Dear Reader,
If you’re not hitting your G.E. Spot, chances are you’re trying too hard. It’s not difficult to find... but a lot of people pass it by.
I’m referring to marketing guru Dan Kennedy’s “Good Enough Spot.”
Last week at AWAI’s Copywriting Bootcamp, Dan made the point that money doesn’t automatically follow skill. No matter how good you get at something, you won’t profit from it until you sell it.
And with travel writing, there’s a point at which your story is, well, good enough.
Write the story. Edit it. And proofread it. Make sure it fits in with the publication you’re targeting. But once you’ve done that -- and you’re pleased with the result – don’t sit on it and stew over it and rework ten more times. Call it good enough and send it in.
Earlier this year, Lori (our Travel Division Director) talked about something similar, called “Accelerated Failure.” The idea is that you shouldn’t be afraid to fail. In fact, failing over and over is what eventually makes you successful. Here’s the article she wrote, with a few tips for getting started when you’re in that Good Enough Spot.
All week, we’ve talked about techniques for selling more articles.
First, we went over how to super-target your articles to make them ultra-saleable.
Then, we talked about how to grab and keep an editor’s gnat-like attention span.
Now you know that once you have those two things down, your article is probably good enough... and you should send it in to an editor.
So what’s the next step? Tomorrow, I’ll send you your last tip in this Selling More Stories Series. It’s on what to do to keep your article sales flowing.
-- Bonnie
Bonnie Caton
AWAI Travel Division
P.S. If your stories are good enough to get published, but you don’t know what to do next, get all of the guidance you need to take the next step with the Ultimate Travel Writer’s Workshop-At-Home package. It comes with recordings of the live workshop sessions, so you can listen to freelance writers Jennifer Stevens and Steenie Harvey, along with writer and travel editor at the Denver Post, Kyle Wagner, among others, as they reveal their hard-earned tips and techniques to show you how to take your travel stories from good idea to sold article... so you can immediately start earning a nice side-income from your travels.
