All Posts Tagged: Getting started
New Year, New Books, New Prizes for You :)
Isabel Allende, as a rule, begins all of her books on January 8.
“Originally, it was out of discipline; now it’s to organize my life,” she told a gathering of writers at the Book Passage book store in California in the summer of 2015. “I need the space and the silence.”
As an author of 22 books, which, though primarily works of fiction, typically feature a heavy sense of travel in space and often time that affords her a close relationship with travel authors, Allende has clearly devised a method that works.
What is the At-Home IdeaFest Program? Why Do You Care? And How Can You Join?
The short answer is: our IdeaFest Program is a revolutionary way to re-orient the way you think about article ideas.
If you feel like you just don’t quite “get” it, that’s exactly what we designed this comprehensive program to fix!
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The Real Reason Why We Travel Even When It’s Hard–And How to Bring That into the Rest of Your Freelance Work
There is an important part of doing something new that we always seem to forget in the excitement of novelty.
Our need for novelty has been well documented in pretty much anything you read today about the technology addiction pandemic.
Whenever that little ding of a notification or flash of a new email appears on our screens, we get a hit of the chemical dopamine, the same chemical associated with eating your favorite food, having sex, and getting high on cocaine.
And when the extent of the new thing in your life is equally as momentary–scanning the latest shutdown headline, trying a new flavor of ice cream, or checking an editor’s tweet calling for pitches–the let down if it doesn’t turn out as planned is short-lived and typically doesn’t cause you to ask bigger questions about why you are doing what you’re doing and if it’s really a good idea and whether you should just chuck it all and stop right now.
But when the new thing is bigger, like, say, trying to become a freelance travel writer, and what you’ve invested in that new thing is on a scale of months or years, when you hit a snag, the reaction can be very different.
12 Days of Holiday Specials Day 12: A Baker’s Dozen of Classes to Learn How to Write Every Kind of Travel Article Out There
Today’s holiday trivia: “Nollaig na mBan” or “Women’s Little Christmas” is a tradition celebrated by women across Ireland on January 6. Hearkening back to the days when large families were the norm and men weren’t expected to help around the home, Women’s Little Christmas represented the one day each year when women would finally get a break. To this day, men take over the housework on January 6, while women hold parties or go out to celebrate the day with their friends, sisters, mothers, and aunts.
Beginning in January of 2018 and continuing throughout much of the year, we embarked on a multi-month webinar series with a very special goal in mind: to provide university-style writing training in how to write each of the different types of articles you may be tasked with as a professional travel writer.
We walked through a part of the writing process–structuring your articles–that should come before your fingers hit the keyboard and before you even begin researching your piece to show you how to quit second-guessing yourself and save tremendous time on your articles.
12 Days of Holiday Specials Day 11: Choose Your Own Travel Writing Adventure With a Customized Set of 11 Webinars
Today’s holiday trivia: In many European countries, the celebration of Christmas on December 25 pales in comparison with January 6’s Feast of the Epiphany–also know as the visit of the three wise men or magi. Presents for children arrive on the eve of the Epiphany rather than Christmas Eve, though they are not delivered by a jolly man. In Italy, gifts are ferried about by La Befana, a witch with a long nose and speedy broomstick who leaves garlic and onions, in addition to the usual coal, for bad children or parents who haven’t left her a glass of wine.
When we asked what you wanted in this year’s holiday specials, there was a ton of interest in our webinars, particularly around:
- journalistic detail
- setting up sponsored trips
- getting a book published
So, we’ve run discounts exclusive to our 12 days of holiday specials on all three. But…
Since all of you are in a different places with your travel writing, we know there are things that you might need that another might be past or not be ready for yet, so we didn’t want to make our specials entirely a popularity contest, and came up with a way for you to put together your own, person, customized webinar discount set.
We’ve also slashed 75% off the price you would normally pay to get all of these webinars in our library, where each comes in a set with:
- streamable high-def video
- smaller downloadable video
- streamable and downloadable audio file
- full transcript available to read on screen or as PDF download
- all webinar slides in PDF form
- any applicable worksheets
To take advantage of this offer and grab any 11 of your choosing webinars just $56–nearly 75 percent off the normal pricing–head to the webinar library, and load up your cart with the webinars listed above and enter the code chooseyourown.
Not sure what is right for you? Here are some suggestions based on what you want to focus on this year.
12 Days of Holiday Specials Day 10: Ten-Part Physical and Digital Jump-Start Kit to Get Your Travel Writing Business Off the Ground in 2019
Today’s holiday trivia: January 4 marks a major festival in the Ryukyuan religion, a formal of Shintoism practiced in the islands between Japan and Taiwan, particularly Okinawa. The hinukan, a hearth god that guards the sacred family fire, returns to the family after returning to its own home for several weeks and is welcomed with offerings of rice and local alcohol.
For today’s offer, we’re combining two holiday offers we’ve extended for Thanksgiving and the holiday season in the past with more goodies, including some brand new bonus digital content.
All told, we’ve got ten things for you (well, some have multiple parts, so it’s actually even more :)) today, including some that you’ll receive right away digitally, and some we will ship to you–including something special that we will hand-pick based on your writing interests.
12 Days of Holiday Specials Day 7: (Domestic flight included!) Seven-Day Travel Writing Bootcamp
Today’s holiday trivia: While countries across the globe celebrate New Year’s Day on January 1, Montserrat celebrates Jump-up Day. Commemorating the emancipation of the slaves of Montserrat, Jump-up Day is the last day of Carnival on the island with steel bands and masquerades, as well as male dancers chosen for their large size, who dance encumbered by chains to represent slavery.
If you woke up today, the first day of the new year, and thought to yourself or made yourself a promise somewhere along the lines of, “This year is going to be different. I am going to make sure that my travel writing takes off,” then this one is for you.
12 Days of Holiday Specials Day 4: Four Days of Our Favorite Travel Conference
Today’s holiday trivia: December 29 is the main official holiday in Mongolia, marking the day the country obtained independence from China in 1921. To commemorate the holiday, Mongolians hold the largest wrestling match of the year. In Mongolian culture, wrestling is one of their “three manly skills,” the English name for the trifecta of wrestling, archery, and horsemanship. Wrestling is regarded as the most important of the three, and it is said that Genghis Khan considered wrestling to be an important way to keep his army in good physical shape and combat ready.
Today’s holiday special is very different than anything we’ve offered in the past. You don’t actually even pay us for it!
12 Days of Holiday Specials Day 3: Three Days of Personalized Travel Writing Retreat
Today’s holiday trivia: As part of the Feast of the Holy Innocents, December 28 is a day for pranks (similar to April Fools Day in North America) in Spain and Latin American countries. Pranksters or “inocentes” trick their friends and family; even newspapers, radio and TV stations have been known to participate by providing false stories.
The town of Ibi in Alicante, Spain, celebrates the festival of Els Enfarinats each year, as well, with participants in the day-long festival dressing in mock military uniforms and staging a mock coup while a band of street musicians tour the city. The “military” exercise their authority under a blaze of fireworks, flour bombs and eggs, surrendering at the end of the day with a traditional dance.
12 Days of Holiday Specials Day 2: Two Private One-on-One Coaching Sessions
Today’s holiday trivia: Continuing our look at holiday traditions around the world, we travel east for a very different type of holiday. As a secular, communist country, North Korea has a different take on holidays than many societies. Its 71 official holidays include Sundays, for instance, and many holidays are based on birthdays of the party leaders and founders. Today North Korea celebrates its Constitution Day, for which the state provides rations explicitly for the holiday feasts.
When we surveyed you guys to see what you’d most like to see in our holiday specials, one of the things that came up again and again was opportunities for one-on-one coaching!
Since I’ve finished my coaching certification this year–which was a very eye-opening experience that I wish more people who offer business “coaching” would do–I’m even more excited than ever to work with you one-on-one to move your career forward.