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How To Earn A Free Trip To Europe, San Antonio, Japan, Chicago, France, Miami, Argentina, Oklahoma, Canada, Portland and Other Places Writing Travel Articles
by Phil Philcox
Travel writing sounds like fun. You head off to some exotic location, shoot some photos, take some notes
and when you return you write a travel article that earns enough to cover your expenses and earn you a profit.
The reality is that only a few fortunate writers get to travel on expense-paid adventures and earn enough to
wander around the globe looking for experiences to write about.
But there are magazines that rarely use travel articles but might be interested in you as a 'traveling writer'. If you use your imagination and devote some time to the marketing of your ideas, you can spend a few weeks or a few months in some foreign country or North American city and return with enough pre-sold articles to cover your expenses and even earn a profit.
Give or take a few hundred, there are about 6,500 business trade journals being published in the U.S. and Canada. They're described in detail in Writer's Market and E-Mail Publisher database. These magazines reach readers interesting in everything from running a pet shop to selling TV sets and pizza. What they all have in common is they're in business and all business people want to know how other business people operate. Would a florist in Cleveland be interested in how a florist in Munich or Vienna maintains an inventory without overspending? Would a dry cleaner in New Orleans be interested in how a San Francisco or Rome dry cleaning shop spends their advertising money? Would a print shop owner in Miami like to know how a print shop owner in Tokyo or Chicago prices his print jobs? They certainly would and if you can supply this type of information, there are hundreds of trade journal editors out there who might be willing to give you an assignment.
One editor I called said she often asks regular contributors to tell her about their upcoming travels so she can arrange some out-of-town pieces. "I'd certainly be interested in some profiles of foreign-based businesses or businesses around the country similar to those owned by my readers. For a thousand words and 2-3 good black and white photos, I'd gladly pay $150-$200." Another editor said he'd be interested in articles on U.S.-based businesses only that turn out products like those used by the magazine's readers. "For a really interesting article, I'd pay 15-cents a word and $10 each for three photos and I can supply the writer with the names and addresses of businesses in major cities I'd like profiled. How these businesses operate is of interest to my subscribers and I'd love to have some articles written on how they do it. If the first few articles worked out, I could use one profile article a month on a regular basis." Fifteen cents a word times 1500 words times twelve times a year adds up. If you can produce a 1500 word interview to this editor's liking, you could earn $225 for the article plus $30 for photos ($255) times twelve issues, or $3000 by profiling a dozen businesses. While you're in the neighborhood, write some other articles for other trade magazines on other subjects and you can earn a comfortable living. That all totals out to enough money to get you to where you're going and back and several hundred dollars a day spending money for a couple of weeks. You're a travel writer....and you're almost rich!
Payment for articles at trade journals is usually lower than most consumer magazines, so editors aren't luring in highly-paid writers who can travel around the globe digging up stories and ideas. That's where you fit in. You're that low-paid writer who will skip around the country or overseas uncovering stories if the numbers add up. And they do. Those $100 article payments here and $150 payments there can actually multiply into enough to pay for all your expenses and some extra left over. It's certainly enough to travel in reasonable style paying your way by writing about the experience.
If you think this is your type of writing assignment and adventure, you can begin by contacting trade journals listed in Writer's Market, E-Mail Publisher and other sources. You can query with a letter or by fax, phone or e-mail. Explain you're planning a trip to (wherever) and ask if they'd be interested in profiles of businesses in that area. Toss out some credits if you have them and act like you do this all the time. If they know of some businesses they'd like profiled, they can supply you with names and addresses and you can set up the interview. Assignments like this should warrant a little increase in payment.
Stress the interesting how-they-do-it-there angle and the information you can supply the magazine's readers. As a former editor, I know if I was publishing a small trade journal with a limited budget and a writer called and said they were Europe, Japan, Chicago or South America-bound, willing to write some interviews and profiles and they charged no more than what I paid for local articles, I'd get excited. If you run into an editor not interested, they probably have no imagination and can't see a good idea when it's right there in front of their face, so try other magazines.
Contact an assortment of magazines on different subjects so you can interview different businesses in one city. On a trip to London, for instance, you could profile (among other things) a motorcycle shop, a men's clothing store, a restaurant, a wholesale fish outlet, a garage, an auto parts store, a florist, a print shop, a shoe store, an independently-owned hotel, a TV repair shop, a taxi company, a Laundromat, etc. A mere $100 per article for that list would net you $1300. On a trip to any U.S. or Canadian city, you can do the same.
If you're an experienced interviewer/writer, you can probably write about any business. I have very little experience doing business interviews and no experience writing technical articles, so I would stick to businesses that fall into-for lack of a better word-the 'simple' category. As an example, engineering and management firms, credit agencies, medical offices and medical suppliers, advertising agencies and computer
programming businesses would require too much insider knowledge for me to write about. I couldn't write about how European doctors run their offices or how European environmental businesses sell their services to the government. On the other hand, I could comfortably write about businesses that sell products and services to the general public: pet shops, stationary stores, restaurants, hotels, resorts, fishing equipment, sports stores, clothing stores, etc. Need a list of the types of businesses you might be able to profile? Check the Yellow Pages of your telephone directory.
Use the 'since-I'm-in-the-neighborhood' approach and be reasonable about payment. Most trade journals can't pay that much, so you're offering them a low-cost alternative to a problem they can't afford to solve, plus a unique opportunity to get this type of material. Trade journals I've sold to in the past pay from under-$50 to about $250 for profiles, so you should be able to get at least that, if not a little more. To sweeten the payment pot, offer to include an assortment of profiles the editor can use over six to twelve issues. In most major larger cities, you should have no trouble finding businesses to profile. All big cities have thousands of different businesses, so you could theoretically spend a month in Chicago, Montreal or Paris and come back with enough articles to make you rich (not quite, but you get the idea).
In addition to the national-coverage trade journals, there are lots of regional trade magazines that are good markets. Chances are Florida Cattleman and Livestock is rarely (if ever) read by readers of Tennessee Livestock, so if you know something about the how-to of interviewing farmers and livestock owners, you can sell the same article over and over again. Glancing through Writer's Market and E-Mail Publisher, I found similar overlaps in different fields, including pet shops (Pet Business, Pet Dealer and Pet Product News); restaurants (Florida Restaurateur, Food and Service, Restaurant Digest, Restaurant Hospitality, etc.) Make a list of regional publications for the subjects you plan on covering and that's your key to multiple sales.
Photos are likely to be required, so try to get at least $10 or more per photo. You can ask them to pay for developing costs. I'd offer only black-white unless the editor insisted on color and was willing to pay extra for color. If you're not overly proficient with a 35mm camera, try to learn. If not, get one of those point-and-shoot cameras with wide-angle/telephoto lens ($100-$150) and shoot only exterior shots (window displays, owner standing in front of shop, etc.) You won't have to deal with f-stops and lighting and you can let the camera do all of the work. For black-white, shoot one, 24-exposure roll per interview and you'll have more than enough usable photos for your piece. Have the developers print you a proof sheet (all 24-exposures on one sheet) and either send the proof sheet to the editors and have them circle the photos they can use or edit them yourself and make prints only of the usable photos. For color, shoot 24-exposure slide film, one roll per interview. Slides cost about 15-cents each to develop, so your expenses are minimal. Better still, if you can arrange to send the editors the undeveloped roll and let them do the developing and printing, you can save yourself a lot of work and some money. If you have a portable computer, you can e-mail the article and snail mail the photos directly to the editor from your interview location. If you have a computer at home, you can e-mail the article and scan and e-mail the photos as graphics.
You can decide where you want to travel according to the availability of businesses you can profile. For the first trial run, I'd head for the nearest large city, check into a hotel and thumb through the Yellow Pages. Call some businesses, explain your mission and set up an appointment. Use the name of the publication when you call and if you have an assignment, you can say you're a writer for that magazine. If you go overseas, plan at least a two week trip and try to get as many assignments as you can in advance. If they want you to do it on spec and you think you can do a great job, take the offer but get some commitments so you're not paying for everything yourself. Check with the destination country's tourist office and explain the project. Most have offices in New York City and Los Angeles you can get their telephone numbers from the 212-555-1212 information operator. Ask the tourism people for the names and telephone numbers of contacts at the overseas tourist office and business associations in the cities you plan on visiting. All of these sources can help, providing you with businesses to interview, making appointments and even acting as interpreters. If language is a problem, interview only business owners who speak English.
If you don't know how to write business profiles, ask the editors to supply you with tear sheets of previously published profiles and follow that style. Note what information was covered and put together a questionnaire to use at your interviews. Check other trade journals for profile articles and make a list of the questions those authors asked. If you're new to interviewing and profile writing, drop in on local store, interview the owner, shoot some photos and see what your finished product looks like. If you can find editors to buy these profiles, you've passed the test and you know you can turn out adequate material. If they don't buy it, ask them what's wrong and try again.
Most business owners want to know the effect location has on business,
wholesale-vs.-retail pricing, everyday business practices, how to attract customers, advertising, dealing with suppliers, stocking inventory, hiring personnel, overhead, etc. You could put together a questionnaire that would apply to almost any retail or wholesale business and follow a set format for all of your profile articles. You can include information on the history of owners and how they got into the business, the average price of a sale, the annual sales volume, the busiest times of the years, etc. It's better to come back with too much information than not enough.
Writing is a tough business and in order to earn living, you not only have to write, but you have to know what to write about and come up with ideas other writers have overlooked, then find editors willing to pay you. This trade journal interviewing could open up a whole new writing career. The destination points range from your local town to any of the exotic overseas locations, so you get to travel, hone your writing skills and, best of all, get paid for it.
First assignment: check your Yellow Page directory for some business listings. Pick a couple so you'll have a potential audience (grocery stores, flower shops, auto supply stores, etc.) Thumb through Writer's Market or one of the publication databases available online and make a list of trade magazines covering those subjects. Give the editors a call or send them an E-mail and give them your sales pitch. Do it right and somebody will be interested. If they're not interested enough to pay you, offer to do it on spec. You're trying this out and if it works you can get paid later. If you get the go-ahead, call one of the businesses, tell them you have an assignment from X magazine and write the article. If the magazine publishes it, you're on your way.
I've done this numerous times using Writer's Market and E-Mail Publisher, a database of over 10,000 magazines and newspaper e-mail addresses and web sites, sorted by subject and location. You can contact 10 or a hundred editors by e-mail with one click of the mouse and send them your query. Check out
http://philcox.homestead.com/email.html.
For information on emailpublisher and worldnewspapers 2000 (over 10,000 email
addresses or web sites for magazines and newspapers around the world - potential markets
for writers - go to http://philcox.homestead.com/email.html.
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