All Posts Tagged: Getting started
Welcome to our 12 Days of Holiday Specials! Spread the Holiday Cheer
Today’s holiday trivia: A secular holiday, December 26 is celebrated as Boxing Day in a number of countries that previously formed part of the British Empire. For the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Trinidad and Tobago, Boxing Day is primarily known as a shopping holiday similar to Black Friday in the U.S.–the perfect start to our holiday specials!
In Ireland, however, the holiday combines both the religious feast of St. Stephen and an older pagan tradition of a purge day into something called Wren Day, when bands of young men dress in cloaks of straw and parade through the town “hunting” a (usually fake and stuffed these days) wren bird atop a decorative pole, stopping in at homes along the way in a trick-or-treating fashion with coins rather than candy as the treats.
If you’ve been itching for an opportunity to pop off questions to me when you need help–our new program will give you a way to do that too!
It includes the opportunity to have small-group calls with me to get your questions answered live nearly every week, include exclusive live access to all of our new webinars and a members-only monthly ask-me-anything call.
You’ll also have access to every question and answer we’ve ever handled for other clients, so you can find even what you need on the spot.
Why We’re Adding a Weekly Special $5 Freelance Travel Writing Webinar Set
I’ll never forget when the gentleman who runs the program in which I got certified as a business coach yelled at me about my pricing.
If you’ve every had a writing gig where you’re writing blog posts for $20 or $50 and spending several hours on each, you’ve probably had a similar conversation with me, a friend, or a significant other.
In that case, you may have heard that you are undervaluing yourself or your work, or maybe that you’re making things harder for all writers by creating unrealistic expectations with clients, or that you’ll never meet your income goals if you persist in spending that long on work that pays those rates.
At Dream of Travel Writing, the situation is a little different.
I don’t take any salary from running the company, and this was actually never my goal.
Want to Hit Your Travel Writing Goals Next Year? Start With Your Values
When I talk for the first time to a travel writer in the process of building their career—whether they’re just starting or they’ve been at it for decades but have never felt that ‘click’ of sustainability where they know they can do this and make the money they want for as long as they want—an eerily similar thing typically happens.
It takes a lot of guises though.
These writers are typically asking me a very specific, tactical question about how to do one specific thing: write pitches more quickly, make sure their ideas fit a magazine, find the right place to pitch a specific piece, or get started with those lucrative content marketing gigs.
And as I’m explaining the answer, the odd thing happens.
Help Us Choose What Special Deep Discounts You’ll Have in Our 12 Days of Travel Writing Holiday Specials This Year!
Small disclaimer: Absolutely no Dachshunds will be sent through the postal service as part of our travel writing holiday specials!
But, puppies aside, we want to know what you would like to see this year.
Each winter, we put together a riff on the 12 Days of Christmas between December 26 and January 6, 2019, with advance access to products we’re not launching until next year and deep, deep discounts on many of our offerings.
Learn How to Get Work Done When You’re on the Road for Just $5 This Week
When I first left my job to be a travel writer ten years ago, travel blogging wasn’t really a thing, in terms of a developed business opportunity.
The term “location independent” was still new, and there were just a few sites really dedicated to how, exactly, to build an online creative (i.e. writing, design, etc.) business while working from wherever. And they were almost 100% dedicated to practical matters.
We Know It’s Early, But We Have Gifts for You! (Because You Are What We’re Thankful for This Year)
I had a coaching call today with someone that I met at a really preeminent writers’ conference who recently joined our Full Coaching Program, and had to take a moment.
As we wove through her vision for her future, goals, and past writing experiences over the course of the hour, I was touched by the depth of her intellect and ability to articulate the intangible.
And I just thought how incredibly lucky I felt to be sharing our resources and vision for what the life of a travel writer can be with this kind of writers.
In the two years since this business began, I have been so honored that so many of you have shared your experiences with us to empower me to have the perspective of what travel writing life is like not just for myself, but for the multitudes of you out there who are succeeding in this career or on your way.
Grab a Webinar from Our Library (Usually $19 each) On Us for Thanksgiving!
Every week, we offer a free, live, one-hour travel writing class.
But, since we’ve been at it for a year, there might be some that you’ve missed!
Want to get your hands on one of our past webinars…for FREE?
Fill in a quick, five-minute survey, and get a free package from our webinar library, where you can get each webinar as:
- steamable and downloadable video
- streamable and downloadable MP3 audio
- full slide deck as image gallery or PDF download
- full transcript viewable on-screen with infinite scroll or plain text
- downloadable PDF transcript
How Exactly to Move from Trip Memories and Notes to Completed Travel Article Pitches
To be honest, I’m a bit scared to do this series.
For our next round of live travel writing classes, we will offer a (probably shocking to many of you) window on how pitching takes place for an established writer in the most minimal time with the least possible fuss as we walk from initial trip notes all the way to polished pitches leaving my inbox right before your eyes.
To make sure you can see and ask questions about my decision-making at every phase, I will walk through each step of the process completely live with no prep work outside of our calls (or cheating, as I would call it!) to pretty things up or do more digging into an idea.
Why Is It So Hard to Make the Changes We Need to Make to Achieve Our Dreams? (And What We Want to Do About It)
I always planned to be a professor.
Throughout college and for many years after. I laid the groundwork to go back to school for a PhD in Italian literature.
Travel writing was meant to be a way to pay the bills legally while I was in Italian working on research for a dissertation.
There’s all sorts of odd things you have to also learn about to get a PhD, at least in Italian literature.
It wasn’t enough to speak fluent, academic-level Italian. I actually was going to need to pass proficiency tests in up to three other languages, from other romance languages to unrelated ones like German. Theoretically this was so we could read literary criticism on a global scale.
I also would have needed to read and be able to speak at length in an oral exam on every single significant work of Italian literature over a roughly 1,000 year period.
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.