How Confident Do You Feel Writing Short?
For the large subset of travel writers who come from blogging, specifically writing on their own blogs without someone overseeing the writing or editorial direction, 1,000-word articles don’t inspire trepidation. They write 1,000-word blog posts all the time!
But as you spend more time reading magazine articles, you’ll very quickly find that a 100-word magazine article tends to have as much information as a 1,000-word blog post simply because in print, space is at a premium.
Every block of text could potentially be replaced by an advertisement (and this is often what happens when your story gets killed last minute!).
The Dream Buffet is Served!
If one-on-one coaching is not for you where you are right now because:
- you’re still in a full-time job in a different industry and don’t have a solid timeline for making the jump into freelance travel writing;
- you’re still getting your bearings in terms of what you want to do with travel writing (brand storytelling! meaty features! blog posts for destinations! well-paid trend pieces about your latest stop in a year-long nomadic journey after quitting your job! so many choices!);
- you would love to have the one-on-one attention by financially can’t swing that investment right now; or
- you’re working on your travel writing alongside several other interests, such as yoga teaching training, cooking for retreats in exotic locations, WWOOFing, or a developed blog that is a serious time commitment;
but you want a constant source of answers to your travel writing questions, whether an in-depth lesson from our webinars, an instant script or tactic for dealing with a tricky editor or client situation, or a quick answer to the perennial question “where should a pitch this story?”, we bring you the Dream Buffet.
Did We Become a Travel Blog? What is All of This About Points and Miles?
This week, we’ve got a special webinar double header week since I was out with the flu last week, and we’re also doing a very different mini-series.
We’ve looked in the past at a lot of facets of free travel that are specific to travel writers:
- Setting Up Sponsored Travel 101: How free travel really works for travel writers.
- How to Set Up an Individual Trip From Scratch: The ne plus ultra of press trips are the ones you design yourself.
- Getting a Spot on a Group Press Trip or Fam: Cracking the code for getting offers and acceptances for scheduled group press trips.
- Putting Together a Pitch Portfolio to Support a Big Trip: The simple secret to landing a spot on any press trip you’re interested in.
- What to Expect on Press Trips: What you can realistically expect from your press trips–the good and the bad.
- How to Prepare for Your Press Trip: What you get out of a press trip depends largely on what you put in.
- How to Get the Most (on the Ground) Out of Your Press Trips: Getting on a free trip is the easiest part. Leaving with saleable ideas is the real challenge.
But this week we’re talking about a totally different way to travel for free: trips you book yourself…but don’t pay for.
That’s the real dream, right?
Our Last Holiday Special Offer…An Opportunity to Be the First to Access Our Newest Way to View All Our Resources: Webinars, the Travel Magazine Database, and Our Q&A Library for Coaching Students
Today’s holiday trivia: While king’s cake or Gateau des Rois has becoming associated with North and South American Mardi Gras festivities, it was originally consumed on Twelfth Night, the last day of the 12 days of Christmas. Each cake, or pudding in the case of Britain, had a bean or charm baked in. Whoever found it–assuming they didn’t choke on it–was said to be blessed with good luck for the year ahead.
We’ve let you know for months this was coming, and now it’s finally here!
If your circumstances–time-wise, financial, or just not being ready quite yet to pull the trigger and dive headlong into travel writing–make it so that our coaching programs aren’t the best option for you right now, but you follow our webinars and new magazines in the Travel Magazine Database, we’ve got something that might be just what you need for where you are right now.
A Two-Week Getaway with Food and Accommodations for $299–Seriously? Seriously!
Today’s holiday trivia: In many Asian traditions, odd numbers are lucky, and Japan is no exception. The 11th marks the festival of Kagami Biraki, which means “opening the mirror,” and implies the end of a period of abstinence. The celebration began with the samurai in the 15th century and continues in the judo martial art tradition today, as well as in private homes, to whack open sake barrels with wooden mallets, drink the sake from specially made square wooden cups, and break upon and share a mochi (traditional japanese rice and red bean sweet).
Ever since we laid our eyes on what is now our 3,400-square-foot writing retreat in the Catskills, we knew it had to be used for one thing: a place for writers, editors, bloggers, and other creatives to come and do deep work, like…
- finishing a first draft of a book
- editing a documentary
- processing a huge batch of photos from a trip you’ve just wrapped up
- banging out an entire month’s worth of blog posts
- finishing some big feature assignments
- recording a series of videos for your audience
- writing the materials for a course you’re planning to launch
Had Your Eye on One of Our Retreats? They’re Now on Sale in Our Holiday Specials!
Please note: this offer is quantity limited.
Today’s holiday trivia: Today’s holiday trivia: Every January in Benin, preparations begin for the celebration on the 10th of the Fête du Vodoun. Ouidah, a small village and former slave port, is the center of the largest celebration, which brings priests and revelries from all corners of the world, particularly France and other former colonies. The festival is not for the feint of heart—the throats of sacrificial animals are ripped out by priests with their teeth and some attendees in a frenzy cut themselves with knives and pour local gin on the wounds—but Zangbeto masquerades, live music, emotional dance performances, and free-flowing local gin are accessible to visitors.
We promised it was on its way, and here it finally is!
If there’s an event you’ve already go your eye on, scroll down and grab it before it fills up. We’ve also got two brand new events available for registration through this deal that haven’t yet opened to the public, the first chance to register for our fall TravelContentCon.
Wondering Why Your Pitches Aren’t Getting Responses? We’ve Got Your Answer Right Here
Today’s holiday trivia: Thought the exact observed date changes every year, January 9 is the first day for the celebration of Hōonkō, one of Japanese Jodo Shinshu Buddhism religion’s major festivals in honor of the passing of its founder7 As the name of the festival translates to “return of gratitude” and “to clarify the meaning of” or “gathering,” temples typically open their services to all, including non-Buddhists, and temples offer the shōjin ryōri or monastery cuisine, which consists of dozens of simple yet creative variations of basic ingredients from tofu and wheat to herbs and vegetables.
In our webinars, retreats, and online pitching programs, I frequently talk about putting my “editor hat” on.
I don’t usually mean these literally–as in “it’s time to edit your work!” I actually mean that it’s time for some very tough love that you rarely get to hear: exactly what an editor would think if your pitch rolled into their inbox without warning.
This is an incredibly important process for writers who are stuck on their pitches (in yesterday’s offer, I mentioned a writer who has attended our Pitchapalooza event who is now landing $1 per word assignments because of “aha” moments like this). But it is also very unlikely to happen to most writers for the simple fact that they aren’t sitting there, pitching editors in person, seeing their responses in real time.
If You’ve Been Waiting to Make the Leap into Travel Writing, The Job Market is Clear: Now is the Time
When I started to put down the list of travel writing jobs this week, I was absolutely shocked.
While everyone has been getting back into the swing of things during rentrée (the charming French term for reintegrating after a vacation), companies all of the world and in all portions of the travel industry have been starting in on their plans for 2018, and they require hiring a lot of travel writers.
Don’t believe me?
This week, we found 46 new travel writing jobs between Monday, January 1, and Monday, January 8, 2018. (Most weeks we have between five and 15.)
We typically only share our list of travel writing jobs, while we pull together from all corners of the internet, out network, and various whispers, with out newsletter. But we were so impressed by the overwhelming leap in the listings this week that we wanted to share it more widely.
Read More
Test Drive A Personalized Selection of Magazine Breakdowns from the Travel Magazine Database Today for Just $5
Today’s holiday trivia: On January 8, Bulgarians celebrate the feast of Babinden. A female-focused affair, the event dates back to pre-Christian times and honors children, mothers, grandmothers, and childbirth as all babies born in the previous year are anointed with honey and butter, and young mothers bring the favorite traditional Bulgarian cream-filled pastry, banitsa, along with new clothes to their midwives.
I recently received an elated email from our of our readers and past retreat attendees about an upcoming assignment.
It’s her first $1 per word piece, and it’s for a national publication that is a household name even outside of the U.S.
In the past months since she joined us for our Pitchapalooza retreat, I’ve seen an enormous change in her confidence as she’s lined up recurring gig after recurring gig, allowing her to cut out her non-freelance writing work and have the time and space to move into pitching magazines.
But this was an enormous achievement to have just six months into buckling down on her freelance travel writing career coming from a completely different line of work without clips to speak of.
For Today’s Holiday Special, We’ve Put Together a Package of One-of-One Support to Completely Transform You as a Travel Writer in an Incredible One-Time Special
Today’s holiday trivia: It seems like we’ve totally missed the mark on Christmas by running our 12-day special a week late this year, but today is actually the official Christmas Day in more thank 15 countries, including Greece, Egypt, Russia, Ethiopia, Greece, and Bulgaria. These countries follow the Ancient Roman Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar. Russian Christmas is marked with a 12-course dinner centered on fish in honor of the 12 apostles, while Greeks use a sprig of basil rather than the European and American fir tree.
People often ask me which of our retreats is my favorite.
They’re all so different–from the people to the programs–that I say it’s like the favorite child dilemma.
But since our first week-long Freelance Travel Writing Bootcamp, I have to say, there is a certain child that I favor. Having the opportunity to spend a week together digging in and making deep progress throughout the week felt special on its own, but the last 24 hours of the retreat were what sealed it for me.