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In their quest to blanket the world with superior apps, Sutro Media is looking for expert authors for the following European destinations. If you’re an expert on any of these areas, get in touch with acquisitions editor Kim Grant.

England: Most regions (but specifically Cornwall, Devon, Kent, Cambridge, Oxford, Yorkshire, Bristol); London.

Wales: Cardiff.

Scotland: general country guide, and Glasgow.

Ireland: general country guide, and Dublin, Belfast, County Cork, County Wicklow, County Galway, County Kerry, Northern Ireland.

Norway: general country guide, and Oslo, Bergen, fjords.

Sweden: general country guide, and Stockholm.

Finland: general country guide, and Helsinki.  Read more... (238 words, estimated 57 secs reading time)

Thanks to travel writer Dick Jordan (Tales Told from the Road) for his review of the App Happy class Suzanne Rodriguez and I (Laurie McAndish King) taught for people who want to develop and market their own mobile travel apps. We developed so much content for the class that we’re nearly finished with an an e-book on the same topic.

 

Salon.com co-founder and New York Times Book Review contributor Laura Miller wrote in March about about the swirling milieu that is publishing…

“Last week, the book world saw a particularly symmetrical bit of revolving door ballet as Amanda Hocking — who famously became a millionaire by selling a series of paranormal romance novels as self-published e-books — signed a contract with an old-fashioned publishing house, while the bestselling thriller author Barry Eisler walked away from a similar deal, preferring to self-publish his next book. Did I mention it was the same publisher (St. Martin’s Press) in both cases? Like I said: symmetrical.”  Read more... (111 words, estimated 27 secs reading time)

Lisa Morton’s PIRATES! Or, How to Protect Your Intellectual Property on the High Seas of the Internet provides advice for tracking and dealing with unauthorized reproduction of work you’ve published online.

Here’s a short from the Wall Street Journal, which likes Don George’s Trip Lit column for National Geographic Traveler. Well, who wouldn’t like it? Great books and incisive reviews by a legendary travel writer and editor.

Congratulations to the winners, including the Bay Area’s own Michael Shapiro, who took the bronze and $500 for “Beneath the Rim,” his engaging account of following in the paddle-strokes of John Wesley Powell on a journey through the Grand Canyon.

I enjoyed Laura Fraser’s talk at Bay Area Travel Writers on Saturday—especially her suggestion about writing regular “sensory postcards” as an exercise in paying attention to our surroundings and writing regularly.

Laura’s latest book is All Over the Map, in which she “tangos in Buenos Aires, seeks wisdom from an Amazonian shaman, heads off into the wilderness on Outward Bound, goes on a ten-day meditation retreat, interviews sex-trafficked women in Italy, and reports on the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda.”

I met Teresa LeYung Ryan at the Bay Area Travel Writers meeting on Saturday, and had a few minutes to look through her 100-page workbook, Build Your Writers’ Platform & Fanbase in 22 Days: Attract Agents, Editors, Publishers, Readers, and media Attention NOW. It looks like a good resource; let me know what you think if you’ve read/used it.

Through a special agreement with more than 800 newspapers worldwide, the Washington, DC Newseum displays the front pages of newspapers from around the world each day on its website. The front pages are in their original, unedited form.

Thanks to John Montgomery (Montgomery Photographic) for the link.

“For the media, this is a Tom Sawyer moment. “Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” he says to his friends, and sure enough, they are soon lined up for the privilege of doing his chores. That’s a bit like how social networks get built. (Just imagine if Tom had also schooled them in the networking opportunities of the user-generated endeavor: “You’re not just painting a fence. You’re building an audience around your personal brand.”)”

Read the rest of this Feb 14 New York Times article about crowd-sourced journalism.  Read more... (132 words, 1 image, estimated 32 secs reading time)

Here’s a heartening post by Lara Dunston—a travel writer who has developed and negotiated a unique editorial relationship and is not starving!

The new mobile guide to San Francisco’s waterfront, San Francisco Waterfront: Bridge to Ballpark, is now available on iTunes. Travel writer Suzanne Rodriguez and I (Laurie McAndish King) co-developed it, and we both enjoyed the process immensely.

The app runs on Apple iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads, and is a witty guide packed with history, photos, and information about the best things to see and do along San Francisco’s waterfront.

Please tell your friends (shameless self promotion, here we go), and consider downloading a few copies; it’s an excellent holiday gift for friends and colleagues: smart, fun, high-quality, relevant, well-written, easy to give, and inexpensive (just $2.99).

I enjoyed Gregory Dicum’s December 1st New York Times article about literature as sustenance in San Francisco. It is, and yeah, that’s why we love this city.

Booklist gave Li Miao Lovett’s book a starred review, calling it a powerful first novel.

“China is all around us, from the clothes and furniture we buy to the food we eat. Yet much of the culture is still a mystery. In the Lap of the Gods sheds light on modern China through the story of a widower and the baby girl he rescues from the Yangtze.”

Check it out by reading an excerpt from In the Lap of the Gods.

Acclaim for In the Lap of the Gods:

“A moving farewell to the old, more humane way of life.”
~ Maxine Hong Kingston  Read more... (144 words, 2 images, estimated 35 secs reading time)

December 31, 2010

Samsonite Luggage is giving away a “Luxury trip for two to China and a set of xSpace luggage” in celebration of the company’s 100th birthday. Visit the Samsonite website and enter by December 31st.

Discover Ireland is giving away a customized “$5,000 dream vacation to Ireland.” You have to become a Facebook fan in order to enter (interesting marketing idea), but hey—how hard is that to do?

December 1, 2010

Congratulations to Michael Shapiro, winner of the Travel Classics West 2009 Writers Contest for Best Travel Story on Arizona. Michael’s story, “Beneath the Rim: A Journey Down the Colorado River with John Wesley Powell,” won him a 2-night stay at Arizona Biltmore’s new Ocatilla “hotel-within-a-hotel” in Phoenix, plus a spa treatment of his choice, and dinner at the Biltmore’s Frank and Albert’s restaurant.

The next Travel Classics contest, Best Travel Story on Quebec, will be open to attendees of Travel Classics Quebec 2010. Contest deadline is December 1, 2010. Prize includes airfare, accommodations and rental car for four days in Quebec and Montreal.  Read more... (106 words, 1 image, estimated 25 secs reading time)

Karen Misuraca’s new iPhone/iPodTouch/iPad app, California Coast North, has been released by Sutro Media. From beaches to historical sites, restaurants to lodgings, parks, events, recreation and more, this is the ultimate guide to daytripping and vacations along the world-famous coastline. More than 200 detailed listings with Google maps and 1,700 color photos. $2.99 (with free updates for life!). Check out the new app and post a review here.

Laurie Weed wrote the October cover story “Baja’s Backcountry” for Highways magazine, with photography by Jak Wonderly.

“For a taste of our recent Mexican adventures-by-camper-van, check out the October issue of Highways. We spent several happy days exploring the Sierra de la Laguna biosphere in Baja del Sur. This article maps out easy trails to our favorite oases: a 30-foot waterfall, a series of deep green pools at the bottom of a gorge, and an arroyo that rambles through a wide, shallow canyon.”

You can register for a free guest pass to read the full article online.

Even if you missed TBEX (Travel Blog Exchange) in New York a couple of months ago, you can still feel the fun reading Don George’s  Five things I learned at TBEX. Hint: Don’s eternal good humor and optimism shine through, and yes, blog posts can transport.

TBEX [20]10 was sold out. TBEX11 will be in Vancouver, BC, on the weekend of June 11-12. Preregistration is sold out; regular tickets will be released on September 5th.

Suzie Rodriguez and I (Laurie McAndish King) are developing an iPhone app about the San Francisco Waterfront. We’re having great fun doing this “work” as we write about some of our favorite places and discover hidden gems. One of my favorites so far is the public amphitheater pictured here; it’s made from recycled automobile hoods!

We expect the app to be available in a month or so; in the meantime, here’s a link to the Facebook page we set up to let people know what we’re up to and gather ideas about the best places to include. We’d sure appreciate it if you’d visit the page and “like” us. Thanks!

Thanks to Ed Hasbrouck for letting us know about the upcoming Travel Bloggers Show in Orlando, September 11-14, as well as TBEX11, which will be in Vancouver, BC, on the weekend of June 11-12, 2011 (tickets will be released on September 5th).

Ed will be giving two presentations (I’d love to hear both!) in Orlando: “one session for travel bloggers on Working with travel marketers and p.r. agencies, and a reciprocal session for travel agencies, suppliers, and p.r. agencies on How to work with travel bloggers.”

From Saul Tarasoff at GPS My City: We’re about to launch a new travel article section on our website and are willing to pay authors $50 apiece for quality articles outlining the use of smart phone travel apps.

How is it that the country of Bhutan came to have a Gross National Happiness Commission? What is happiness, how do they measure it, and what do they do to make their people happier? Hear answers from Karma Tshiteem, Secretary of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Commission.

August 12, 2010 12:00 am

to

August 15, 2010 12:00 am

Time to make your plans for the 19th Annual Book Passage Travel, Food, & Photography Conference. It promises to be better than ever this year, with inclusion of food writing classes and panels, as well as expert advice and instruction for travel writers and photographers. The conference runs from August 12 to 15, 2010. Call Book Passage in Corte Madera (800-999-7909, ext. 239) for more information or to register.

From the website:

The Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference covers  Read more... (228 words, 1 image, estimated 55 secs reading time)

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