Forums.NitroExpress.com

Publishing in the Australian bush
NSW Country Hour By Sally Bryant

Hunting magazine Guns and Game is twenty year old business venture which has served its proprietors very well, providing them with the off-farm income that so many farming families rely on today.

Briel and Bernadette Jackson built the idea out of an interest in hunting, a love of being in the Australian bush and a practical need for a good business strategy in addition to their family farm.

PHOTO: Breil Jackson and his wife Bernadette have been running their successful publishing business from their farmhouse for 20 years; now they've launched a cookbook.

Briel says the printer in Dubbo was a little sceptical first approached, later confessing that he'd had his doubts in the beginning of the operation.

"He told me he was thinking I should stick to farming, he admitted that much later on, when the magazine was successful."

The printing game has moved on considerably in the past 20 years, the magazine is now compiled and proofread at the Jackson family farm near Nyngan, and then it's emailed to Sydney to the printers.

And this is no small operation; they print more than 25,000 copies of the magazines, putting out four issues a year.

They have a suite of advertisers in their pages, providing the income necessary for the business to thrive.

Briel acknowledges that the printing game is changing, and that the magazine industry is under increasing pressure from the electronic and social media.

But he's quietly confident that his readership is a slightly different demographic; people interested in getting into the bush and hunting game, away from the computer world.

And now the Jacksons have launched a new product, a spin-off from the magazine as Bernadette explains.

"We've just launched the cook book, Grub in the Scrub, which is a follow-on from a cooking feature that's been in the magazine since the beginning.

"I love to cook in the bush, it's a great way of getting your kids out of the house, away from the computer.

"We'll grab bits and pieces and head off down the paddock where Briel is working and the kids will build a fire and there you have it; lunch in the scrub.

"And it's amazing what you can cook in a camp oven, when you're in the bush for a few days.

"I've actually worked out how to cook quandong pie in a camp oven, so that recipe is in the book as well."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-24/publishing-in-the-bush/5173448

--------------------
John aka NitroX

...
Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"