#98 - How to make money writing travel guides for the internet

- Or why guide book authors should be using their knowledge online. Boost income by writing for the web In tip #70, I attempted to blow the myth that travel writers can't earn money writing for the web out of the water. The portal sites are excellent potential sources of income for individual articles. But the way to make real money writing for the internet is to create your own travel guide site, and turn it into your primary business. Guide book author to online travel guide creator The skill sets for being a guide book author and creating a comprehensive online travel guide are very similar. And with tools such as Google Maps available, there is no reason why travel writers with a wealth of knowledge on a certain destination or subject cannot create themselves a profitable niche on the internet. Examples and further detail I have explained this further in a large post at my other site - Grumpytraveller.com. It's my honest belief that any travel writer can do this, and I know many are in the process of doing so. Mike Gerrard and Donna Dailey at Pacific-Coast-Highway-Travel.com are an excellent example of how it's possible to slowly grow a site. I shall also be discussing this issue on Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/mrdavidwhitley. You can also check out my Australia travel advice guide, AustraliaTravelQuestions.com

#93 – Stay at hotels with free WiFi

Or getting more work done for no extra cost.

Meals for one?
When a travel writer is on the road, the evening can often be the most depressing time. It’s when you have to resort to meals for one, and sitting in a bar trying to strike up conversation with someone.
This is somewhat soul-destroying and – depending on how many drinks you have – can be rather costly.

Writing in the evenings
In recent times, I’ve gone for a change of tack. In destinations where I know I’m not really going to be writing about the nightlife and bars, I’ve taken to using that evening dead space for writing things up.

Fresh in the mind
Inevitably, I’ll be able to write stories up twice as quickly during these evenings as I normally would at home. This is often because the story is fresh in the mind.

In-room internet access
But in doing this, I’ll usually need in-room internet access, just for checking the odd detail. And thus I always try and stay somewhere that provides this.

Looking up maps
It is also useful for planning purposes – with in-room net access, you can check out little details, look up places you’re wanting to get to on Google Maps etc.

Free WiFi
The price of the in-room internet access counts too. Some hotels charge outrageously for this, and it can often make financial sense to pay a couple of dollars/ pounds/ euro/ groats more for a place that offers free WiFi. The cost of the internet otherwise can put 10 - 20% extra on the bill. Besides, offering free WiFi should be encouraged, and I like to give my custom to places that do this.

#67 – Snap up great deals when they’re available

Or the kick up the backside

Covering all costs?
There are some travel writers out there that are too hung up on the idea of making sure that someone else covers all of their costs. They’ll only go somewhere if they know that the tourist board/ hotel/ travel company is paying for everything, including flights.

Part-paying
Personally, I think this is stark raving lunacy. Many of my best articles have come from when I’ve paid for at least part of the trip out of my own pocket. This doesn’t mean I splash money about willy-nilly with no thought given to how I will recoup it, but I am prepared to spend a bit to make a lot.

Buy now, plan later
I work on a general rule that if I can get a flight to a country I’ve not been to before for less than £150 return, I’ll take it. It may be six or nine months down the line, but I can always sort out commissions and tourist board assistance nearer the time

Trip to Cyprus
A good example is my three day trip to Cyprus in June earlier this year. I booked it on Christmas Day 2007 when I saw an absurdly cheap return flight on offer for something like £80. I’d never been there before, fancied a look, and before I knew it, my credit card was out and I’d booked it.

Eight weeks before departure
I didn’t think about it again until about eight weeks before I was due to depart. I then did a bit of research for a few angles I thought would make interesting stories, sent out a few pitches and contacted the tourist board. I ended up with two good commissions, a guide for while I was there, free accommodation and entrance to places I wouldn’t normally be allowed into.

Caribbean in February
Similarly, in February I’m off to the Caribbean for two weeks. I haven’t a clue what I’m going to do there, but a £299 return flight from Manchester to Antigua was too good to turn down. I’ll sort out regional flights, accommodation and commissions nearer the time. I did something similar last year and probably spent about £800 all up – I secured assistance on four of the six islands I visited which kept my costs down. I also ended up getting more than treble that in payment for the resulting articles.

The kick up the backside
Snapping up such deals has more than one effect. Yes, you save money on the ordinary prices, but once you’ve booked, you’re pretty much locked in to doing it. At this point, you stop looking for excuses not to go. You get proactive about reducing your costs whilst on the ground and making money from articles. It acts as that kick up the backside – you’re committed, so you have to make that commitment pay off.

#66 – The alternative to group press trips

Or going solo with tourist board support.

Unsatisfactory compromise
As I have said previously, I don’t tend to go on many group press trips. I find that these trips try too hard to keep everyone happy, and thus end up with a compromise that satisfies nobody. My preference is to go for individual trips, supported by the tourist board or hotel.

Not advertised
So what do I mean by this? Well, these trips are not ones that you’ll see advertised on bulletin boards or travel writer forums. Essentially, they are a case of deciding where you want to go, teeing up a commission or two and then contacting the tourist board.

Contact the tourist board first
Or, if you know the destination would ordinarily be out of your price range, contacting the tourist board first to see if they would be amenable to hosting you while there. If the tourist board indicates that they would be happy to assist with accommodation, guided tours etc, then you can start pitching potential ideas to editors.

Support and commissions
It’s rare that a tourist board will spend money hosting a journalist without a commission, but most will be prepared to offer support to a journalist that will definitely be getting an article about the destination published.

Personalised itineraries
The advantage of doing it this way is that the itineraries will usually be drawn up with only you in mind. They will not be catering to the needs of six other writers and every signed-up member of the local tourism body. You want to research glass-blowing and the micro-brewing scene? Then your trip will be tailored around these aspects, rather than having them inadequately shoe-horned in for a flying visit.

Level of support
The level of support will differ from destination to destination. Some tourist boards will put you up in lavish accommodation, give you public transport cards, a guide, a driver and free entry to anywhere you care to visit. Others will be a lot more stingy. It’s very rare that they will cover flights, however – bear this in mind.

Organisation and pro-activity
This method does take a bit more organisation and pro-activity on the writer’s part, but the pay-off is worth it. There are fewer of the inconveniences and problems associated with group press trips, and the individual experience usually makes for a more genuine article. There’s very little authenticity about being herded round in a bus with a group of other travel writers, after all.

#63 – Getting the commission that seals a press trip

Or looking for angles in the itineraries.

How to get on a press trip
In Tip #60 I explained that the way to get on a press trip (or junket, if we’re being honest) is to secure a commission in advance from a publication that the PR company or tourist board wants coverage in.

Getting the commission
This is a lot easier said than done, especially if you’re seeking the commission from a publication you haven’t worked for before. Most editors don’t like handing out commissions to people they don’t know, especially if they haven’t even been to the destination yet.

Vague press trip invitations
The other problem is that press trip invitations can be incredibly vague. They will often invite you to “explore the history of Snotsville” or “get active in Snotsland’s wonderful Snotty mountains”. If this is the case, the first step should be to e-mail the PR person back and ask what exactly this entails. Respectfully state that you would be interested in the trip, and could potentially secure a commission, but you need more information to pitch to the editor with.

Itinerary or waffle?
One of two things happens here – the good PR people send back an approximated itinerary, with details on each aspect of it. The bad PR people direct you to a website or send you back a whole lot more waffle on the wonders of the area. In other words, they don’t even know themselves what will happen on the trip.

Ones to avoid
Avoid the latter – chances are it’ll end up being a trudge around new hotel developments, and a series of half-arsed tasters of what the region has to offer. If the former, take that information, and hunt for an angle.

Example
If, for example, a whale watching tour is part of the trip, take a look at the company website and try and dig out something unique about the company or the whales in the area. Is the ship’s captain a former whaler who switched to tourism? Are whale numbers in the region rapidly increasing due to protection measures? That is the sort of thing that could be pitched out.

Selection of angles
It may take a little more research than just looking at the itinerary presented, but a good trip should present a selection of possible angles to pitch to editors. Find the angles, pitch them out, hope the editor bites, and then go back to the PR people saying that Publication X has commissioned you to write a story as a result of the trip. As long as the publication in question is one they want coverage in, your place should be secured.

#60 – How to get on a press trip

Or all aboard the travel writer junket express.

Guilty secret
The press trip is the guilty secret of the travel writing world, shamefully acknowledged by a small plug at the bottom of many articles. Many travel stories are a result of the most unauthentic experiences imaginable – a group of journalists being shepherded around on a tight schedule, wined and dined and generally hermetically sealed away from anything the tourist board or resort PR people might not want them to see.

No freebie policy
It is for this reason that quite a few publications will not take any stories based on sponsored or subsidised travel. This is often a manifestly unfair policy, for reasons I will go into another time, but a large proportion of writers rely on press trips to reduce their costs and allow them to see places that they ordinarily wouldn’t get to.

Be all and end all
For a small proportion of travel writers (and again, these are the ones that make me wary of calling myself a travel writer), getting on the press trip is the be all and end all. To them, the nice jollies are the entire point of the profession.

Downsides of the group press trip
Personally, I tend to go on group press trips very rarely. I find that they invariably involve countless visits to mundane hotels, no real opportunity to experience any one product or attraction properly, and they don’t tend to be very productive in terms of producing a series of articles. I enjoy meeting up with other writers, I enjoy the nice meals and wine and I enjoy having to shell out very little money for the whole thing. But professionally, they don’t usually give me what I want.

How to get on a press trip?
But for the travel writer just starting out, one of the great mysteries can be how to get on a press trip in the first place. Quite simple really – get a commission from a publication that the PR people want to get coverage in.

Infuriating PR people
One of the most infuriating things that PR people can do is to send out an e-mail to a wide range of writers, inviting them on a press trip. When you e-mail back to express an interest, it turns out that they were just fishing. It wasn’t an invitation after all – they’re just sending a vague conditional bait out to anyone who might be able to get them coverage in one of three or four publications they are targeting.

Guaranteed publication and the blacklist
And frankly, if you can’t guarantee coverage in one of the publications they’re after, you’re not going on the trip. Personally, I blacklist any PR person that does this – if they want a particular publication, they can send out an e-mail to the staff of that publication.

Obtaining commissions
Others are more up front and don’t disguise the press release as an invitation. This is fine by me; they’re merely saying that there is a press trip on the horizon, and that those who can obtain commissions will be considered for it. And if you can get that commission, then that could be you. It really is that simple – although getting that commission often isn’t.

#35 – Keep your receipts

Or paper means prizes.

What is tax deductable?
I am not even going to begin to start explaining what is tax deductable and what isn’t. I’m no expert on tax, and the only advice I’m prepared to give on that score is to get an accountant in (see Tip 33).
But I do know that it’s worth holding on to as many receipts as humanly possible.

Tax office audit
First of all, without these receipts, you have no evidence that you have spent the money for work purposes. If the tax office chooses to audit you, you are in big trouble if you don’t have anything to show for the items you’ve claimed as tax deductable.

Costs for freelance travel writers
If you’re travelling a lot, writing a lot and working as a full time freelance travel writer, you will inevitable rack up a lot of costs. And many of these will be tax deductable. Some – such as airfares – obviously are when they’re work related, but there are potentially many other things too.

Keep the receipts
I’m not going to give dodgy advice as to what they are (to be honest, I’ve no real idea when meals, drinks etc count and when they don’t). But I do know that if you keep the receipts and log them, an accountant can tell you which are valid and which are wishful thinking. From experience, you’ll find that a surprising amount are valid, and you can cut your tax bill by a substantial amount.

No receipt = no valid tax deduction
But without the receipts, none of the items that are potentially tax deductable are valid. So, even if it seems a bit silly asking for one after every little transaction, it will be worth it in the long run.

#33 – Use an accountant for doing tax returns

Or outsourcing for freelancers.

Uncomfortable aspects of freelancing
One of the worst parts of being a freelance writer is that you have to do a few tasks that you may not be particularly suited to. Some are uncomfortable with the element of salesmanship. Others struggle with the running a business side of things.

Tax return
I can cope with both, but the one thing I despise is having to do my tax return. It’s just horrendously complicated, and about as much fun as pulling your toenails off with rusty pliers. And if I hate it, I can only imagine how much others do. I like to think of myself as being pretty good at maths (and I’ve got the A-Level certificate to prove it). For those not adept with figures it must be a bloody nightmare.

Pay an accountant to fill in the forms
But one look at those forms makes me whimper like a baby goat faced with a meat cleaver. It’d take me days to plough through them and get them right. And that’s why I prefer to pay my accountant a sizeable sum to do it all for me.

Monetary savings
To me, this makes sense on so many levels. First of all, there’s the monetary savings. My accountant knows exactly what can be claimed (such as depreciation on computers, sustenance expenses whilst on the road, percentages of phone bills). She also knows what questions to ask me about tax deductable items that wouldn’t have even crossed my mind. She saves me a fortune every year – to the tune of thousands of pounds.

Time savings with an accountant
Secondly, she is saving me lots of time. The days that I would otherwise put in making error after error on the forms can be spent writing. I pay £353 a year to get the accounts done. But in the time that I’d take doing the pen-pushing, I can earn £600 - £1,000. Outsourcing has its benefits.But most important is the reduction of mental stress. It’s an incredibly crap job, and it’s done for me. You can’t put a price on that.

Accountancy background
Naturally, some people prefer to do it themselves – particularly if they have an accountancy background (which a surprisingly high amount of freelance travel writers seem to have). But for the majority, I’d say that getting an accountant is the way forward.

#29 – Top travel writer resources: Skyscanner

Or where to look first for cheap flights.

Travel writer freebies
As a travel writer, it is often possible to get a lot of freebies – hotel rooms, restaurant meals, excursions, even the odd airport transfer. But one thing that I’ve always found it hard to blag is the air fare.

Flight costs
Take a lot of flights (which, almost inevitably, any full time travel writer will do), and the costs can ramp up massively.And if you’re going to end up paying for all those flights, then you may as well find the cheapest, cutting your costs as much as possible.

Skyscanner
There are various ways to do this, but one that I find consistently good is Skyscanner. In fact, at times in the past, I have been worried that I may be getting slightly addicted to it.The site certainly has its faults – especially since a recent redesign which has seen an irritating amount of complete inaccuracies creep in – but for cheap flights on budget airlines, it’s hard to beat.

Budget airlines missed by most search engines
Skyscanner tends to cover the airlines that most search engines miss – the likes of Ryanair, Easyjet, Tiger and Jazeera Airways – as well as some downright obscure low cost carriers that only fly a few routes.The real beauty is that you don’t have to give it much information. One of the irritating things about other engines is that you usually have to put dates in and say which airport you want to fly from.

Getting the best deal
Personally, I just want the best deal. For me, there are four or five airports which are roughly as easy as each other to get to – I’ll generally fly from whichever is cheapest and has the most sensible flight times.I’m also very flexible on dates – I’m freelance and I don’t have a nine-to-five job to go to. I don’t need to book leave, so I’ll book for whenever the flights are cheapest.

Date and departure options
With Skyscanner, you don’t need to faff around, constantly tweaking the date and departure options in order to get results. If you want to, you can just put the departure airport as ‘United Kingdom’ and leave the rest open. It’ll come up with every country that can be directly flown to from the United Kingdom, listed by the lowest possible price throughout the year.

Booking on a whim
Obviously, you can narrow these options down if you’re wanting to go somewhere specific in a certain month, but part of the beauty is seeing what options are available. In the past, I’ve just booked to go somewhere on a whim through Skyscanner, purely because I’ve never been there before, it’s cheap and I may as well.

Starting point
It’s not a failsafe tool – as I say, they have really messed the redesign and expansion of the site up – but it’s a great starting point if you’re looking for flight options.

#18 – Expensive destinations on a budget

Or getting money by writing about value for money.

Oslo on a budget
In my tip about looking for the opposite of a destination’s reputation, I gave the example of a story I wrote about doing Oslo on a budget for the Sydney Morning Herald.
The Norwegian capital has a reputation for being very expensive, so I researched a story on how to do the city on a smaller budget: the good value hotels, free attractions, cheap eats, bargain bars etc.

Cheap accommodation from Monaco to Moscow
Of course, it’s not just Oslo that’s expensive, and this is an angle that can be recycled again and again. In fact, I’ve done it numerous times. I’ve done London on a budget, Monaco without breaking the bank, good value deals in Iceland, cheap lodges in Anguilla and reasonably priced accommodation in Moscow.

Good, solid information
To put it simply, readers tend to want to know about this sort of thing. It’s good, solid information that provides a service. And from the editor’s point of view, it’s an interesting angle on a destination that they may have covered quite a lot in the past.

Tourist board assistance
And there’s another positive to this approach as well. Tourist boards in places that have expensive reputations are often dying to put across that they can be done affordably. If you can line up a commission in advance, then it is highly likely that they will be willing to help you out.

Complimentary hotel rooms and free entry to attractions?
They may not pay up for the flight, but they will possibly subsidise your meal and accommodation costs, or give you free entry to some of the relevant attractions. In an expensive destination, this sort of assistance can be invaluable. A complimentary hotel room for a couple of nights can cut your costs dramatically.

Ready-made information
The tourist boards in these destinations also tend to have a wealth of information on accommodation/ things to do for those on a budget. Half your job will be done for you – although if you’re doing things properly, you will check these out in person and get some ideas from other sources too.

#11 – Don’t work for free

Or why if your starting price is nothing, it stays as nothing

Undercutting established professionals
One thing that established writers tend to get angry about is seeing newcomers trying to get themselves established by working for free. Most of this fury is entirely selfish, of course – it means that the established professionals are being undercut. In an industry where outlets are continuingly going under and pay rates rarely – if ever – rise, it’s easy to see where they’re coming from.

No benefit to working for free
But hey, that’s market forces for you. So what if a few noses are put out of joint? Well my argument about not working for free is that, with the exception of doing work experience at a publication, there is absolutely no benefit to it.

The myth of needing clips
Many new writers seem obsessed with getting ‘clips’ - published articles that they can show to other editors to prove that they can write. This is madness. Editors really couldn’t care less about where else you’ve been published. And frankly, if that clip is from a publication that is based on getting free copy, then they’re probably more likely to look negatively upon it.

Send the article
If an editor likes an article, he or she will buy it, irrespective of previous experience. My first ever freelance article was published in a magazine that paid good rates and it’s one that many established writers are dying to crack but haven’t managed. Same goes for my second regular publication. I have heard similar stories from many other writers.
The clips are meaningless. The best way to prove you can write is to send the article.

Setting your price at zero
The other main reason not to write for free is not that it drives down prices for everyone else (although that, of course, is bad from my standpoint). In purely selfish terms, from your own point of view, it’s that offering work for free sets your price at zero. It’s very hard to go back to a publication and say: “Seeing as you got that one for free, would you like to buy one from me at the normal price?”

Get the going rate
It’s not going to work – your value is zero from then on with that publication. And if the piece is good enough, believe me, the editor will buy it at the going rate.

#10. Think long-term gain when assessing trip profitability

Or why travelling pays back over time.

Don’t expect immediate results
Following on from the previous tip – doing some travelling is the best way to find travel stories – it’s important not to expect immediate results. What can seem like an unprofitable trip at first can end up making you more than enough money to cover the costs in the long run.

Cologne to Amsterdam, July 2006
For an example, I’ll take the first trip I did after turning freelance. It was entirely self-funded at a cost of around £500/ EUR650/ US$950/ AU$1100. I flew into Cologne, and back from Amsterdam, utilising cheap flights, and I travelled between them by train, stopping at Bonn, Aachen and Brussels on the way.

Selling stories
It didn’t take long to sell a story each on Brussels and Amsterdam – about £400 worth of income – but for the rest I struggled. Then suddenly, six months later, someone bought pieces on Cologne and Bonn. Over time, I managed to sell a second Brussels story, a revamped Bonn story and a second Amsterdam story. In the end, it turned out to be massively profitable.
I also got an acceptance for a feature on Aachen, but I won’t hold my breath on ever seeing it printed – the editor has had it for two years and now the subject matter is out of date.

Round-up articles as well as destination-based stories
But it wasn’t just these destination-based stories that ended up making the trip worthwhile. The experiences came in handy a long way down the line – particularly in round-up articles. For example, I never managed to sell a story purely on the Carolus Thermen in Aachen, but it did spark the idea for a piece on Europe’s strangest spas two years later.

Chips and mayonnaise?
Similarly, eating chips and mayonnaise in Amsterdam turned into a piece on Europe’s worst food (and Amsterdam crept into Europe’s most overrated cities for that matter). Going to Beethoven’s birthplace in Bonn turned into a piece on musical pilgrimage sites, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve used Brussels’ Mini Europe park and the Delirium Café in round-up pieces.

Re-using material
I didn’t realise it at the time, but I got so much material out of that trip. I’ve taken out snippets here and there, and re-used bits that I included in the straight destination pieces for other angles elsewhere.

Trips pay over time
Yet if I’d looked at it within a couple of months of getting back, I’d have said I made a loss and it wasn’t worth doing. That’s an easy trap to fall into. The profitability of these trips isn’t always immediate – they pay over time, both in terms of selling the features you first thought of and sparking ideas for other features at a later date.