All Posts Tagged: Business Skills
Join Us–On the House–For Our At-Home IdeaFest Program This Fall
Now that summer (in the Northern Hemisphere at least) has drawn to a close, people are wrapping up their last sun-seeking vacations and getting down to business both for the fall and the year ahead.
I’m not just talking about us writers–I mean editors.
Particularly those New York and London major-pub editors, who may have been catching the summer scene at an acquaintance’s place for the summer holidays, are heading back to their desks, getting down to business, and catching up on emails and plans for 2020.
With the big-O year, major anniversaries, and the Japan Olympics on the horizon, editors have a lot of decisions to make about what they’ll cover next year.
Shouldn’t your stories get their best shot for consideration?
“What questions should I ask when I’m on the phone with a potential travel content marketing client?”
We’ve got a new book out, 101 Things You Need to Know to Make it as a Travel Writer, that answers 101 questions that we hear from travel writers all the time that are holding them back from achieving their Dream of Travel Writing. To celebrate the new book, we’ll be tackling a new sticky travel-writing situation each Monday here on The Six-Figure Travel Writer blog.
“What questions should I ask when I’m on the phone with a potential client?”
Here are seven questions that you can use as a checklist the next time you’re on a call with a potential travel content marketing client. Each of these questions is really important in helping you put together your proposal.
Want to Hit the Ground Running with Travel Content Marketing? Check Out Our New Series on Perfecting Your Cold Pitches
Sales. Ugh, right?
I know. I know. Everyone hates it.
Especially writers.
The problem though with that situation though, is that sales, according to the Oxford Dictionary, means:
the exchange of a commodity for money; the action of selling something.
So, if we want to have a writing business, or any kind of freelance business (the practice of making one’s living by engaging in commerce–again via Oxford), we’ve got to exchange some things for money.
For most writers, the question then becomes:
How can I get money without having to do the icky sales exchange bit?!
Travel Writing Wake-up Call: Do You Want to Tell Stories or Get Published?
In the last three weeks, I’ve had a number of conversations with people that turned me onto a truth about travel writing than many people come across after a long period of working on their business (if at all) and often in uncomfortable ways.
There is an initial joyous moment I love to spot in the careers of many travel writers (freelance journalists generally). It happens when someone–for the first time ever–had an idea entirely on their own for an article, and an editor tells the writer she’ll pay for it.
The Travel Writers’ Detox + Reset: Announcing Our New Retreat!
You have spoken! We asked if you needed some time to re-center where you’re at with your work and travel life, and the response was clear.
We’ve been noticing a trend lately, from conference talks to our coaching calls, that freelance travel writers are being pulled in too many directions.
You can call it the by-product of not having a clear separation between work and life or decision-making overload from the sheer number of possible things to do anytime you open your computer, but we’re seeing a serious problem:
- How do you prioritize?
- Or do everything?
- Or decide what you should do in any one moment?
Where Will This Summer Take You? (And Your Travel Writing Career Goals?)
Something I love about the summer travel season is the uncontrollable and unavoidable return to essential enjoyments:
- The feeling of the sun on your skin on a beautiful dry day.
- The cooling barrage of a steady breeze during a beautiful hike on a humid day.
- Finding berries and eating them fresh off the bush.
- A juicy peach or plum that reminds you what fruit is meant to taste like.
- Sitting on the grass, or the beach, or any other place outside where there is no plastic or concrete between you and the world.
- Sitting with friends or family late into a fresh evening enjoying a moment in which nothing else matters and it seems the morning will never come.
- The view of the ocean and artistry of the clouds from an airplane window reminding you how big the world really is.
Whether it’s the weather, kids off from school, or simply the many holidays that encourage us to take vacation, summer has a way of forcing us to remember what really makes us happy and the outsized value of small pleasures.
Want to Give the Back Half of 2019 a Serious Energy Boost with Us?
I just want to take a quick second to acknowledge that this post is definitely not for everyone on who follows us.
We have people coming to us in many, many different stages of their freelance travel writing careers, from the very early pre-planning/looking for options point to people have been been in the game for dozens of years and regularly publish with top outlets or other places they have long-standing relationships with.
What I am writing to you about today is for people at the latter end of that spectrum, folks who are full-time freelance, even if all of their writing income doesn’t come from travel-related writing.
“How do I discuss pricing in a proposal for a travel content marketing writing client?”
We’ve got a new book out, 101 Things You Need to Know to Make it as a Travel Writer, that answers 101 questions that we hear from travel writers all the time that are holding them back from achieving their Dream of Travel Writing. To celebrate the new book, we’ll be tackling a new sticky travel-writing situation each Monday here on The Six-Figure Travel Writer blog.
“How do I discuss pricing in a proposal for a travel content marketing writing client?”
Give three choices doing different amounts of work for different prices: a small, medium, and large. (Yep, Goldilocks style!)
Get Your Travel Writing MBA with Our New 16-Part Series
I don’t know about you, but when I was in my 9-to-5 job imagining and dreaming and finally planning my escape to be a full-time freelance travel writer, I never once considered getting an MBA in travel writing.
Before I made the leap, I did spend every commute and probably many idle hours in the office reading up on the hows of making it work as a freelance writer. And I spent more than a year building up clips and gigs before leaving my job.
But I never thought there would be any reason to study how big corporate businesses make things work. Isn’t that what we gleefully give up having to care about when we go rogue freelance?
What Are the Next Big Steps for Your Travel Writing?
There is a reason we primarily offer in-person retreat events rather than online programs.
The results are simply so, so different.
Think about learning a language–you can go to Spanish classes for an hour one night a week for years. Or you can go to Spain and be surrounded by signs in Spanish, people speaking Spanish, and constant opportunities to put your skills to use.