All Posts in Category: Pitching
This Week’s Webinar: Tour the Travel Magazine Database Live
When I first started travel writing full-time, I spent a couple years doing the usual things:
- writing tons of travel articles for $20 a pop for large websites
(please don’t do that! here’s why) - pouring my heart into pitching epic travel stories to websites like GONOMAD (check out these much better sites to substitute for five major low-paying markets like these)
- writing “full-time” for a site that had me doing tons of articles a week in an area I was really interested in (Italy), but didn’t pay enough to live in a first-world country
At some point, I said enough, and threw myself into pitching print magazines. It wasn’t hard at all to get assignments (which is why I counsel you all to pitch first and skip the low-paid writing part!), but I still remember very distinctly when I got my first $2,000 assignment. A dollar a word for the text and $1,000 for the photos.
Our Crazy Travel Magazine Database Money-Back Guarantee
If you’ve ever looked at an online marketing product, you’ve no doubt noticed the miles-long sales, pages, deluge of testimonials guilting you with their smiling faces, and big arrows point you toward the massive “BUY NOW” button.
But what I’ve always been curious about is the money-back guarantee.
Pitch This, Not That: *Much* Better-Paying Replacements for the Usual “First Clip” Travel Writing Outlets
As one of the first assignments of its travel writing program (more on that here), Matador has long had students scour the web to find places that pay for travel writing and then share them online.
For each website or magazine, students list the editor’s name, how to get in touch, and the submission guidelines for the publication.
49 Regional Magazines that Can Be Your Travel Writing Bread and Butter
Before the internet came along and offered every aspiring travel writer the opportunity not only to write for free on one’s own blog but to write for free for other people’s websites, new writers looking for an easy place to break in and get a first clip turned to local publications.
27 Magazines Looking for Special Interest Travel Articles
We’ve talked before about how zeroing in on what interests you most as a travel writer can help you power up your travel writing career quickly, and the fact that most successful travel writers have several of these different major and micro niches.
But where are all these special interest publications looking for travel articles hiding?
How Can You Tell Which Editor to Pitch at a Travel Magazine?
When I talk to freelance travel writers about their biggest issues in pitching a lot of people talk about the difficulty in finding the right editor to pitch.
Writers fear that if they send a stellar pitch to the wrong editor it will get deleted, simply because of irrelevance, before they even get their chance to shine and sell their idea and their writing abilities.
The Gift that Keeps Giving: How to Break One Trip into Unlimited Travel Articles
Writers love to talk about “finding a good home” for a story. As if the story, or the idea that pre-dates it, is a child you are putting up for adoption, and you’ll only let go of it if you know its new mother and father will take better care of it than you ever could.
How Long Does it Take Magazine Editors to Respond to Travel Article Pitches?
One of my favorite quotes of all time from a magazine editor came from Peter Fish, at the time editor-at-large for Sunset magazine, a major newsstand publication in the Western U.S.
At the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference in 2015, someone asked a panel of editors how long it takes them to respond to a pitch.
The Anatomy of the Perfect Travel Article Pitch
Apart from the pitching “secret sauce” we talked about earlier this week, pitching well is all about structure.
This One Thing Can Dramatically Change How Much Money You Earn Writing About Each Trip
What is the first thing you do when you are done with a trip?
When you board the flight home or finish packing for your return journey or next destination?
Do you start working on your to-do list for the following week? Upcoming travel plans? Photo editing? Social media posts? Read More