Freelance
Writers' Series
Career & Business Development Help
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You may be hired to write a
travel guide even on a topic that is already well covered. Just look at
the section on Italy, where my books The Italy Guide and The
Rome Guide, are located. That section is swamped with entries. I am
constantly amazed that my books even get noticed. But they do, to the tune
of thousands of copies sold every year. The same could happen to you.
There are more than 350 travel
guide publishers, so if you want to write or update a travel guide, there
are plenty of opportunities.
Getting Hired to Write a New
Guide Andy Herbach and his partner
Michael Dillon came up with the idea for a series of pocket-sized
guidebooks to help travelers translate foreign language menus more easily.
The idea came from their own experiences. They had difficulty translating
menus despite their proficiency in Spanish and French, and realized that
others would as well. So combining their skills –
Andy’s the writer and Michael’s the graphic designer – they created the
Eating & Drinking series of guidebooks, which have been a rousing success.
If you are ever going to a Spanish, French or Italian speaking country,
pick up one of their books. It can make you less apprehensive at meals,
and allow you to enjoy them more. Basically what they did to get
published is what every prospective author can do when they have an idea
for a book, whether it is a travel guide or not. They did their homework,
created a powerful proposal, and got hired.
The following four steps will
help get your own travel guide published:
1. Create a list of
travel publishers 2. Create your proposal
material 3. Contact the
publishers by sending them your proposal material
4. Once hired, start
writing the book As you can see from these steps,
just as in attempting to get published in a periodical, it is best to do
all your homework up front, pitch the idea, and only after getting hired
to start writing your travel guide. It worked well for Andy and Michael,
it worked for me, it can work for you too. In the sections that follow you
will find out where to get contact information for publishers, and how to
prepare a proposal.
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