All Posts in Category: Running Your Writing Business
The One Place it Absolutely Makes Sense to Write for Free (Or Very Little)
Whenever the topic of writing for no or very little money comes up in conversation with a travel writer, the first thing I always do is ask why they want to do that.
You might be surprised.
I hear a startling number of people, even those who have already been writing for no compensation on their own websites for years, tell me that they don’t think that they are in a position to get paid more.
They aren’t saying that those rates aren’t out there–but rather that they don’t personally deserve them.
Our Newest Freelance Travel Writing Business Workshop Arrives in Portland This Week! – Join Us This Thursday Evening
Every spring and fall, when I travel around the work to attend conferences on travel writing, travel blogging, narrative non-fiction writing, freelance business, and the tourism industry, I make a point to bring our signature workshops to as many cities as I can fit in.
I attend about 40 conferences, summits, workshops, masterminds, and trade shows each year to ensure I’m bringing the best, most relevant tips and tactics to my coaching program members and small-group retreat attendees.
More than a Dozen New Travel Writing Videos Available to Power Up Your Business!
We’ve done a huge upload of our webinar library, and you can now grab packages with audio, video, slide, and transcript versions of:
- The Difference Between the Photos You’re Shooting Now and What Magazines are Publishing – The photos you’re shooting for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and your blog won’t cut it for magazines.
- Creating a Shot List to Organize Your Trips Around Saleable Photography – This one technique will keep you from coming home without the photos you need to land photo contracts with your pieces.
- Plating, Staging, and Food Photography: Bringing Still Lifes to Life – You could pay $1,200 for a weekend food photography workshop, but here’s what you need to know to get started.
- The Art of the Follow Up — The Simple Key to Dramatically More Assignments – Your guide to what might be the most valuable hour of your entire week.
- What Types of Articles Should You Be Writing? – Once you see each article idea in 10 different formats, you’ll never hurt for pitch ideas.
- Mastering Style at a Sentence by Sentence Level – Your pitches will be the only clip you need when the quality of your writing shines through.
- Story Structure to Take Your Feature Travel Articles to the Next Level – Narrative writing can be terrifying. Once you learn the underlying structure though, it’s smooth-sailing.
- Annual Review Part 1: What is Standing Between You and Your Travel Writing Goals – The most likely roadblocks between you and your travel writing goals–and how to tackle them.
- Annual Review Part 2: How to Clearly Catalog the Work and Opportunities You Have Now – To know where your travel writing business needs to go, you need to be honest about where it is now…in numbers.
- Annual Review Part 3: Taking Stock of the Past Year to SWOT Yourself Into Shape – Align your freelance business with the marketplace and the best place in it for you.
- Annual Review Part 4: Getting Crystal Clear on What You’ll Accomplish in the Next Year – Rather than goals–an all-or-nothing approach to what you’ll do next year–focus your year with this method.
- Annual Review Part 5: Mapping Out Your Step-by-Step Plan for 2018 Success – Follow along with your year-long work plan as we workshop three attendees’ live.
- Article Nuts and Bolts: Putting Together a News Brief – Learn the core of how all front-of-book magazine pieces are constructed.
- Article Nuts and Bolts: Putting Together a Front-of-Book Round-Up – Hone in on the easy-to-write (and pitch!) staple: the front-of-book round-up.
- Article Nuts and Bolts: Putting Together a Trend Piece – An in-depth look at the staple of magazines front-of-book and feature sections everywhere: the trend piece.
- Article Nuts and Bolts: Putting Together a Business Profile – An in-depth look the type of article that should be the bread and butter of your freelance travel writing toolkit.
Feeling Stressed? This Might Secretly Be the Answer
Uncertainty causes stress.
I didn’t pull data on this, because I think it’s something we can all agree on anecdotally. Viscerally in fact.
It’s Tax Season. Are Your Freelance Travel Writing Finances Ready?
Have you done your taxes yet? If so, bravo!
Every winter, in fact before the holidays, I tell myself that I’m going to get my taxes in early so that I can get my tax refund as soon as possible. I like to think of it as a freelancer end-of-year bonus.
If you work for yourself, that might sound a bit surprising, right? That I’m looking out for my refund (a.k.a. money back) rather than dreading how much I’m going to own.
And I hear that from freelance travel writers often.
In fact, I have been getting *a lot* of questions about tax preparation this year, both from my coaching clients and from folks that have come to the Catskills to join us for a writing retreat.
Should Trends Be Your New Best Friends?
Ever heard of a time peg?
I try not to use the word too often, because it masks much more important issues at stake in people’s pitches, but, at its core, it means pegging or affixing the topic if your article to something timely.
There’s lots of options for this “something timely” that get thrown around when discussing pitches, from openings of new things to renovations of old things to major anniversaries of even older things.
I cannot tell you how many pitches I saw either related to country of Canada’s 150th anniversary of statehood or the American National Park system’s 100th anniversary of its founding.
After These Seven Webinars, You’ll Never Worry About How to Pay for Your Trips Again
Today’s holiday trivia: An important British holiday tradition has been the day when a lord’s subjects would come wassailing. Today, we think of wassailing as singing carols and spreading good cheer, particularly when doing so door to door, but this tradition initially was intended to replace begging and offer peasants a specific opportunity to receive food and drink—especially figgy puddings—from the wealthy. The food-gifting aspect continues today, often in unusual forms, such as the London’s Drury Lane Theatre’s tradition since 1795 of proving cake and punch for the resident theater company each January 6.
If you are new to travel writing, there is no doubt one thing that seems the golden goal for marking your successful entry into this work: scoring a spot on a free trip for travel writers.
I’ve seen this as a goal for many folks who joining us for our 5-week annual review and 2018 planning process this winter.
And if this is one of your goals this year, I’ve got great news for you:
Setting up free trips as a travel writer is dead simple.
The Simple Core of Most of Your Travel Writing Problems
Travel writing is a tricky profession.
I mean that very literally.
It’s not that it’s difficult to succeed at (contrary to popular belief–it’s dead simple to make a good living at if you follow the right steps). The problem is that it’s very easy to be tricked about the profession part of the equation.
In addition to working through our annual review series with all of our readers, I’m currently working with a new batch of coaching program members, and the beginning of that process inevitably begins the same way: intensely dissecting how they spend their “work” time.
Are Your Freelance Writing Goals Far Too Low?
We’ve looked a lot on our blog in the past week about what can happen when you don’t tune into exactly what is going on with your business.
But I know general freelance advice can seem so abstract.
That’s why I like to put specific numbers on things.
When I start working with new one-on-one coaching clients, the first thing they do is complete a detailed form about their income goals, satisfaction and income level with current clients, and how they are spending their time and one what.
And I’ve noticed a very disturbing trend around the number two.
Can Five Minutes a Day Really Increase Your Assignment Rate Four Fold?
Wanted to make sure you heard a few quick things about today’s call:
Our webinar will take place today at a very different time than usual as I need to catch a flight to a get down to a writing conference in Nashville before our weeklong boot camp starts on Sunday.
(I’m so excited to see some of you there! We have been working so hard on the outings, set up, and menus for this week to welcome writers coming from as far as Argentina to take their career to an entirely new level! If you’re interest in joining us for next spring’s bootcamp, you can take 25% off now in our summer’s last hurrah sale!)
Our topic for today may literally be the most important thing that we will every cover in a webinar.