Burgett_travel_writing

Want to write a travel podcast, receive $150, and get royalties too?

We're on the brink of opening a new website called www.visualtraveltours.com that will be a boon to travel writers eager to share copy and photos about their favorite travel sites. I'm the executive editor and will be looking for 2,000 actual programs to sell worldwide.

Rather than give the details twice, check the site mentioned in the next couple of days to see if this interests you. If it does, click through to Provider Island and see what I need in a query letter to open the "go-ahead" gate! There are good bonuses for the first 100 programs and for the better known sites in the U.S. and abroad...

Hope to hear from you soon.

Gordon Burgett

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

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

   

 

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

Who buys travel articles at the newspaper?

Usually one of two editors, but if the piece has a travel base, say cooking in Cancun, you can try the other section editors, like food in this example.

The travel editor handles most articles and related shorts (under 1,000 words). To see the volume bought, check the issue on "travel day," usually Sunday, sometimes a week day. If they buy a full piece (usually written by the editor or another editor they know) that may run as long as 3,000 or more words and use both color and b/w photos. Sometimes they also buy "seconds," two or three pieces from 1,000-1,600 words. (I've found 1,200-1,350 words a good submission length.) One b/w photo usually accompanies them. You have a far better chance submitting seconds, and telling of the photos you can send, if interested. 

If the paper has a Sunday magazine (sometimes this comes out on Thursday), much more common in the Midwest and East, that too almost always includes the occasional longer travel pieces. These are almost always regional in focus, the site written about within 100 miles of the newspaper. Ask about length and if all photos are in color.

The most sensible way to tell who the editors are is to check the newspaper's website. Google it and search for "newspaper+city+state." If it doesn't give names, either the paper has no travel or magazine section or you just mail your copy to "travel editor" or "magazine editor." You can complete your address list by seeing who responds.

I go into this more fully in the Travel Writer's Guide or at my travel seminars, mostly given in California. But this will get you pointed the right way.

Want to hear other writers talk about writing?

This diverges from the usual travel writing info I share in my blogs, but I was doing the usual publisher check-up to see if my books are available at the digital bookstores and I stumbled upon an interesting feature at barnesandnoble.com, under "Meet the Writers."

It's a chance to hear writers (alas, almost all are fiction and mystery writers) talk about the trade. In the podcast section, for example, I heard Terry Brooks for about 10 minutes describe how he has matured in the sci-fi field. And in the video short (about four minutes) I heard and saw a funny piece with Alan Alda. Just good stuff, inspirational, and it reaffirms that writing is a special kind of magic. It also shows how little the genre matters: it's all that blank sheet of paper with a million words trying to get on. You're the gatekeeper, and what results is your choice.

Is it hard to get these to play? Do you need special techie set-ups? I didn't. I just pushed the link and both played through my Windows Media Player. (iTunes works the same way.) No need to subscribe, either: just hear/see what interests you. Then if you like it, subscribe!

It was a good break and a self-directed way to talk with a fellow tradesperson.

Does anybody know if there's a similar outlet to hear/see travel writers?

Should I register as a writer when visiting a foreign country?

I never have when I was anywhere abroad for a short visit (under 2-3 weeks) just to freelance, mainly because it creates new hoops you must jump through when you leave. Those vary to filling out another form to needing a statement of clearance from the police. Sometimes they also require you to register in a different locale within 24 hours, so they can watch you, I guess.

The only time it was ever an issue was when Paraguay threw out the dictator, Stroessner, and "opened up the borders." I came a week later and the ever-vigilant Paraguayan police found my note taking and camera use excessive. But when I spoke Spanish to them and told them what a great opportunity it was to visit their country at last, and I wanted to share everything with folks back home, they didn't probe farther. (But I'm certain I was followed for two weeks. I just wish the guy had helped carry my pack!)

It never prevented me from getting key interviews either (five times with presidents in South America), so I think if you stay out of trouble, just do your business, and avoid anything unduly inflamatory or sensitive, you are fine.

If I did get in trouble? I'd contact the cultural attache of a nearby U.S. embassy or consulate. They are your friends, and they deal directly with U.S. journalists (which means they are also great finding hard-to-get maps, like in Paraguay, or getting difficult interviews).

See more about planning the travel writing trip abroad in my book, the Travel Writer's Guide.

Where do you find the first words in your travel article?

When I started offering travel writing seminars about 25 years ago, I was set back by this question. Yet it persists and is even more frequent now. So let me try to answer essentially too broad a question by defining it differently.

A travel article, as all articles, begins with a lead, which "leads"--it's the opening statement that tells what you are writing about (and why the reader should want to read more). Keep it short, a sentence or two, and make it "jump" with something interesting, informative, amusing, shocking, or just different.

But it also has to logically tie into what you will describe or explain in the many paragraphs that follow, so it can't just be bizarre or goofy. Plus is has to show some mastery of the language. It should at least be spellled wright!

What I do is gather up all the material at hand and figure out in my mind what is the purpose of the piece, then write it in a sentence. (Well, I think it in a sentence.) And that tells me the nail the leads hangs on. What it must address.

If I'm on the Island of Blink and the locals are renowned for being red-headed giants (meaning tall people), I will very likely describe a very tall, red-headed Blinker doing or saying something different. Or a group of Blinkers having to crouch under trees to hunt or gather. Or the marriage of a lofty Blinker with a regular-sized mate and the fun or problems that provokes...all in a couple of sentences.

The next sentence (and paragraph) might be the transitional paragraph, like "Being too tall and having too much red hair is a particular problem on the Island of Blink, near ______ ."

Then I will develop that theme in paragraph three, and so on, until the reader has a good feeling for the issue, the people, maybe relevant research, perhaps how migration is changing the demography--whatever else adheres to the subject and makes the editor want my words and insight in front of his or her readers. Accuracy is the norm; good writing, your tool of trade.

So I think the answer is found by working in reverse, from the bulk of facts to that core of singularity. The first words aren't the issue, rather the purpose of those words. Once found and stated, everything else falls in place. And if it doesn't, go back and adjust the lead and the transitional praragraph (or two) until it does.

My book, the Travel Writer's Guide, explains more about this. It's all part of the magic of wordsmithing. You can design that magic by choosing well the first words you share.

Gordon Burgett