Burgett_travel_writing

Need book promotion address labels?

This is pure promo on my part, but a godsend if you want a list of 233 book publishing promotional outlets, 177 newspapers book editors (+50,000 subscribers) and the rest reliable book reviewers, all gathered in late April 2008. We have the 10 pages of lists in Avery label format. Peel and apply!

It's our newest (and least pretentious) product, posted 10 minutes ago at mailto:www.gordonburgett.com, and on our order shopping cart for a ganga $20!

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, bless you. Read something else!

But if you are publishing general market (not niche) books and want to get through the promo tedium faster (and cheaper considering you usually earn about $200/hr), welcome aboard!

Gordon Burgett

P.S. Return in a couple of weeks. We might have a huge earning surprise here for all travel writers.

Freelance manuscript format

I'm just back for a breather between seminars/workshops, most about some facet of freelance article or book writing--and the same question continues to raise its hand daily as it has been for almost 30 years: "What must the manuscript look like?"

I'm naturally inclined to suggest a long list of imaginary "must-adds," like the title in red, a 1.73" wiggly margin on the left, and perhaps << >> symbols around very foreign words, but most of my crowd is too smart for such pranks.

So let me give you the absolutely iron-clad best advice about what a manuscript must look like, then I'll send you to one of my web pages at www.gordonburgett.com called "Manuscript Format" that has more details!

What must a manuscript look like? An easy-to-read, well-centered, neat, strike-free, exciting piece of writing that does absolutely nothing to distract the eye-weary reader from completing his or her daily task. No lace, no gaudy arrows at the main point, all in black and white, nothing in CAPS that shouldn't be, the underline key at rest, italics seldom seen. Just dynamite prose leaping mentally off the page.

Enough: go to this page for a more complete response. And if you have time, check out two books, one that shows where that dynamite prose is easiest to sell, the other where you can make the most money fastest and with the least risk if the words are book length.

Keep writing...

Gordon Burgett

 

What's niche publishing all about?

This is a shameless plug blog because about a week ago I published, in print and digitally, a dandy book that not only fully answers that question, it shows you how you can do it too. Called Niche Publishing: Publish Profitably Every Time, it shows you how to reduce your risk, get a book out in months, and quadruple your profits by inexpensively testing your market first, then publishing precisely what that market wants to buy.

If that sounds exciting, or even impossible, read the Introduction and Chapter One, plus many of the details of the book (including the Table of Contents, which is its road map) at www.nichepublishing.org.

How do I know anything about niche publishing? Well, I is one, as the engineer said when he proudly announced that when he went to college he couldn't spell enginear and now that he has graduated, he is one. I backed into by creating books about standard operating procedures for dentists, and kept backing into it until we were way past a million dollars in sales. I sold that imprint and am now doing the same for K-12 superintendents and principals. While I have 35 books of my own in print, I didn't write any of the niche books (although I co-authored a couple, of 20 total).

What am I suggesting? You can be a writer and a publisher (of your own and other's books) at the same time. And if you head into the glens of niching, if done right, it's almost immune to failure, unsold books, recalcitrant wholesalers, and unsalable returns.

Travel writers are, at heart, writers who like to travel. If you want to expand your horizons and financial vistas while using the writing skills as your core, check niche publishing too. 

Gordon Burgett

Fatal wee errors that show you're an amateur

Let's get some very important but rather minor things straight. You won't be considered a serious writer by editors at magazines and newspapers (or in the larger world either) if you are posing as a professional writer but still making amateur errors.

There's the hyphen (-), for example. It should do what hyphens do, like-sisters-in-law, and NOTHING MORE. It isn't a dash, or a finger after a number, or anything else. Its role is vital but not expansive.

The dash in writing is an em dash (see insert, symbols, special on your PC). Alas, I can't show you here or in an email, in which case (and ONLY THERE) it must be seen as two hyphens--like this. Note, no spaces before or after an em dash (except in England and some newspapers in the U.S.). Sometimes your computer will convert the double hyphen into an em dash, but not often or always. Use dashes less frequently than you want, in pairs around parenthetical phrases or to offset a closing to a sentence. Usually they connote humor.

When typewriters abounded so did double spaces between sentences. Now you use one space, without exception. Academics are the worst offenders, and it's a telltale sign to the editor that, if you double too, you aren't properly weaned from school yet.

Avoid semicolons. One or two may be one or two too many, unless you really understand them and the punctuation that surrounds them.

Use full colons sparingly too. They aren't substitutes for a period after a number. They usually indicate a list of items to follow, like "There are four things to do during a rainy recess:" after which four things to do are listed, directly after the colon or numbered below. But the words "like" or "such as" are ways to insert variety in your copy. "There are four things to do during a rainy recess, like ___, ___, ___, and _____."

Those are the ones that are most often used incorrectly. You won't burn in hell (or anywhere) if you err, but you won't be paid much money to write either. That's because those who know the rules and follow them are the ones deciding who sees print, like the editors. They choose professionally written copy almost every time.

Gordon Burgett    

Is your article salable?

A few days back I was asked, in response to an earlier post "When do you write travel in first person?", to elaborate on how one can use the deductive method to see if your article is salable, and where. (The writer first saw this concept in my book, The Travel Writer's Guide, where I recommended the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature in the library as the first place to find out which paying publications used similar articles.)

Alas, his library no longer subscribed to the RGPL! So what's next, if you want to see who else wants copy about your topic, on the assumption that if they were interested once, they and other magazines that appeal to the same general audience will look fondly on something similar, but better, updated, a new slant, new revealed research, a new combination with another topic also of interes to that readership.

Three ways I now try to find potentially eager and generous buyers.

The first is still the RGPL, which may be in another, nearby library. Or it is far more likely to be in your own library's digital periodicals review--hiding in the computer bank they now subscribe to. Just ask the librarian how you can find articles in major magazines. Then list the publications where those about your topic appear, then hit the current Writer's Market to see other publications listed in the same category. (Use the earlier RGPLs, bound and around for probably 100 years, to see what was written about the topic in, say, 1956 or 1909.) The library's digital periodical guide may only go back five or ten years.

Our good friend Google.com has largely replaced the RGPL to find out what's currently available about almost anything. Hiding inside its references are clues to where your topic is best or most often reported. Find the publications cited there and you have a second way of seeing who is buying (and, one hopes, paying) for that topic.

But there's a hidden world out there usually revealed with one question to the reference librarian: What resource tools not here can I access through your library? Bingo. You usually have several, sometimes 20-30 places where topic digging is faster and better, like Nexus-Lexus or other places that make data, text, and references immediately accessible. I can do this through my Marin County system, and if that weren't available, I could do it through three of the four universities I attended (when we wrote with quills). They give me magic numbers and codes and the whole world opens up--free!

Incidentally, I seldom actually go to the library itself other than to take out a thriller-killer or pick up a book delivered there by interlibrary loan. I can use their catalog from my office. More magic numbers and codes! 

There's much more about the feasibility study in my book, and it's a critical set of steps in my seminars (which can be heard in my audio CD "How to Sell 75% of Your Travel Writing"). I also have a report that's available digitally called "Finding Topics for General and Travel Articles." It is more of a case study that explores the deductive process with an actual example. 

I hope this answers the reader's much appreciated question.

Gordon Burgett

   

 

Digital travel writing courses?

I was reading a Travelwriters.com blog that asked the title question above, and in the 67 or so responses I saw my book kindly referred to about five times as a very helpful tool. So I responded as well, and feel it fair to share the words with you, if you are interested. This was my reply:

"I saw my book kindly referred to in this thread so, first, thanks, and second, while I like the idea of digital help for travel writers (many digital instructors use my book), I think that lots of travel writers simply need to know what the process is that best uses their time/funds and is most likely to help create a core article that sells. Then they can multiply that income by reselling that core, reframed, again and again. In other words, if they can write like or better than what they read on the pages where they want to appear, mostly they need to know how to lay out a trip; what to do before, during, and after that trip; how to balance magazine and newspaper/newsletter pieces, and how to create a solid fact base before going that frees up lots of time once they are there. That's what The Travel Writer's Guide is all about, in book or CD form. (Please excuse the self plug!) For the better or more confident writers, it might be worth trying first before spending lots of money on online courses--or in conjunction with them. But if nothing I said makes sense, rush to the nearest computer and register!"

How could I even assume to know what's best for travel writers, especially new ones? I've offered "Writing Travel Articles That Sell!," a four-hour seminar based on the book's contents for almost 30 years now, to a guesstimate of 27,000+ attendees, and it gives me a great opportunity to see what parts of their preparation or skills they most need to have strengthened. Most can either write well enough to see print or never will get to that level (a wee minority), but what bewilders 100% of them is the labyrinthine process of selling to editors, and how to set up the trip and research to have something to sell profitably. So that's why I wrote my book the way I did, to resee the whole process from a strictly business approach, and to tell them that, if their writing is also in need of help, they should read three articles a day and use the analytical guide the book contains to pull the articles apart to see precisely how they are written--then write that way! No magic, no inside pull with the editor, nothing but old-fashioned understandable words that the reader wants to read.

What's new in what you're writing?

(Sorry for skipping out a couple of months: Busy writing and product planning. Stay tuned, probably in later January, for an exciting new venue to sell your travel writing, which will also explain why I've been busy!)

I was reminded yesterday while visiting San Francisco's California Academy of Science of the importance of finding the "new" in every newspaper travel article you write--or almost every article. It's not by chance that the word "new" is in newspaper. That applies to every section of the newspaper too, if you want to be on its pages. You must bring something new to the table.

In yesterday's case, the Academy is in a huge temporary holding a block west of the Moscone Center, where downtown conventions are held. But the doors close there in one week (January 7, 2008), to reopen at the completely rebuilt center in Golden Gate Park in late fall, 2008. So there is no freelance article now inviting newcomers to see the penguin feeding and electric eels. By the time that article is read by the travel editor, the doors will be closed!

But there are several other articles between now and the door opening in fall:

* Focusing on the fall opening, where are all the exhibits and animals now (not many are in the temp museum), who feeds and sustains them, and how are they moved and integrated into the new building's opening?

* Describe the planning logistics of building a new series of exhibition buildings in this era of environmental and budgetary limitations. Lots of angles here: the architecture, the revamping of the old buildings (really, their removal), setting up the infrastructure (like the maze of piping and tanks for the huge variety), ...

* How will the way the animals and exhibits are displayed be different? Will this require different personnel? How will it be better than at other, similar museums in California?    

* And while this change is being made, what other changes are in store for the new museum once the new doors are open and the dust has settled? What can locals and visitors see and do in fall 2008 at the new museum? (Too soon? Hardly. Travelers are planning trips eight or so months out, and a good article can also be held by the travel editor, for quick updating as the opening approaches.)

That's it; nothing profound. Always ask, "What's new?" for every travel article, then build the piece around that novelty. It's the one hook that will catch every travel editor's eye because it gives a purpose to your prose and suggests a timely use date.

(Also, a response to a question two of you just asked. The essence of the Travel Writer's Guide is available on CD with a very useful workbook as a download. It's called "How to Sell 75% of Your Travel Writing," and follows very closely my travel writing seminar given mostly in California.)

When do you write travel in first person?

Using the "I" voice is less sought than you imagine, unless, of course, the editor (or the publication's style) insists.

Three areas, however, don't make much sense without it.

Vicarious travel is one, where the reader wants you to take the perils and bruises and tell them what it's like. That's mostly high adventure. I led a gold hunt up the Chapano River, as high up the Negro (Upper Amazon branch) as you can go in Ecuador, and we were without food (flood dumped our dugout) for six days. Readers were pleased to read about it but not highly motivated to repeat it! So that saw print in many first-person manifestations.

Another is where the story is so unique, a once-in-a-lifetime happening, that again the "I" voice is required. I call these the "I was locked in King Tut's tomb" stories, and appropriately, one of the best was told by a person who fell asleep in the church where Shakespeare is buried and was locked in for hours until his mates found him missing and not in a town bar.

The third always provokes funny stories in my "Writing Travel Articles That Sell!" seminar. It's the love story angle, and that travels best in print in first person. Readers don't want to read highly intimate copy about somebody else. You just blend the travel into those, but the emotions are what carry the words.

Other than those three cases, keep it third person and avoid the diary approach, which editors derisively call "Me and Joe stories" and reject them immediately.

You see, it's all first person, really. But it's not "My trip to Novato." It's the reader's trip to Novato, built around the five most interesting things to see or a season enjoyed at a site or mountain cycling in which one pedals through various towns, including Novato, and what one sees or experiences on the trip. You do it, or get info about it, and write it so the reader lives it. That's how you earn money writing travel.

There's a lot more about this in my book The Travel Writer's Guide. 

Who buys travel writing?

Almost any magazine uses it, as blatant travel ("Visit Volvoland!") or other reporting on a foreign or different setting ("Teaching Kindergarten in Bavaria"). In fact, the latter is far easier to sell because too few teachers with something to share, like kindergarten in Bavaria, see themselves as writers or see much value in sharing their unique experiences or knowledge with others. (No, you needn't have done it. Just get the facts and quotes from others who did--or observed it--as you would for any other piece.)

As you can imagine, those magazines with travel built into their reason for existing, like Travel Today, buy the most. But so do magazines at the side of travel. I used to sell regularly for RV publications though I can't ever remember being in a moving RV. Skiing magazines, where you must go to exquisite locales to do it. Magazines about cars, cycles, boats, hiking, and so on.

Then the regular magazines, with at least one major article every issue. And the vocational magazines with stories set in other locales, as mentioned earlier: "Plumbing in Poland" pieces.

Alas, newspapers are buying less as they  shrink and others disappear, but most of the bigger ones still carry three or four pieces a week and somebody is writing them.

So don't let anybody tell you that travel is hard to sell. It's the easiest form and it pays the best. The demand is high, people have more leisure time and loose cash then ever before, and they want to know where to go, what to do, and how to stretch that cash as far for as long as they can.

There's more in my Travel Writer's Guide.

Gordon Burgett