All Posts in Category: Professional Writer Mindset
The First Humbling Lesson of Building Your Own Business
At the airport on the way back from an author’s conference a few years ago, I was magnetically drawn to scan the best seller lists and consider who was there and why.
There were so many of those names you’ve see there over and over for decades, like Nora Ephron or Dan Brown. An entire, multi-shelf section devoted to Ann Patchett. The requisite books about how companies can motivate millennials next to Mark Manson’s bestselling The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life.
My eye caught on a cover simulating (well, graphic-designed rather than photographed) a page torn at the top and bottom with a lowercase title etched out in a watercolor-style gradient migrating from aquamarine to forest green like descending through a cross section of the ocean.
Business Planning Doesn’t Work for Creatives (or Anyone Really). Here’s What to Do Instead
How do you usually approach planning for your business—either the big picture or the more short-term goals?
Can We Help Your Business and Your Life Flourish Every Week?
Flourishing – n. a condition denoting good mental and physical health: the state of being free from illness and distress but, more important, of being filled with vitality and functioning well in one’s personal and social life.
– APA Dictionary of Psychology
Languishing – n. the condition of absence of mental health, characterized by ennui, apathy, listlessness, and loss of interest in life.
Don’t Let the Haters Sell You on These 3 Mega Myths About Freelance Travel Writing
It’s a breath of fresh air to see more and more websites talking about six-figure freelance writing. Particularly six-figure freelance travel writing, as a reality rather than a pipe dream, but I am still shocked by the various ways people who are not successful freelance writers deride the profession.
Editors Have Needs. Please Fill Them.
Let’s turn your usual visions of editors around. Rather than envisioning an editor:
- seeing an email come in from someone they don’t know and either ignoring or deleting it;
- finding something fundamentally wrong with your subject line and deleting your email without reading it;
- opening your email, checking if you have any clips from national magazines and deleting it when they find none;
- reading your email, liking the idea, and then sending it off to one of his or her writers to work on
Why Do We Need Travel Writers? Why Do You Need to Be One?
Don George, editor of Lonely Planet’s annual travel anthologies and author of the seminal travel writing handbook Travel Writing: Expert Advice from the World’s Leading Travel Publisher, sat down with close friend, Jeff Greenwald, author of six books on his travel adventures and founder of EthicalTraveler.org, to talk about what it means to be a travel writer with a flourishing business.
An Important Public Service Announcement About Following Up on Your Freelance Pitches
This week, I wanted to take a minute for an important travel-writing public service announcement on following up with editors after a pitch!
But this topic is not only near and dear to my heart because it is a such a big deal for writers, but as it seems like we are reaching a certain tipping point here that doesn’t have a good solution.
Redefining (Walter) Mittyesque – Let’s See Your New Resume
The Ben Stiller-directed “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” came out in 2013. Instagram hit the scene in late 2010.
Watching the film today, the cinematography oozes shots that we now think of as Instagram tropes: packing flat-lays, travelers in profile walking in front of brilliantly painted walls, a lone traveler in a long shot on an otherwise empty road. Just cue the overlaid text of the Robert Frost poem.
One Sunday night, however, we knew that “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” was just what we needed.
We had an intensive Saturday of soul-searching and Sunday of planning our first Detox + Reset retreat and Walter Mitty came up as a frequent touchpoint throughout the weekend. On the one hand, for the gorgeous visuals (we didn’t see the Instagram-style until re-watching it now!), but, more importantly for the character and journey of Walter Mitty.
When Was the Last Time You Met a Travel Magazine Editor?
I’ve previously attended the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference and I’m always delighted to see the seats full of writers, who already have a flourishing business with travel writing as their full-time occupation or are on their way there.
But even more than hearing their stories of taking the leap, quitting their previous professions, and making travel writing work for them, I loved seeing them interact with editors.
It is so easy to have an “us vs. them” mentality about editors as a freelance writer.
Join Us for Free Travel Writing Lessons on Essays, Story Structure, and Crafting Postcard Pieces
In the two years since we began running regular one-hour travel writing classes, we’ve covered more than 80 topics, including:
- how to land free trips
- how to get paid really, really well for your writing
- how to get on magazine editors’ good sides
- how to navigate every step of the process to land travel content marketing work, including phone calls and proposals
- how to keep your hourly rate down so your bank account goes up
- how to get work done on the road
- how to write, step-by-step, 15 different types of travel articles
- how to land guidebook and other traditional publishing deals
You can grab access to all of our past webinars (and a ton of other resources you can’t find anywhere else) with a subscription to our Dream Buffet or grab them one-by-one when you need them in our On-Demand Webinar Library for a set with the video, audio, transcript, and slides.
But we also air a free replay of one of our travel writing classes each and every weekday.