Don Causey very successful on his own after weathering partnerships. (Publisher profile).

After some time as a freelancer and daily journalist, Don Causey enjoyed a meteoric career with Outdoor Life magazine, where he rose from junior editor to executive editor.

"But I realized I didn't have the personality to function brilliantly in a hierarchy. What I was seeking was a way to combine the freedom of freelancing with the financial stability of a going business and, ideally, my lifelong love of hunting and fishing." (Causey grew up on 2,000 acres in rural South Carolina.)

"One of the most popular features of Outdoor Life was our 'Where to Go' section. Honestly, I realized, you can't tell 1.7 million readers about the latest hot spot without crushing the resource."

So, in 1981, Causey launched his own newsletter, The Hunting Report, which was aimed at the upscale hunting and travel market--"people who needed the information and had the money to pay for it," Causey said.

"I think I invested $7,000 total in the launch. I knew nothing about direct marketing and didn't own or know how to use a computer. For the first few months I kept my subscriber records in a looseleaf notebook, and I hand-addressed the fulfillment envelopes. Then I acquired another, very small newsletter, and an IBM computer (which I taught myself how to use) came with the deal.

"The Hunting Report did well and we launched a companion letter for bird-shooters. However, I had a partner in the whole venture and he and I came to a parting of the ways. In the settlement, he got the birdshooting letter and a sum of money from the company, which left me more or less where I had started," Causey said.

"So, I went to New York City and sold a major publisher (who shall remain nameless) on the idea of backing me in a new Angling Report newsletter. We signed a very complicated deal where they undertook all the marketing expenses and paid me a monthly stipend.

"They put big money behind it and eventually their investment reached about $400,000 (remember, I launched The Hunting Report with $7,000) before they lost interest and sold the newsletter to me for a modest amount.

"And by 'modest' I mean I discovered that among the assets I acquired was a postal deposit account with more money in it than I had just paid for the newsletter. I pointed this out to them and they told me just to 'keep it,"' Causey said.

"I figure, How many publishers ever have convinced someone else to foot all the bills for a newsletter launch, pay you a salary as editor-publisher, and then pay you again to take it off their hands? And for me, absent all their Fifth Avenue overhead, the newsletter was profitable from the first month I owned it."

Design

It should be noted that Causey's newsletters, like most travel letters, are very pleasing to the eye. A handsome nameplate, quality paper stock, and line drawings complement the coffee tables in affluent big game hunters and anglers' dens.

Launches another, then sells it

"A few years later," Causey continued, "my non-compete agreement with my ex-partner having expired, I relaunched a bird hunting title and was then publishing three newsletters. I later sold that title in a win-win deal to well-known publisher Tod Sedgwick, who made me an attractive offer."

Marketing

Asked about his marketing techniques, Causey replied, "We still rely on targeted direct mail to very select lists: the travel agents who do this kind of business, the Houston Safari Club membership. Almost the best list I ever had, before the Freedom of Information Act was rewritten, was--via FOIA--the US. Fish & Wildlife Service list of all applicants for hunting trophy import licenses."

The internet

Causey estimates that 15 to 20 percent of his revenues now come from his two websites, www.HuntingReport. corn and www.AnglingReport. corn.

Plus, he started an e-mail extra electronic edition, which includes a searchable database of back issues and "hunt reports." Each issue includes a form subscribers can use to report on their trips--"and they do, in amazing detail," Causey said, "what went right and what went wrong with their trip. Exactly the information other subs want."

The database now includes 8,000 pages of materials and some 20 percent of The Hunting Report subscribers have upgraded from $60 to $96 to get the print and electronic editions and unlimited access to the database.

Causey also publishes news alerts on the websites--information like status reports on U.S. government travel warnings about Venezuela, current airline regs about bringing big game rifles and even fish hooks on board, and Causey's current report on his most recent trip to French Polynesia, which is apparently hot among fishing enthusiasts.

Causey figures that he has hunted in Africa on 19 trips and has fished from Tahiti to Venezuela to Italy.

A similar online database for The Angling Report is just behind, with 15 to 18 percent of subscribers having upgraded from $49 tom $61.

Post 9/11

For a publisher of what are basically specialized travel letters, Causey is surprisingly upbeat. "Last year's results were up ten percent and this year is running at least even with last," he said. "Anglers may be somewhat cautious, although I don't like to characterize my readers in groups, but they still want to keep up with information, and big game hunters are basically not risk adverse. They like to travel.

"The U.S. government is cautioning people to leave Zimbabwe, but I must have 200 subscribers who are planning to go there this year. I just received a Hunt Report from a guy on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. I have no idea how he got there, and Osama bin Laden must have been in the next cave. He said he could hear the sound of U.S. artillery fire. He had a blast" (so to speak).

9300 S. Dadeland Blvd., #206, Miami, FL, 33156, 305-670-1361, fax [phone]

RELATED ARTICLE: On partnerships

Don Causey's early experience publishing as a partnership reflects the comments of Llewellyn King, publisher of The Energy Daily, who cautioned, "Never begin a venture as a partnership unless you're convinced your partner brings something irreplaceable. Only two things will happen. You'll fail and blame each other or succeed and fight over it."