Edited by Lori Appling in Washington D.C.
"The only place where success comes before work is a dictionary." -- Vidal SassoonToday:
- A Warning About Stock Agencies... Plus, How to Get $500 off Our Next (Unadvertised) Live Event
- Bangers and Mash, Bubble and Squeak, and Spotted Dick: How to Get an Editor's Attention
- The Ultimate Holiday Photo Guide: 83 Quick Tips for Taking the Best Holiday Photographs Ever
- This Week's Featured Travel Publication: Lifeline Magazine
- More Opportunities and Resources for Writers
* Highly Recommended*
EAVESDROP ON THE TRAVEL SECRETS OF THE PROS
Tele-Seminar for Travel Lovers: How to Make a Six-Figure Income Traveling the World
After several friendly battles about "who had enjoyed the best and most vacations," five savvy travelers finally agreed to meet -- for the first time ever -- on December 13, 2005 at 8PM ET... to discuss the three tools they use to consistently fund and profit from their vacations.
In the past, people have paid $1,597 to hear these travelers speak, and learn their secrets for mastering just one of these travel tools. But, today, you're invited to discover their secrets for mastering all three of these tools... for less than $20. You'll learn:How to make a six-figure income as a traveler, living anywhere you want in the world... How to get pampered in paradise, then profit from it... How to make $12,600 on a four-day trip... Why your hometown is a $700/day goldmine if you know these secrets... and more...
For more information about The Fund Your Vacations Tele-seminar, click here for details: http://www.thetravelwriterslife.com/call
Dear Reader,
This week's mailbag includes an interesting question...
"I found a perfect place to upload photos for a stock company," the reader writes. "Then I learned you had to pay $96 a year before they would sell them in public. Is this normal? They paid you 85% if sold, but if none were sold, you were paying just to have them on the webpage. I can't imagine waiting a year and yet paying the fee."
Hmmm. Sounds like a scam to me. Here's what B. Howard, author of AWAI's photography course, Turn Your Pictures into Cash (http://www.thephotographerslife.com/ph2/website), said...
"I absolutely would not recommend this type of stock agency. No reputable stock agency I know charges an annual fee. They operate on a commission basis -- so if you win, they win, and that's how it should be. I imagine this company has no marketing strategy whatsoever. They are in business only to make fees out of the millions of people who are willing to pay to have their pictures listed in the forlorn hope that they might sell one or two.
"Believe me when I tell you -- they will not work to sell a single one of your pictures and you will be out $95. My agency doesn't charge me a dime, and they do a huge amount of work -- cataloging, captions, maintaining, marketing and on, and on, and on. This is little more -- no, it's the same -- as vanity publishing a book. Tell your readers to stay away from this type of agency, please."
Let me add, too, that you simply needn't bother with companies like this -- not when there are stock-agency services that genuinely work on your behalf and only make a buck when you do (most stock agencies make their money from commissions).
If you don't yet have enough photos in your library to approach one of the big guns, start with some of the online agencies we mentioned in issue #89 in our archives (www.thetravelwriterslife.com). They may even prove to be just as (if not more) lucrative than the ones that require you submit 200 perfect photos to apply for representation (see issue #91 in our e-letter archives).
Now, back to travel writing...
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 (the Mail on Sunday is Great Britain's most popular tabloid newspaper), Writer's Digest, TWA Ambassador magazine, American Geographic magazine, the Boston Herald, the Detroit Free-Press, the Anchorage Times, and many more...
And he has earned as much as $2,000-$3,000 for a single article-photo package.
I've asked B. Howard to be part of a special roundtable I'm hosting on December 13, 2005 at 8PM ET -- a live teleconference I'd like to invite you to sit in on. You'll also hear from Jennifer Stevens, author of AWAI's Ultimate Travel Writer's Course (http://www.thetravelwriterslife.com/kp/website)...photographer and co-author of Turn Your Pictures into Cash, Rich Wagner... freelance travel writer and photographer David Morgan... and import/export entrepreneur, Reece Guth.
Combine the secrets each of them employs to consistently fund and profit from their travels, and you'll not only know how to make your vacations pay for themselves... but how you can make $100,000 or more a year as you explore the world like a VIP.
For more details and a seat at the table so you, too, can listen in, visit: http://www.thetravelwriterslife.com/call
Attendees at this teleconference roundtable will get a coupon for $500off our upcoming live event, which will focus on the same three travel tools -- travel writing, photography, and import/export. (If you can't make the call this coming Tuesday you should still sign up. Audio recordings will be available online for download, and you'll still get the $500 coupon).
On to today's article...
Editor Tom Schueneman sent me today's feature, which he penned afterhaving attended a seminar on copywriting. "Travel writers can learn a lot from copywriters," he said. "I wish more of your readers would head this advice when they send an article my way."
Many of our readers have landed their first bylines in Tom's ezine, TheTraveler. If you've got an article for Tom, you'll find his writer's guidelines online at www.touristtravel.com -- just be sure to read his article below before you send him anything. After all, the biggest mistake you can make as a new writer is to ignore an editor's advice.
I hope you have a great weekend.
And, as always, remember to keep me up-to-speed on your success. If you have good news to share, send me a quick note at lori@thetravelwriterslife.com.
-- Lori
Lori Appling
Director, AWAI's Travel Division
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
*Highly Recommended*
The Ultimate Holiday Photo Guide: 83 Quick Tips for Taking the Best Holiday Photographs Ever
Even an untrained photographer -- an amateur, who's only taken snapshots at birthday parties -- can learn how to take amazing pictures in just 23 short minutes.
Learn to snap expert-quality family portraits and transform standard-issue Thanksgiving dinner shots into pictures you'll pass down from generation to generation...
Opportunities like this only come once a year. Don't wait and letanother holiday pass by with only average snapshots to show for it.
Click here to learn more:http://www.thephotographerslife.com/holiday
TWO FAMOUS COPYWRITING TRICKS YOU CAN USE TO GET AN EDITOR'S ATTENTION By Tom Schueneman, Editor, The Traveler in San Francisco, CA
I'm writing from Florida City, near the southeast entrance to Everglades National Park, where I'll spend the day exploring before I move on down through the Florida Keys.
This next week I get to do what I love -- explore new places, write down my thoughts, take photos, and then assemble it all for future publication in my ezine, The Traveler.
I just returned from AWAI's Copywriting Bootcamp, and this is the first time in days I've actually had a moment to sit down and write.
While that program focused on copywriting (the art of writing marketing sales copy), I was struck by how much of what the experts shared makes sense in travel writing, too.
As an editor of a travel publication, I cull through dozens of submissions a week. I wish more of them employed, in particular, two very smart copywriting techniques articulated at this conference.
Before I divulge them, I want to point out two fundamentals I think every freelancer should keep in mind:
As a travel writer, your job involves selling: an idea, a destination, a point of view. If nothing else, you're selling your own voice -- selling the reader on listening to what you have to say.
Also, as a freelance writer, you're in business. And to be successful in business, you need to sell something. Remember that as you prepare your next query letter. You've got sell the editor on your idea.
Now, that said, let me move on to the two copywriting techniques I think are most important to travel writing -- and will improve not only your writing, but your ability to sell it.
COPYWRITING RULE #1: Know Your Audience
You've heard this time and again in this e-letter, but it's so important, I think it bears repeating. You've got to know who your audience is to make a connection with them. At the very least, you must be familiar with the look and tone of a publication as well as its submission guidelines.
But it goes deeper than that. Think about the readers, the men and women opening up the magazine or newspaper. Who are they? Picture them in your mind. Are you writing to a middle-aged man? A twenty-something woman? What makes these readers tick?
I critique travel articles for students, and when they submit their work, they are asked to define their target audience. Often I get statements like, "Adults that love the outdoors." I am an adult who loves the outdoors. But does that mean I am the same as all other adults who "love the outdoors?" Hardly.
A more targeted audience definition is one that's more specific. For example: "adult males over forty who enjoy hiking and nature photography." Now you have a much better idea about who you're writing to. And that means you can craft a more compelling article for that audience.
The more precise a sense you have for the audience you are writing to, the more effective your writing will be, and the happier you'll make not only your editor, but your readers.
COPYWRITING RULE #2: Find Your USP
A USP is a "unique selling proposition." Translated into travel-writer lingo, I think of this as the "Big Idea." It's your unique angle, what sets your article apart from the rest.
Developing a compelling and truly unique USP is not easy. But it is critical. Few places in this world haven't been written about before. And editors find themselves flooded with articles about all the same things to see and do in all the same popular tourist destinations.
It's imperative that you come up with a fresh angle that will draw people into your article and make them want to read on to the end.
The USP is similar to the "promise" or theme that a good travel writer will develop in his or her lead. But it also goes a little deeper than that. A well-crafted USP informs every sentence that you write. When you keep a unique angle in mind as you write, you'll find your article is more focused and more energized.
I recently published an article in The Traveler called "Speaking Easy: Understanding British Pub Menus." This was, ostensibly, an article about British cuisine, the premise being that many people think British food is terrible.
The author takes a humorous approach to her subject. And her USP is that she goes through a typical British Pub menu and describes items like "Bangers and Mash," "Bubble and Squeak," and "Spotted Dick."
By the time you read through to the end, you have a good notion of what makes a typical British dish, and you think that, in fact, maybe the food isn't so bad after all -- if you're prepared for it, that is.
That article was the most widely read in the issue it appeared in, and that's because the author had come up with an excellent USP - a unique angle that sucked the reader in and carried him through to the end.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Tom Schueneman is editor of The Traveler, an online publication at: http://www.touristtravel.com. He regularly publishes articles written by readers of this e-letter. You'll find his complete writer's guidelines at his website.
With the holidays in full swing, and summer travel deals not too far behind, this is far and away the best time to get your new sideline or full-time career off the ground.
Click here to take a quick peek at the many benefits of travel writing:
http://www.thetravelwriterslife.com/kp/website
Click here to learn more about photography:
http://www.thephotographerslife.com/ph2/website]
* Advertisement*
THE TAX YEAR'S NEARLY OVER - ARE YOU TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE TAX SAVINGS YOU'RE ENTITLED TO?
Especially designed with Freelancers in mind - Find out where you can save... what the IRS really needs to know... how to make the most of those deductions for travel, meals, entertainment, home office, and more... including practical worksheets you can use to make sure you don't overpay Uncle Sam.
You'll find The Writer's Tax Guide: A Money-Saving Manual for Travel Writers and Other Freelancers here: http://www.thetravelwriterslife.com/tax/website
THIS WEEK'S FEATURED TRAVEL PUBLICATION
Lifeline Magazine, a magazine for members of Overeaters Anonymous, does publish travel pieces. Articles should be limited to 500 words andshould link to the experience of members. Members of OA will be givenpreference in publishing. Send articles to infor@overeatersanonymous.org.Visit http://www.oa.org/lifeline_writers.html for the complete guidelines.
OPPORTUNITIES AND RESOURCES FOR WRITERS:
BECOME AN INSTANT "MEXICO INSIDER" -- learn why Mexico is the #1 destination for Americans who move overseas. Claim your 5 free reports at: http://www.agora-inc.com/reports/MPI/WMPIF9MT/
CAN YOU WRITE A SIMPLE LETTER? If yes, you could be in big demand, earning big money, writing just a few hours a day from anywhere in the world you choose to be. Here's how you can learn the secrets of this little-known, lucrative business:http://www.thewriterslife.com/ph/tw89
FIND OUT WHY PEOPLE CONTINUE TO FLOCK TO PANAMA -- the world's #1 retirement haven for the 5th straight year: http://www.agora-inc.com/reports/PPI/WPPIFAPT/
THE AWAI FORUM FOR TRAVEL WRITERS -- You'll find this excellent online resource at: www.thetravelwriterslife.com/forums . It's a place to get answers to your questions, discuss your story ideas, find readers to review your articles, and stay connected to a community of writers.
RETIRE...AND GET PAID TO TRAVEL -- Get the details and your free report at: http://www.thetravelwriterslife.com/kp/website
DOUBLE YOUR RETIREMENT RESOURCES and live as though you had twice the income...discover a world of opportunity in International Living's free eletter, "Postcards" at http://www.internationalliving.com/opt/tw/index.html
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF WRITING -- Learn how to find the best story ideas and places to publish them...how and when to follow up with an editor...what you need to know about buying rights, contracts, and agreements...how to use syndication to increase your exposure and boost your earnings...and more. You'll find "The Business of Writing Guide: A Practical Guide for Travel Writers (and Other Freelancers) Ready to Turn Words into Profits" here: http://www.thetravelwriterslife.com/biz/website
The Write Way to Travel is a FREE weekly newsletter from the American Writers & Artists Institute, available to AWAI students and friends.
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