All Posts Tagged: marketing
Do You Diversify Your Travel Writing Client Portfolio Like a Wall Street Bada$$?
A couple years back, at a special workshop before a large travel writing conference, a relatively well-known travel blogger made a surprising confession that really struck me.
She said she doesn’t think of herself as a “real” writer.
To Niche or Not to Niche: What’s the Best Way to Freelance Travel Writing Success?
A lot of the prevailing advice to the soon-to-be-self-employed is to pick a niche and brand yourself heavily in that area. Proponents say,
“Who’s going to hire a freelance travel writer with no experience besides her own personal travels? You have to do something and be known for something so incredibly specific that when people really need exactly that skill, they come to you.”
But what new freelance travel writers respond with, very validly, is:
“Okay, but who is going to hire me for that incredible specific thing right now? I need enough clients to earn an income now, not just later when I become famous for my super specific niche.”
How Can You Tell Which Editor to Pitch at a Travel Magazine?
When I talk to freelance travel writers about their biggest issues in pitching a lot of people talk about the difficulty in finding the right editor to pitch.
Writers fear that if they send a stellar pitch to the wrong editor it will get deleted, simply because of irrelevance, before they even get their chance to shine and sell their idea and their writing abilities.
How to Get Yourself an Ongoing Travel Writing Gig This Week
Before we launch into how, exactly, to set yourself up with a steady stream of travel writing work, I want to look at some reasons why having a recurring travel writing job is so, so important. Especially for people who are either:
- just starting out as travel writers
- struggling to have a sustainable travel writing income even after many months or years at it (and with a healthy pile of clips to their names)
How Much Can You Really Make as a Travel Writer?
In my post on three ways to earn six figures as a travel writer, I looked at three different paths for earning six figures as a travel writer based on your interests (workwise, not travel-wise) and the type of work that best fits your schedule, motivations and work talents.
But I know the idea of earning $100,000 a year from travel writing seems both far away and a bit preposterous to many folks who are just starting out and trying to figure out how to even earn their first $1 from something they’ve written.
9 Resources for Pitching Freelance Articles that Will Change Your Writing Career Forever
When I started down this path many years ago, there were no blogs really wholly dedicated to the business side of travel writing, as in pitching, working with editors, the ins and outs of press trips, and so I turned to more general blogs on freelance writing to see how it should be done.
How 10 Travel Writers Parlay Micro Niches into Major Assignments
Earlier this week, we talked about:
- how having other interests besides travel can give you a leg up breaking into travel writing
- why it’s important to write about those interests in a travel-related context, not just for magazines in those fields
- how easy it is to look at your own life and see what interests you can already mine
Today, I want to widen your view of what these travel research interests can be. We are looking at 10 real, working travel writers who aren’t the Tim Cahills or the folks who have necessarily written books on how to be a travel writer. They are just regular people who work with their stable of editors, pay their mortgages, and make a solid living travel writing.
Can You Break into Travel Writing Faster Through Other Interests?
When I first started learning about how one goes about actually making a career as a travel writer, ten years ago, I quickly noticed something that both surprised and disheartened me:
All of the people who called themselves “travel writers” actually wrote about other things. In fact, many write about other things most of the time.
There was the woman who taught my 8-week Mediabistro bootcamp on how to be a travel writer. She primarily wrote about technology. You could actually call her more of an aspiring travel writer, honestly.
A Simple, Crazy Successful Way to Start Making $2k (Minimum) This Month as a Travel Writer
One aspect of the typical travel writer’s life is that not every bit of work is a web or magazine article (or something related to one).
I could give you dozens of examples of “every day” working travel writers’ additional income streams (the sample breakdowns of six-figure travel writing incomes are a good place to start), but let’s look at some huge folks who are basically the “giants” of travel writing:
- Don George
- Tim Leffel
- Jeff Greenwald
Don’t Have Travel Writing Work? Why Not?
A freelance business writer and writing coach that I have great respect for, Carol Tice, was appalled when she first started coaching freelance writers by one conversation that she kept having over and over again.