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After getting tired of hearing the question, “What’s the best book on becoming a travel writer?” and not being able to give an answer I was satisfied with, I went and wrote one myself. Then I wrote a second edition years later after the first one did well. It’s just now on the virtual shelves. Presenting Travel Writing 2.0: Earning money from your travels in the new media landscape. Links to buy it are here.
You see, it’s not that the book I would recommend before is a bad one. Lonely Planet’s Travel Writing book is full of great advice and was edited by Don George, a respected writer and editor whose history includes important positions at the San Francisco Chronicle and Lonely Planet books. If you’re aspiring to get good at writing long narrative articles for magazines, there”s no better guide out there. It’ll surely make you a better writer and help you get a base hit more often with your query letters to editors.
The problem is, the print world is in major trouble, so most of the old advice from that book and the others on the subject is becoming less useful every month. Sure, you can still make decent money as a print writer pitching magazines over and over, but that’s a tough slog if you’re just starting out and it’s a path that doesn’t have a good long-term future I’m afraid. (For newspapers, it’s already over except at a select few still publishing original content from freelancers.)
On the other hand, web outlets don’t pay as much as their print counterparts because most are not making nearly the same level of revenue. So Travel Writing 2.0 addresses the pros and cons of every route in this transition period we are in right now. Some old paths are closing, some new ones are opening up all the time.
The best part is, I have a great network of people I could tap to crowdsource this book and make it truly representative of the whole array of travel writing types out there. It’s not just my opinionated advice you’ll hear, but also advice from 52 writers and a selection of editors and publishers too.
So, if’ you want to pursue this field and become a pro travel writer, get better at it, or get the perfect gift for your aspiring traveler/writer friend, follow this link to buy Travel Writing 2.0. You can get it at all the usual e-book suspects like Kobo and Kindle, plus there’s a paperback version too at Amazon.
Since 2010 I’ve been running an active blog at TravelWriting2.com with longer interviews from working writers and editors. You’ll find years of great advice there for succeeding as a blogger, freelance travel writer, or author. I’ve been doing it myself for around a decade now, supporting a family of three, so don’t let anyone tell you it can’t be done.
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