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Thanks to Cheryl McLaughlin for letting us know that Kevin Smokler’s BookTour.com is closing. We hope Kevin leaves his excellent ten-part series (“Everything you Wanted to Know about Book Promotion but were Afraid to Ask”) on the web as he moves on to other projects (his next book!)

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.

 

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.

In Full Sail University’s New Media Journalism program, “your curriculum combines principles of traditional journalism with the newest advances in communication technology … learn how to enhance your narratives  through multimedia content, distribute stories  across digital delivery platforms, and use social  media to engage with audiences.”

Specialized courses include:

• Writing for Interactive Media
• Multimedia Development & Editing
• Mobile Technology and Communications
• Online Community Engagement
• PR and Reputation Management

Accredited, looks interesting.

Phyllis Stoller extends an invitation to qualified journalists, bloggers who cover spas, and women’s lifestyle and budget travel writers for two press trips to the Ixtapan Spa Hotel and golf Resort in Mexico. Dates are October 18-22 or Nov 18-23, 2010.

“Ixtapan Spa Hotel and Golf Resort, spamexico.com, is located 65 miles SW of Mexico City and 35 miles from Toluca, Mexico in the mountain village of Ixtapan de la Sal. It is a 220-room spa and fitness resort known for value and inclusiveness. We have been featured in budget travel, spa, women’s lifestyle and fitness press.  Read more... (248 words, estimated 1:0 mins reading time)

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!

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.

Here’s a blog post listing 10 publications for your travel writing; it includes contact and submission info, current as of early July, 2010.

Here’s a press release from Conran PR that’s an example of inspired marketing: an author and a resort have teamed up to offer a themed “package” experience in the Caribbean. I hope the promotion is a big success:

Create A “Foodoir”  Of Your Own at Cap Maison
“The Spice Necklace Experience” Package  Read more... (322 words, 1 image, estimated 1:17 mins reading time)

Thanks to Lee Foster for explaining the economics of selling mobile applications compared with selling (traditional, paper) books in his article, Apps – the Future of Travel Journalism? Here’s an excerpt:

“Royalty rates for authors of apps are much higher than for authors of books, and for good reason. The deal is that I get 30% of the gross income from my $1.99 app sale, or 60 cents. I am told that this is roughly typical of the app world—30% each to the author, developer, and Apple store, with 10% going to admin. For my book, I have a 15% of net rate, which is good and possibly a little high. So, for selling two apps for $3.98, I get $1.19. For a sale of my $14.95 book, my royalty is 15% net, and the book will probably be discounted 55% to sell on Amazon or through a distributor. My royalty for that sale is $1.01.”

March 15, 2010

BootsnAll is looking for for travel writers. Apply by March 15:

We’re excited to launch the BootsnAll Travel Writer platform — a partnership with passionate travel writers to create expert-driven content on your favorite destinations and topics.

BootsnAll Travel Writer Current Opportunities:

* Destinations: Amsterdam, Australia, France, Hawaii, Indonesia, Ireland, Las Vegas, London, Mexico, South Africa, or you tell us!
* Themes: Adventure Travel, Business Travel, Round the World Travel, TEFL, Travel Gear or you tell us!

How It Works:  Read more... (231 words, 1 image, estimated 55 secs reading time)

The Voluntary Traveler “is a travel anthology penned by writers from all over the world. Focused on inspiring volunteer vacations and/or encouraging adventure-minded people to see volunteer work as a part of ones longer journey, the book will also include a volunteer guide section, listing charities needing volunteer assistance, plus organizations that coordinate service orientated travel.”

What a great idea! Join their Facebook page, buy the book, tell your friends.

Here’s a link to Examiner.com author Erin Van Rheenen’s article (follow the link for the entire article, posted October 27) with a tip on how to get paid to blog:

“AOL Travel is hiring Travel Bloggers in around 25 different cities and areas, including Las Vegas, New York, Rome, Amsterdam, and San Francisco. You need to live in the destination you’ll be writing about, have writing experience and insider knowledge of your beat, and be able to churn out a few posts a day (150 – 300 words each). Pay starts at $15/post.”

Lots of us are blogging these days, and many of us are not certain why we are doing it. Scott Rosenberg spoke at the last Left Coast Writers Literary Salon from his new book, Say Everything, about the history of blogging (which is ten years old, in its current form!). Reviewers call the book “elegantly accessible” and “certain to be a classic.”

Scott also provided some insight into the future of blogging. Here are some of my notes from his talk:

One of the reasons blogging is important is because writing in public—blogging—helps us develop ideas. [Blogging is a particularly good medium for that because of its immediacy and democracy.]

What defines a blog?
Generally, it’s 1) personal, it 2) has lots of outbound links, and 3) the latest post is on “top.” (No interminable internal editorial meetings to determine which story will be the lead.)

Is blogging going to go away?
No.

Is it going to change?  Read more... (376 words, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

If you missed Tim Cahill in conversation with Don George at the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference last week, you can catch up with this FORA.tv link. It took a long time to load, and I had to watch a 12-second commercial for Charmin Ultra Soft tissue before the main feature began, but after that it was excellent.

The whole video is an hour and twenty minutes, but it’s conveniently split up into about 30 shorter clips that are each only a few minutes long.

Here’s a link to an article on Matador by Lauren Quinn, written after she attended my favorite travel writing conference, the (18th annual) Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographs Conference.

Lauren writes, “Two days later, my brain is still buzzing with ideas, inspiration and information. As I’ve been catching up on sleep and attempting to sort it all out, these are the top 5 lessons that have floated to the top, the froth of the golden brew.” (Use the link above for the rest of the article.)

October 4, 2009
10:00 am	to	5:00 pm

Lisa Alpine and Carla King are offering a seminar on self-publishing from 10:00 – 5:00 on Sunday, October 4th, 2009, at Fort Mason Center.

Here’s the scoop:

“You’ll learn everything you need to know to do it yourself:  Read more... (152 words, estimated 36 secs reading time)

• What the various POD printers, online services, and distribution companies do (and don’t do) for you
• How to outsource: book design, mailing list management, blogs, and other essential tasks
• What to watch out for when using POD “subsidy” publishers
• Options for distribution and fulfillment
• How to use your eBook to sell your print book

Laurie McAndish King’s article about quirky and helpful websites for travelers originally appeared in Examiner.com in April:

Travel fares are temptingly low these days, but all travel is not equal. Here are some websites to help you find the best seats and meals, avoid dangerous destinations, stay healthy, comply with travel regulations, get through airport lines more quickly, purchase travel insurance, and more.

• Airlinemeals.net is the “world’s first website about nothing but airline food,” which is currently displaying “more than 17,000 photos from more than 520 different airlines. Monthly, we receive 300 new meal pictures.” There are also photos of what the airline crew eats, food from airline lounges, and behind-the-scenes photos from airline caterers.  Read more... (1106 words, estimated 4:25 mins reading time)

Dick Jordan’s Contra Costa Times article about the Bay Model is a good example of seeing local hidden gems as attractions worthy of travel articles. And check out his Blogspot website, Tales Told from the Road, which does a great job of incorporating Facebook, Twitter, a photo slideshow, and an RSS feed. Nice work, Dick.

Thanks to Arvis Northrup for telling me about Trazzler.com, which uses “virtual teleportation” to place you “emotionally into specific moments and locales all over the planet.”

What I think is most interesting about Trazzler is that, as a travel writer, you can submit a short post to Trazzler that links to your longer articles elsewhere on the web, and thus drive traffic to your other articles. In fact, Trazzler encourages this: “You are always free to republish anything that you submit to Trazzler or to submit previously published (copyright-friendly) material that is edited to fit Trazzler’s style. Published Trazzler trips always come with a prominent credit/byline for the author, appear on a profile that you can customize, and look professional, so please feel free to use them to promote yourself and your writing.”  Read more... (303 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

Thanks to Cheryl McLaughlin for this link to a demo video on Scobleizer.com to a way-cool service (free to small-time bloggers) called Apture, which “makes it easy to add contextual images, videos, reference guides, links, maps, music, news, documents and books to your blog to create a connected media experience that keeps readers engaged on your site.”

By the way, I can’t think of a better way to get up to speed on “new media” than by picking Cheryl’s brain.

Polldaddy.com is a free service that lets you create and administer polls and surveys by embedding them into a post or article. Sounds like a useful tool for people who want to develop online communities. You can change the appearance of the poll, integrate the poll into your WordPress blog (I didn’t use the WordPress-specific function here), include images and video in your poll, subscribe to the results of the poll in an RSS feed, set survey response paths using conditional branching, create custom start and finish pages, and more.

To see how it works, answer this poll:

Travel writer Linda Ballou offers beginning travel writers a free e-book called How to Make Travel Writing Work for You. Linda explains, “My report is written to those who are not going to try to make a living at travel writing, but just want to get around to places they couldn’t get to otherwise.”

Get the free report by providing your name and email address at Linda’s website, after which the PDF download will appear. And while you’re there, check out Linda’s book, Wai-nanai, High Chiefess of Hawai’i.

These three “inexpensive customisable photography sites” are recommended by the British Guild of Travel Writers:

IFP3 Advanced Photo Websites
Create Your Own Website. Be Live in 5 minutes.

* Unlimited Images, Pages and Galleries
* Easily Sell Your Images
* No Credit Card Needed for trial
* No Fees or Commissions on Sales
* Full Search Feature Integrated into Your Site
* No Set Up Fees – & Hosting is Included

SiteWelder
Our simple and intuitive interface makes SiteWelder easy-to-use for computer novices and experts alike. with the Site manager it’s easy to upload photos, create galleries, make Flash slideshows, and edit text on pages. No computer programming required!  Read more... (214 words, estimated 51 secs reading time)

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