Today’s holiday trivia: “Nollaig na mBan” or “Women’s Little Christmas” is a tradition celebrated by women across Ireland on January 6. Hearkening back to the days when large families were the norm and men weren’t expected to help around the home, Women’s Little Christmas represented the one day each year when women would finally get a break. To this day, men take over the housework on January 6, while women hold parties or go out to celebrate the day with their friends, sisters, mothers, and aunts.

Beginning in January of 2018 and continuing throughout much of the year, we embarked on a multi-month webinar series with a very special goal in mind: to provide university-style writing training in how to write each of the different types of articles you may be tasked with as a professional travel writer.

We walked through a part of the writing process–structuring your articles–that should come before your fingers hit the keyboard and before you even begin researching your piece to show you how to quit second-guessing yourself and save tremendous time on your articles.

In each hour, we tackled one specific article format, and covered:

  • what type of magazines that type of article appears in
  • what you need to know to pitch that sort of piece
  • the benefits and drawbacks of writing that type of article
  • the repeatable scaffold structure you can use every time you write that kind of piece
  • how the structure plays out in real-world examples from major print magazines of each article type

Freelance writers’ bank accounts depend on their hourly rates. Doing the same work more efficiently, with less doubt, and using proven, repeatable systems is how you not only earn more per hour, but also ensure better quality articles and more consistent quality for yourself (for your own round of edits) and your editors.

I created this series most of all, however, because I wanted to demonstrate how to structure different types of articles so you could broaden your horizons to new types of writing that you may have been too tentative to try before.

The results for viewers have been instantaneous.

Two very savvy and smart listeners transitioning from academic backgrounds to journalism who had not yet been published in a magazine–in part because imposter syndrome and perfectionism stymied them from completing pitches and getting them out–told me right away that the structural approach to putting together they learned in these webinars inspired them to pitch pieces they thought they’d have to wait years to work on.

“The nuts and bolts webinar gave me confidence in my storytelling and ability to properly structure a story!“

I’m delighted to report that they both had their first pieces published very shortly after that.

Over the course of 2019, we went through 13 different article formats in three main groupings:

  • short (front-of-book and back-of-book) articles:
    • news briefs
    • front-of-book round-ups
    • trend pieces
    • business profiles
    • “postcards”
  • feature-style articles
    • quest pieces
    • guide features
    • basket-of-kittens features
    • diary pieces
  • interview-centric articles
    • as-told-to features
    • profile pieces
    • interview pieces
    • celebrity favorites pieces

People sometimes ask me if these are the “correct” names for these article types, but it’s hard to say, because, one of the reasons I wanted to put together such a detailed series is that no one really covers this. specially not to the level of depth of incorporating primary source material in the form of articles published in major, mainstream travel magazines.

I’ve always been frustrated by how most travel writing programs approach this.

Not only do they typically forgo giving you a systematic (and thus tried-and-true and efficient!) method to writing an article, if they give you any specific “training” on writing pieces, it often goes something like this:

  • You’re asked to come up with an idea out of the blue.
  • You’re expected to write it with no particular magazine or format as a framework.
  • You’re given feedback on that one specific article (unsaleable because it’s pre-written without an approved pitch!) without any guidance really about what to do the next time you want to write an article–especially something different.

This kills me. You completely miss out on:

  • coming to grips with how rigid magazine formats can be (which saves you tons of drafting time trying to decide what to write)
  • understanding how to mold your article idea for different types of articles (and all of the excellent resale value that lies there!)
  • using the leg-up a predefined structure gives you on dictating exactly what research does (and does not) need to be done
  • building confidence that you can complete whatever article you are assigned, even if the editor shifts away from the way you originally presented your idea

Today is the very first day that our complete, 13-part series is available in our webinar library, and to mark the occasion and cap off this winter’s 12 days of holiday specials, we are giving you the whole set for $180 off.

To take advantage of this offer and grab these 13 webinars just $67–nearly 70 percent off the normal pricing–head to the webinar library, and load up your cart with all of the Article Nuts and Bolts webinars and enter the code bakersdozen for your discount to take effect.

At the regular price ($19 each), this much content would typically set you back nearly $250, as it is basically a 13-week college course in and of itself. For each webinar, you’ll receive:

  • streamable high-def video
  • smaller downloadable video
  • streamable and downloadable audio file
  • full transcript available to read on screen or as PDF download
  • all webinar slides in PDF form
  • any applicable worksheets

Until midnight EST today only, grab our bakers dozen of Article Nuts and Bolts webinars for just $67 with code bakersdozen.

Delivery details:

  • In the webinar library, add all of the webinars listed above to your cart and enter the code bakersdozen.
  • You need to have all 13 Article Nuts and Bolts webinars in your cart for the coupon code to take effect.
  • If you have previously purchased one of the webinars in the set, that will preclude you from adding that specific webinar to your cart. We set up new test accounts attached to different email addresses to get around this issue, and recommend you do the same if you are running into this issue as it is the only work around.
  • The webinars will be available immediately in your user profile on webinars.dreamoftravelwriting.com, and you will also receive an email for each webinar with the links to the downloadable audio, video, and transcript files.
  • The shopping cart will automatically alert you if it cannot apply the coupon, because the wrong webinars are in the cart.

Important general notes on our 12 Days of Holiday Specials:

  • These offers are exclusively available during the time specified, with any exceptions or limited quantities noted in the individual offer affected.
  • These offers cannot be exchanged, combined, or used in place or partial combination with a previously purchased offer of any time. All sales are final.
  • Each offer includes complete instructions for the delivery of your purchase and answers to any logistical questions about taking advantage of the offer.
  • Since many of these offers take place on weekend or holiday days, the person who handles our customer service emails will not always be available or not able to sign in twice a day to catch your queries, which is why we make the offers very detailed. These are deep discounts on things that cost us money to produce, so if you would like to take advantage of an offer, you are responsible for doing so during the time frame allotted.