a customer at Coal Creek Armory when I was working there and was kinda my Blogfather:

That was a big part of my inspiration in saying "the day this stops being fun is the day I stop doing it"

I took a stab at getting back into it in 2020, but other than a paid for play Aero Precision post I wrote in March 2021, I haven't updated since Nov 2020. It wasn't fun and I was getting paid a lot more money to make words other places.

Although, I kind of use my FB fan page as a substitute blog, but there's direct ROI off that page that I could never get on the blog.

[Sig_Fiend]

Oh, man, don't get me started.


I have lots of thoughts on these leeches and the marketing types that they are in symbiosis with, obviously.

It's why I blog for fun. I can write elsewhere for cash. My integrity is all I have.

I think the best way to fight those types, in this specific industry, is to do it for free, focused on maximum integrity. There's almost nothing else they can do to compete against you at that point. Just my opinion though since I want to bleed the leeches dry.

There's little that's more annoying than influencer shills lying to your face about "how they weren't paid for this review", only to turn around and state in the very next sentence that they were given a $3,000 rifle for free for that review. Yeah okay.

If anyone has been blogging in this industry for a long time, but is having trouble seeing success with it, feel free to ping me. Happy to give advice, free of charge because PF. Much of the time what I see is someone that's been doing it for years and has considerable content may just have some technical SEO issues (usually to do with keyword optimization, internal linking, link structure, navigation, etc.) that are artificially suppressing the performance they should be able to achieve.

[TCinVA]

I hate "influencer" marketing. It's right after "lifestyle marketing" in my list of loathsome contrivances.

But the general buying public seems to disagree with me vehemently on those things.

[jh9]

Reminds me of the Sam Kinison bit.

"Who are you going to please with that?"
"ME! HA!"

[Tamara]

…the manufacturer gets mad and that outlet doesn't get any more press cars or lavish junkets.

If you haven’t lost an advertiser, you’re shilling.

S.W.A.T. Magazine lost Beretta and Benelli for years after Louis Awerbuck wrote a decidedly “meh” review of the Benelli M4.

Car and Driver reviewed a Silver Shadow by saying something along the lines of “an example of what top-flight materials and a spare-no-expenses manufacturing philosophy can do for a 1959 Checker cab.” Rolls Royce’s snit fit lasted nearly a decade.

My review of the Sccy CXP-3 was published very shortly after one of RECOIL’s ad guys had left for a marketing gig with Sccy. Supposedly the phrase “Gosh, I hope we didn’t get ____ fired from his new job” was uttered at the weekly editorial meeting.

[jetfire]

I think the best way to fight those types, in this specific industry, is to do it for free, focused on maximum integrity. There's almost nothing else they can do to compete against you at that point. Just my opinion though since I want to bleed the leeches dry.

There's little that's more annoying than influencer shills lying to your face about "how they weren't paid for this review", only to turn around and state in the very next sentence that they were given a $3,000 rifle for free for that review. Yeah okay.

If anyone has been blogging in this industry for a long time, but is having trouble seeing success with it, feel free to ping me. Happy to give advice, free of charge because PF. Much of the time what I see is someone that's been doing it for years and has considerable content may just have some technical SEO issues (usually to do with keyword optimization, internal linking, link structure, navigation, etc.) that are artificially suppressing the performance they should be able to achieve.

Out of idle curiosity, what is your blog?

[GlockenSpiel]

Thanks everybody for the tips, especially Sig_Fiend for writing a complete guide on how to set this up! I'll be back with more detailed questions after we discuss this weekend. I know the main goal is to get a dialogue/network going with like-minded people; secondary goals would be to keep the costs low or even make some money, and avoid negative outcomes like the site and its content getting nuked. Content will be somewhat niche and historical so I don't think a massive sponsor/gun review influx is really anticipated.