Edited by Lori Appling (finally back) in Bethany Beach, DE

"Check to see if you any words out." -- Unknown

Today:

• To Paris and Back: A Few Words about Our Most Successful Students
• Let Us Help You Double Your Travel Writing Success
• Who's Responsible For Fact-Checking? 3 Steps for Getting (And Keeping) Your Facts Straight
• This Week's Featured Travel Publication: Birdwatcher's Digest
• More Opportunities and Resources for Writers

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Dear Reader,

Paris was amazing.

I just returned home from our first-ever Travel Photography Workshop. I'm exhausted, behind in my housework, behind in my office work, and on some kind of strange eating-and-sleeping clock. I have no food in the fridge, no stamps left to pay the bills, and more than a dozen errands to run. But … I'm grinning from ear to ear.

I've never seen anything like it… a 100% success rate.

Everybody left Paris with sellable photographs. Everyone from the teacher who showed up with a $200, 3.0 mega-pixel camera to the experienced photographer who admitted after the very first night's sessions that he had just learned more about composition from our lead instructor, Rich Wagner, than he had in all the university-level photo courses he'd taken.

In four days, we led our attendees, quite literally, all over Paris.

We traipsed to the top of Montmarte… down the Champs-Elysees… through the Marais… across the Luxembourg Gardens… to famous cafes -- Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots… around the Louvre… down the Seine… through Les Passage… around the Palais Royal…

We traveled on the Metro 12 times, braved the streets in taxis, and floated through the canals by boat.

We didn't sleep much. One attendee wore a pedometer and reported that we walked, on average, seven miles a day.

We saw more of Paris in four days than I saw in the eight months I lived there last year.

And each attendee (read that: every single one of them) came away with an opportunity to get four photo credits (bylines if you will) from four very different publications… as well as the means to sell their best photos to stock agencies, text-book publishers, galleries, and more.

If you missed David Morgan's daily reports on these four days, I strongly encourage you to read them. They're archived on our website at www.thetravelwriterslife.com. In them you'll find some of the very same photo tips our attendees picked up from our expert instructors, B. Howard and Rich… yours, free.

I'm reminded, too, that this show-them-how-to-do-it and teach-them-how-to-make-money-at-it approach is what makes all the AWAI workshops so great. It's why our workshop graduates are so successful in such great numbers. Quite simply, they boast more bylines and cash more pay checks.

I'm always getting "I did it!" emails from past attendees writing in from Thailand, Costa Rica, Mexico, Argentina, Hawaii, New York, San Francisco, Malta, South Africa, and beyond…

Before the year is out, I'd like to count you among that group of hot-shot travel writers.

This summer, you can make it happen. We're hosting our last Ultimate Travel Writer's Workshop of the year in New York City, July 21-24, 2005 -- and it's going to be our biggest event ever.

It'll be the last time our panel of experts -- Jen Stevens, John Forde and Steenie Harvey are together again until 2006. But more importantly, we've invited a collection of fantastic guest speakers to join us in New York. You'll hear from --

• Vivian Lewis, the editor and founder of Global Investing, a monthly newsletter for Americans seeking to internationalize their portfolios. But finance isn't Vivian's only specialty. For many years she acted as International Living's Editorial Director, and for three decades now she has been writing about destinations the world over. She lived in Europe for 18 years and speaks half a dozen languages. This July she'll talk about what critical elements distinguish a truly fabulous travel article from one that'll simply get lost in the slush pile.
• Stan Sinberg will join us in New York as well. A freelancer with nearly 20 years of experience as a professional writer, Stan's by-line has appeared in MAD magazine, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, and elsewhere. He specializes in lifestyle, travel, and humor pieces, and he'll speak about how to make sure your "humorous" pieces really are funny. Travel editors like a lively voice… a little personality. Stan will give you the tricks for providing just the right dash in your articles.
• B. Howard has sold more than 600 articles and 3,000 photographs to publications like Delta's Sky magazine, Golf Illustrated, British Heritage, the Daily Mail Sunday Edition, Writer's Digest, TWA Ambassador magazine, the Boston Herald, the Anchorage Times, and many more. He's the principal architect of AWAI's Turn Your Pictures into Cash: A Comprehensive Course in Taking and Selling Amazing Photographs. He'll speak this July in New York about the easiest articles to sell and resell and how to put together an "article-photo package" that can double or even triple your earnings.
• Rich Wagner who was our lead instructor at our photo workshop last week in Paris, will be on hand, too. He got an early start in photography and has worked with cameras -- both professionally and as a hobby -- ever since. His images show in private and public galleries all over the world. This summer in New York, he'll give you some hands-on tips for taking stunning, sellable photographs with a digital camera.

And you'll hear from additional guest speakers as well…

Plus, we've added a whole host of new, advanced sessions, which make this the ideal workshop for past attendees to attend.

And that's not all. We're also hosting a writer's cocktail one evening. It'll be the perfect chance to talk one-on-one with our panel of experts as well as other professional writers and editors, to ask any questions you may have -- and get them answered.

You'd be surprised at how many gems get passed along in casual conversation… how rubbing elbows with the experts really can help elevate your own status from amateur to pro.

Join us in Manhattan for four days this July, and you will walk away knowing how to take VIP vacations... get invited to stay at the best resorts without spending a penny... and get your name and articles published everywhere -- from local newspapers to the world’s most prestigious travel magazines.

Attend our workshop next month, and you will have the rest of the summer, autumn, and winter to enjoy the world on your terms. For all the details visit: http://www.thetravelwriterslife.com/workshop

Plus -- I almost forgot to mention -- if you sign up before June 17, 2005, you save $300. And if you've attended one of our workshops before, you're entitled to an additional $100 discount. Click here for the full story: http://www.thetravelwriterslife.com/workshop

I hope I'll see you in New York!

In other news, a reader writes with a very good question: "Last January I wrote a piece about summer theatre that included a travel planner. The piece was scheduled to appear in May. Come May I thought, 'I wonder if the travel planner I submitted with the article in January is up to date for all the little theatres, and packages?'

"I checked a couple, and there were changes. So I contacted everyone on the planner again. Was it my responsibility to do this after the piece had been accepted? Or was it up to the editor to fact check? The editor expressed pleasure that I had taken the time to do this, but the principle bothers me."

I asked freelance travel writer and editor, Robert Beach Jacobson, for her advice. You'll find her answers below.

Don't forget to keep me up-to-speed on your travel-writing success. If you have a story to share, send me a quick note at lori@thetravelwriterslife.com.

Have a great week,

-- Lori

Lori Appling
Director, AWAI's Travel Writer Program

P.S. Know a friend or two who'd enjoy the freedom and independence of a writer's life? They, too, can sign up to receive this free e-letter weekly at: http://www.thetravelwriterslife.com/eletter

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WHO'S RESPONSIBLE FOR FACT-CHECKING? 3 STEPS FOR GETTING (AND KEEPING) YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT

by freelance travel writer and editor, Roberta Beach Jacobson, in Karpathos, Greece

I was assigned to cover a small island for a weekly newspaper. It was the sort of tranquil spot you'd go to get away from it all. You'd swim, fish, or hike. There wasn't much there beyond pebble beaches to help me reach my 1400 words -- just a museum, a tourist shop, two grocery stores, plus a row of restaurants, cafes, and pensions.

The museum would figure greatly into my report, or that was my plan. I found the door locked. A posted sign said it would remain closed for renovations until September.

I could include only a passing mention of the closed museum in my article, stating it might open again in September. I added the museum's telephone number. Bad news for my article, no?

In a way, I consider myself lucky. I found out it was closed in time to change the focus of my writing. Of course, I scrambled around to fill those few hundred words.

How can a freelancer ever be prepared for the surprises in travel writing?

BEFORE YOUR TRIP

Research as much as you can, not relying on just the Internet. You aren't certain how up-to-date or accurate some Webpages are. Buy travel books. Contact tourist boards and get their attention. Ask travel-type businesses for brochures.

Mention press, press, press. Public relations (PR) folks, no matter if from a hotel chain or a cruise liner, will love sharing their promotional material with you. Once they see a few of your articles in print, they'll turn into your cheering squad.

WHILE YOU'RE THERE

As travel writer Jennifer Stevens advises, "Make sure you have your facts right."

Accuracy is a must for any travel article. You'll be taking notes (put dates on those pages), and possibly photos, too. You can try using a cassette recorder to sum up each day's activities and observations -- if that sort of thing works for you.

You'll be asking questions to anybody and everybody along the way, and interviewing those who can move your story along. Trust me, anybody in the travel industry will be impressed to hear you're a travel writer and might drum up some business for them.

AFTER THE TRIP

You've worked hard on perfecting your masterpiece and you've double-checked your facts.

The anecdotes the editor is expecting from you are woven throughout your article.

You've met your deadline, but worries set in soon after you've submitted your completed article.

You read in the newspaper about a fire in one of the hotels recommended in your article. Not to mention the area had serious flooding weeks after you were there. Or an earthquake. Anything is possible.

Are you responsible for alerting your editor? Yes and no. It depends on the degree of trouble in your story.

If the publication has a fact-checker, you can certainly mention major updates to her when she calls or e-mails. Let her know that Hotel XYZ burned down and that the city's main highway has jumbo cracks because of the recent flooding/earthquake.

If there is no fact-checker, a heads-up note to the editor should suffice. It'll be up the editor if any changes are incorporated into your story.

However, don't lose sleep about the minor stuff. Don't pester your editor. If some of the restaurants you liked have raised their prices by 5% since you ate there, so what? With lead times to publication being what they are (a few months to a year), it's rare for an article to reflect the current situation the particular day the magazine hits the stands. Think how most travel guidebooks run a disclaimer in small print about how they can't be held accountable should the traveler experience something different.

You just have to let your story, your baby, go. You've done your best and you told the truth. The details were correct when you pushed "send" on the computer. After that, you are no longer in control. The editor is.

[Roberta's travel articles have been published in Travel Smart, Transitions Abroad, The Educated Traveler, International Living, The Athens News, The International Railway Traveler and JustSayGo.com. She has contributed to travel books by Lonely Planet, Survival Books, and Travelers' Tales.]

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