BootsnAll Travel Community

Hi-
I just wanted to get a feel for just how hard the travel writer's market is.
Have you sold a story? Are you currently building your name by posting online for free? What is your view of penetrating this market?

Dreams can come true: A sightseer on the boards ask me to edit a story for her. She sent me something that was totally long and clunky, but I marked it up all to hell anyway. We went throught 3 rounds of edits, and in the end came up with a good story. She actually ended up selling this story to a local paper, and based on that one story, they offered her a job in the travel department. Granted, it's some small paper in suburban Florida and not the NYTimes, but any chance to start building a name is a good one. This story is a bit extreme (but all true), but it gives you newbies out there some hope.

YES, submit to the free sites... especially BootsnAll! Get your name out there!

e.

Follow me around the world here: http://blogs.bootsnall.com/theglobaltrip

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jen102:
Have you sold a story?

I saw a travel story about Louisiana in a Canadian magazine and it was AWFUL !!! I wrote to the editor and told her I would be happy to write them a GOOD article about our state. She and I e-mailed back and forth a few times, just getting to know each other - then - out of the blue, she said she wanted me to write for her and that she would PAY me!!! You could have knocked me over with a feather!!!

I sold a story right out of the gate. First damn article I shopped around about a bunch of lunatics that I knew who decided to unicycle through Norway, into the Arctic Circle. It was just a really great story. (The feature length version is posted here on BnA.) I was like “Wow! I rule! I can really make a living as a writer!” Well, I haven’t sold anything since. It’s been almost a year. Sigh. I have a few nibbles, but with the lead times that some of these publications have, I won’t see actual money for a very long time.

So, yes, I am aggressively trying to build a name for myself by posting online for free. Fortunately, I don’t have to sweat money at the moment, so I’m actually quite happy to give away my blood sweat and tears, just in the hopes that people will read the stuff and provide feedback and constructive criticism, which is vital for someone who has never taken a writing course in his life. That’s why BnA is so cool. Chris never complains about the deluge of material I unload at him and you can’t beat this reading audience.

I have taken several approaches to penetrating the market. I started off, quickly and haphazardly sending out half-assed submissions to whoever I could find (I was on the road at the time and didn’t have the time or means to do anything carefully). That obviously was fruitless. Once I stopped traveling, I sat down at an internet café and spent three days researching online newspapers and the like that accepted unsolicited travel article submissions and sent out a ton of material to them. That resulted in some almost-sold stories and plenty of new contacts, but as I said before, still no actual $$$. Now, I’m just submitting to BnA, while I concentrate on tying this epic together into a book. No time for anything else.

I guess all the babbling wasn’t much help, but at least you know what I’ve tried and how it worked out.

Good luck!

Leif

"When the going gets weird, the Weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson

At this point I've sold about 50 articles for pay, but still do some for free if I like the publication or I like the story but can't get anyone to buy it. It's better to be good at marketing than writing to start getting paid though. Specifically, you need to get good at pitching a story angle in a couple of paragraphs and grabbing an editors attention. They want something that makes them say, "Well THAT's a unique story!" Think small in every way: go for the little story within the big place, pitch ideas that will work as a 400-word article. Editors don't need people to write five-page features for them. Those stories go to their inner circle of writers they have worked with for years. Learn to be brief and interesting and you can succeed.

http://www.worldscheapestdestinations.com

Oh god, I’m screwed. 400 word articles??? My pitches are 800 words! If I’m really, really conservative, I can keep an article to about 2,500 words. Chris/Court/Donovan will attest to this. I guess I can permanently cross newspapers off my list of potential pitching candidates.

Ah, it’s for the best. I like the BnA way better anyway, where I can just send the stuff in and they post it in two weeks and never complain about all of the protracted babbling, er, I mean, pertinent information. I may not make any money, but it cuts down on the painful sobbing I go through when I have to cut down my fabulously brilliant material.

Leif

"When the going gets weird, the Weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson

If you have about 25 hours of spare reading time, check out my full, raw, uncut Western Europe Travelogue

This may not be much help but...

I've never really been that interested in travel writing, but I love fiction with a certain element of travel in it. I recently published a novel set in India with a publisher in Mumbai.

While I was being wheeled around Mumbai to do promo interviews with over a dozen newspapers and mags, I'd talk about some of my travels in India, like motorcycling and paragliding in the Himalaya. One editor heard about me from a journalist, had been desperate for an article on 'Riding in the Monsoon', and commissioned an article with a three day deadline. It ended up in Air India's In-flight magazine the next week, with photos they sourced from a photo bank. The same thing happened with a travel magazine that's attached to a daily paper. They took two 1,600 word articles.

They allowed me a tag line at the end of the articles to promote the book, and I got a reasonable amount of rupees for my efforts.

So, to get travel writing jobs, simply publish a novel and sit back!

*******************************************************
Check out my novel, The Highway, which is set in India, and was published in Mumbai in June 2004.
www.willmarks.com
International order available now (only $10 US incl. international postage) at www.vedamsbooks.com

Gee, why didn't i think of that?

OK, Will, I'm going whole-hog with this book thing. If it blows up in my face, i know who to blame.

Leif

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"When the going gets weird, the Weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson

If you have about 25 hours of spare reading time, check out my full, raw, uncut Western Europe Travelogue

I have to agree with Mr. Marks--once you have a book out, the world's gates open to you. You can write 100 articles and so what, but if you are an author, suddenly you are an expert. But of course nobody will publish your book unless there is a good reason...

http://www.worldscheapestdestinations.com

Hmm, I don't want to jinx anything from going through but I'm currently negotiating a fee for a story that I posted here which is to be included in a textbook due out early 2005.

This would be my first paid article

_____________________
[Still Wandering] [Halcyon Climbing]

Now this is the weirdiest incident perhaps to be ever reported on this forum. My articles on BNA did get noticed. But guess by whom??? Not a travel magazine but a tax journal, they were trying to find out my email id and tap me. Guess, the editor of this journal was innovative enough to google me, and he landed on BNA site got my email id, thanks to the profile section (Looks like he must have become a member as well, to get hold of this email id). And I got a tiny writing assignment. The money I got was enough to treat my small office team to an impromptu lunch party!

Son of a...

I hope I’m so hot someday that someone spends their afternoon sleuthing my fricking email address so they can give me money for work I already did. Jezus… I’m so jealous, I could just toot.

Leif

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"Buy the ticket, take the ride." - Hunter S. Thompson

If you have about 25 hours of spare reading time, check out my full, raw, uncut Western Europe Travelogue

I sell stories and photos monthly. Check out my website at www.mytripjournal.com/RichWorld. I've been traveling 12 years continuously,currently trekking in northern Pakistan (country # 88 with only 103 left to go!) which is better then Nepal. Grendelll

Preservere! About 4 months ago I sent a story to travelerstales.com which is a great way to break into the travelwriting game. I had given up all hope, but a couple of days ago I got a reply, they want to forward my story to on of their editors!

Leif, the travelerstales humour books are apparently really big in the states, it would be the ideal medium for you to get some exposure!

quote:

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Leif, the travelerstales humour books are apparently really big in the states, it would be the ideal medium for you to get some exposure!

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Thanks! I sent those guys a few doosies right off the bat last year and, not surprisingly, I never heard from them. I'll try again now that I have some stronger material.

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"Buy the ticket, take the ride." - Hunter S. Thompson

If you have about 25 hours of spare reading time, check out my full, raw, uncut Western Europe Travelogue

some former staff here at the Pirate Haus Inn and Hostel were working on books for escape artist.com and one of them has been published ( a book about living in Italy)Living in Italy, it's an ebook, you pay for it and get it as a PDF, as soon as it's bought, you get a notification of it along with whatever the royalty is...

Jen recently discussed submitting artiles to <a href="http://www.itravelsyndicate.com/">isyndicate.com</a>, a site which allows writers to list articles for a small fee. They claim that they are browsed by thousands of editors. I have heard much about this, but I have yet to ome across anybody (outside the US, at least) who has actually <i>sold</i> any of their stuff. So: what are people's experiences with isyndicate? Is it worth a go?

Damn...sorry about those tags. Maybe just my (anient) browser, but is the html not working?

I spent half a day submitting articles and pictures to iTravelsyndicate last month. So far, not a peep. And I think we can rule out that it’s due to weak material.

Actually, the uploading was a bit frustrating and troubling. The upload process is lengthy and clunky (thus the entire afternoon down the drain). Articles I uploaded sometimes didn’t show up, requiring me to repeat effort. One time after an upload was completed, I found myself staring at another writer’s account. I could see all her articles and everything. The web site has some bugs. It’s only been a month, but not a peep. I really wish I had investigated this further. It’s only $40, so if I sell just one article, I will make that money back and then some, but I get the feeling that while they might have 1,000 editors registered on the site, I think very few of them stop in for a regular visit. Sigh. I’ll post here if something should surface. I believe Philip Blazdell also submitted articles. Maybe he had a better experience?

Meanwhile, the BnA free submission tactic has another success story, me. A desperate editor Googling for a Lisbon piece to fill space found mine here and after some editing she bought it. Then, after noting my proximity to Istanbul, offered to send me there to write a destination piece for “executive travelers.” Five star hotels and posh restaurants, plus free entrance to sights. Oh yeah, and they are paying me. This could turn into something big or perhaps I will go another year without selling anything, nevertheless, submitting to BnA works. And it’s free.

This is cool Leif. Have fun!