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Inside The Cover
Book Reviews The
Travel Writer's Handbook 5th Ed: How to Write and Sell Your Own Travel Experiences I
want to go on vacation! No, not (just) because tomorrow is the first day of
spring and the weatherman just predicted snow showers all day; it’s because of
this book! The cover alone (decorated with old-fashioned postcards and hotel
logos) gave me the itch to go somewhere -- anywhere -- that I could then write
about. Then, the author got her chops in and now -- bring on that trip; I’m
ready! I
don’t know why I even wondered about the outcome, actually; after all, this
book is a Writer’s Digest Book Club selection and WD has never let me down!
Not only that, it’s on its 5th edition -- in other words, it’s been around a
while (thus proving its value), but Zobel has brought it up-to-date for a new
generation of would-be travel writers. First,
she tells you how to travel: what to take with you (and what to leave at home),
how to immerse yourself in the local culture, how to get oriented as soon as you
get where you’re going, and what to eat and drink (including some trenchant
words on handling alcohol intake). Then,
she gives you advice on how to write about it, which can also be applied to
whatever other kind of writing you do: how to write effective query letters, how
to use the Internet for research, how to find markets for your writing before
you even leave your house, how photographs (taken by yourself or bought from a
stock photo company) can add to your salability, how to do interviews (on and
off the record). She even goes into how to keep your integrity in the face of
freebies and press junkets. (Oh, may I someday have those problems...) It’s
all good stuff, but all by itself, her information on query letters, handling
points of view, and coming up with a “hook” would have made me give this
book a place on one of my always-overflowing bookshelves. And then there was all
the rest... As I read, I used Post-It™ Notes to mark places I wanted to refer
back to later; by the time I was done, I had used up most of a pad of notes and
the edge of the book looked as though it had been decorated with a
three-layer-deep fringe of blue paper. So I’m keeping it, and it’ll go on my
shelf until I go on vacation. Then, it’ll go in my suitcase. The weatherman
just said it’s still supposed to snow tomorrow. Tahiti, anyone? Betty Winslow is a staff writer for Absolute Write and moderates
our BBs. Her bio is at http://www.absolutewrite.com/site/betty.htm |
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