The Six-Figure Travel Writer

Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

We’ve been talking in the past few weeks about how the best-paid travel writing gigs are typically not advertised, but you can find them or create them for yourself with some very easy online research.

But my absolute favorite–in terms of the type of writing as well as the pay–type of blogging for travel businesses is hiding in a completely different way. It’s not just that it’s not advertised. You

It’s not just that it’s not advertised. You shouldn’t even be able to tell that freelancers are writing these blog posts at all.

Ghostwriting has received a lot of notoriety when it comes to celebrity books. Especially in politics. Hillary Clinton’s ghostwriter received $120,000 for her tome. Donald Trump’s gives us a unique perspective on our current president.

Even famous art-eests use them, whether in writing or other fields (Leonardo da Vinci was known to use them for the backgrounds of his paintings).

People don’t generally talk so often about ghostblogging (ghost-tweeting, however, has taken on a life of its own). And that’s a shame. Because in the travel industry, a field packed with small businesses, whether family-owned-and-operated food tours, boutique hotels, or concierge travel planners, having a blog that instantly dials prospective customers in to what is unique about these businesses can make or break many sales.

Because a blog in the voice of the owner, sharing that individual’s personal stories about how the business works, how it began, the stories of the other businesses it works with, and how the owner sources new items to bring to customers, can have a fast and profound impact on customers, it’s an easy type of blogging for us freelancers to sell. any small business owners may have already tried and failed to find the time to blog or just pined to have some sort of pulpit to communicate to prospective customers from but couldn’t pull off the technology.

Many small business owners may have already tried and failed to find the time to blog or just pined to have some sort of pulpit to communicate to prospective customers from but couldn’t pull off the technology.

Ghostblogging deals close fast and for much more moola than your run-of-the-mill, out-of-the-box content marketing.

Why?

It sometimes surprises people when I say that I automatically charge more for ghostwriting rather than a bylined post.

The simplest explanation (for the client, primarily) is that because my byline (as in “by Gabi Logan” at the top or bottom) doesn’t appear with the piece, I’m not getting credit for the writing, which has a tangible value in terms of the searchability of my name and what shows up to other clients looking to hire me.

If clients want the piece as work-for-hire, which means they own the words in perpetuity and I’m committing plagiarism if I use them again, or, if they also want me to not even list their company as a client or fill out some other confidentiality agreement that will preclude me from even telling other prospective clients that I wrote the post (i.e. using it as a clip), the price goes up even more. (You can read more about common contract terms and how to negotiate more advantageous options here.)

Join us today at 3:30pm EST / 12:30pm PST for our webinar on Ghost(writ)ing on the Web as a Travel Writer to learn how to break into and thrive in this business area as a travel writer. There are literally millions of businesses you can reach out to for this type of work.

So many small travel businesses, whether tour companies or concierge travel bookers, are built around the judgment and expertise of the owner. A blog showcasing those unique advantages is a no-brainer for these companies to build trust with prospective customers, but the owner rarely has the time–or the writing chops. In this week’s webinar, we’ll unpack the process of creating ghostwritten content for your travel blogging clients.

Register here and you’ll get the replay even if you can’t attend the event. The replay is available to registrants for one week, after which time it is available with transcript and audio files and in our on-demand webinar library.