Robert Reid Talks about the Future of Travel Guidebooks

Robert Reid is a Lonely Planet writer who publishes an amazing internet guide to Vietnam, and doesn't mince words in his recent interview with WorldHum. He laments the demise of experienced travel guidebook writers for novices who will work for peanuts under the illusion it will lead to fame and riches, and thinks internet travel guides will someday replace traditional published guides, when technology advances and handhelds can display the chief advantage printed guides continue to have over internet sources: maps.

Robert Reid: I used to think the most important thing we guidebook authors did for travelers was hotel reviews. People like to have some sense of security that the $5 or $300 place they’re staying in won’t be a brothel or rat-infested dump. But the Internet has already completely changed this. Previously if I had a new budget hotel in a town center, or a mid-ranger with pool, travelers would have to wait nine or 12 months from the time I “discovered” it until it appeared in a guide.

Now Internet booking sites often get them immediately. When I went to China a couple years ago, I stayed at a brand new hostel in Beijing that the Trans-Siberian author had just found, but that hadn’t yet appeared in the guide. It was already full! I was amazed at how nearly all the people there had found it online, and were booking their full China trip’s accommodations online.

At a Lonely Planet workshop a couple years ago, I asked a high-up at LP who they saw as their biggest competitor, and they immediately answered “Google.” I was impressed. So publishers like LP definitely see the Internet as a growing competitor, and have for a while. When the BBC bought LP a couple months ago, one of the key things they cited for future development was online content.

Another thing is that many sites with travel content online don’t have maps. And maps are HUGE. I sometimes think seasoned travelers need only a map, with barebones details of few places to stay, and barebones details of what to see and where to eat. If they trust the author—and that’s a big if, of course—not as much needs to be said as some people think. This, again, is for seasoned travelers only.

The only other thing I fear regarding online guidebooks is if they follow the “I stayed here and it was great” TripAdvisor or Amazon.com model. Those are useful, no doubt, but they’re only based on isolated experiences. If publishers turn things over at some point to reader-generated content, you won’t have the authoritative overviews that guidebook writers can offer, and it’ll end up with deeper beaten tracks, with more travelers doing the same thing.

But I do want to say David Stanley is right, it’s sad and reckless if an old author who did good work on several editions is cut for a new author. In my opinion, in-house editors don’t completely understand what goes into researching these guides—I was an editor for years, and only figured it out once I started writing full time. The best experience for writing a guidebook to X is not living in X but actually having written a guidebook to X. Sometimes publishers forget that a bit.

Sometimes I think we’re living a doomed profession, and that we’ll look back on the wacky wild period from the 1970s to the 2000s when scores of notebook-toting travelers went and sought out the mysteries of places that are no longer mysterious. People will look back on the era like reading Graham Greene books about far-flung places at wilder times.

Will guidebooks in book form die? Probably so. But to be honest, I think there will always be room for the perspective of the “guidebook author,” at least online. Once hand-held devices get even more sophisticated, so that maps and reviews are more easily referred to—or we old folks die out and the younger generations who are not so soft on books take over—things will probably go online completely.

But I sometimes think people like holding those books. So far, though, the TripAdvisor-type sites are excellent resources, but don’t account for perspective. One person goes to Y hotel and says “it’s super!” But they don’t realize A, B, C are similar and $40 less. Who goes to all 15 museums in Bucharest but a guidebook author? So only they can tell you that something like the Romanian National Museum of the Peasant is about the best museum in the world?

WorldHum Interview with Robert Reid

How to be a Travel Writer in Five Easy Pieces

Robert Haru Fisher is a New York based travel writer and author of the guidebook pictured above, available at Amazon at London Off-Season And On : A Guide To Special Pleasures, Better Rater And Shorter Lines. He also wrote the Crown Insiders Guide to Japan, which is from his own publishing company. Fisher also contributes to the Frommer website and has, over the last few months, published a series of "so you wanna be a travel writer" articles with enough positive spin to keep the dreamers happy, and enough reality to discourage all but the most brave. It comes in five parts.

I haven't mentioned money yet, so will say only that you should have resources of your own, or a spouse/partner with a regular job, so someone can pay the bills. The travel writers who have good incomes are either on the staff of some publication and drawing a salary, or have honed the art of freelancing well, usually after many years of hard practice. Newspapers pay chicken feed (e.g. $75 for a column of print), magazines maybe $1 a word at best for writers without a famous following, websites little, and books smallish advances (if any, maybe $5,000) or flat fees not much more than that for a small book.

Part One

Part Two is a short history of travel writing, with a well deserved plug for Arthur Frommer, a man I have great admiration for and was once interviewed by on The Travel Channel.

"You have a dream job!" Half the people I meet for the first time tell me that, and I agree. It's heaven for me because I am intensely curious, always wanting to know what's around the next corner. When you travel, there's always a new next corner, a new surprise. It's no way to get rich, and it can be hell on family and other relationships because you seem never to be home, from their point of view, anyhow. You can't be a new parent, for instance, or taking care of an ailing family member. The most prolific travel writers are away at least a quarter of the time, I believe, sometimes half the time.

Part Two

Part Three tries to define what is travel writing.

Anyone can be a travel writer. You can write your blog, your memoir, your diary of a trip, and the only difference between you and, say, Pico Iyer, is that he writes more beautifully than almost anyone, and he may publish in Harper's and The New York Times while you are just broadcasting your thoughts on your own website, perhaps.

Part Three

Fisher in Part Four espouses the advantages of having a travel blog, and claims he is not trying to sell anything to anyone these days, including his travel writing seminars in Key West as advertised at the bottom of each of these posts.

(Full disclosure here: I don't have a site or a blog myself, as I am not trying to sell anything to anybody these days.)

If you are freelancing, you should also be working on a book, as having a book under your belt makes you an expert, ipso facto.

Part Four

Fisher in Part Five finishes with his analysis of the history of travel writing to reveal a few facts about the income side of the average travel writer. Finally.

"Get paid to travel" reads one headline. "How to Make a Six-Figure Income Traveling the World" is another. In the last few years, several websites have popped up urging you to learn how to become rich while writing about travel. For fees of several hundred dollars, they promise to teach you how to lead the good life.

It's a life I don't recognize as being anywhere near the reality of those led by many friends of mine who are freelance travel writers. To me, the freelancer is a knight errant, the leaderless samurai, a solo gun-slinger, and my hero much of the time.

My first advice to aspiring freelance writers is to marry rich, or otherwise obtain a partner who has, at least, a steady income. Markets are hard to break into, payment is often laughably cheap. One young writer for a major series of guidebooks approached me on a press trip a few years ago and asked me if I had worked for the series and what they paid. I mentioned some figures, and he said, "Good, I'm working for nothing right now, but they told me if I did a good job, they would pay me next time." The figures I mentioned then were a range from $75 for updating a small chapter of a book through a few thousand to revise the entire book up to about $15,000 for the original writing of a new, fairly small title (under 300 pages of print).

Your writing in a newspaper can pay as little as $75, in a magazine $250, though there are higher and lower figures, depending on the publication. When you are successful, you can command a figure of $1 a word or even higher, however. Traditional print outlets (general purpose newspapers) are down, but niche print publications (birding, ballooning, kayaking, etc.) are up. The Internet is fraught with possibilities, very few of them paying much, if anything, though. You may have to self-publish, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Moreover, one site has its sample author writing "In fact, my own editor is crying out for correspondents to report on destinations throughout the world ... and she's not the only editor seeking fresh talent. To be honest, I have to turn work down -- there simply aren't' enough hours in the day to take up all the writing commissions I'm offered." Not bloody likely, as many of my freelancer friends would say.

Part Five

South Pacific Handbook R.I.P.

One of Moon's original authors has parted ways with Avalon Travel Publishing after 28 years but will continue to post South Pacific content on his website. The list of authors cut from Moon Publications now ranges from yours truly to David Stanley, Bill Weir, and even the founder, Bill Dalton. And it's all about money, or lack of, due to declining sales, poor marketing and distribution, and the relatively high royalty rates granted to early authors such as myself and David.

South Pacific Handbook RIP

I regret to inform you that a 9th edition of Moon Handbooks South Pacific will not be published. After 28 years and eight editions, Avalon Travel Publishing and I have decided that it will not be practical to produce a new edition.

There are a number of reasons for this, beginning with the numbers. Over the past 10 years, sales of Moon Handbooks South Pacific have dropped. The 7th edition (2000) sold a third less copies than the 6th edition (1996), and the current 8th edition (2004) has thus far sold just over half as many copies as the 7th.

Why are sales going down? Competition from other guidebooks and the internet is the obvious answer. Many people believe they can find enough free information online to make a printed guidebook unnecessary. What they don’t realize is that much of what is found on websites is dubious and incomplete, or just one-sided advertising. A majority of travel websites are run by companies which want to sell you their products or individuals eager to share travelers tips with their peers. The discipline and quality control exercised by a professional book editor is usually missing.

Since 2000 my book has faced strong competition from Lonely Planet South Pacific and Micronesia. It would be inappropriate for me to criticize that book here, but suffice it to say that the coverage there is far less consistent and detailed than that in Moon Handbooks South Pacific. Lonely Planet is a monopolistic corporation which has pushed Moon titles off the bookshelves in Australia, New Zealand, and much of Europe. Doubtless they’ll be pleased to learn of Moon Handbooks South Pacific’s demise because with no remaining competition other than Frommers South Pacific, they’ll be able to space new editions of South Pacific and Micronesia further apart and cut back on the cost of researching off-the-beaten-track locations.

South Pacific Handbook RIP by David Stanley

Tim Leffel on the Seven Myths of Travel Writing

Tim Leffel, the author of The World's Cheapest Destinations, has written a hard-hitting and eye-opening account of the truths about being a travel writer, and it's a winner.

A few weeks ago I received an interesting piece of mail. It said, “Launch your dream career as a travel writer today and get paid to travel the world.” All I had to do was sign up for an expensive correspondence course on travel writing. After that I could expect such rewards as “a complimentary week on an exotic Asian island” or a luxury vacation in Cancun “with airfare and all expenses paid.” The breathless come-on letter asked, “Why not live on permanent vacation?”

Why not indeed? Get paid to travel the world and live a life of leisure. What could be more glamorous?

Before you fall for it, remember that it is also glamorous to be a rock star, a best-selling novelist, or a starter for the Lakers. It’s not so glamorous, however, to be an aspiring actor (waiter) in Los Angeles, an aspiring songwriter (waiter) in Nashville, or an aspiring novelist (waiter) in New York. It may sound silly to compare travel writers like Tim Cahill or Jeff Greenwald to celebrities such as Tom Cruise and Stephen King, but the odds of getting to that level of success are just as daunting. The big difference is that when you do get to that upper echelon of travel writers, you’re still not making nearly as much money as the lowest-paid bench warmer in the NBA.

Just as plugging in a Stratocaster doesn’t make you a rock star, writing tales about your travels is not going to make you a travel writer. Like any position where supply far exceeds demand, you’ll need to follow the right steps and then pay your dues. It’s not going to happen overnight.

As a service to any beginning travel writers out there who are ready for the real story, here are the seven biggest myths of travel writing and the dirt on what to it will take to defy the odds.

Myth #1: Travel writers make enough money to live on

Transitions Abroad

Avalon Travel Publishing Purchased by Blackwater?

It's just a parody by Jeff, but still a good laugh at the corporate insensitivity and ruthless impersonal actions of Bill Newlin in recent years.

Reuters Newswire

Blackwater USA, the private security firm hired by the Department of Defense and the State Department to provide support in Baghdad, announced today that it has urchased Avalon Travel Publishing. The sale was announced after the close of trading on the Dow Jones Stock Exchange.

"I've long admired the management style of Avalon, particularly the Moon component," said Col. (Retired) Mike Hammer, CEO of the controversial security firm. "I thought we ran a tough outfit, but after seeing how Bill Newlin and his people deal with authors, we knew we had to have his team on board with us. The best way to get talent, I always say, is to go out and buy it."

Hammer elaborated on the management style at Moon. "I admire a kick-ass company with absolutely no heart. That's what it takes to succeed today. If someone's been with you for more than four years, throw them out! They're useless. Cut the wages and hire some dumb bastards who don't know any better. That's how we try to operate at
Blackwater, but we're pikers compared to these guys at Moon. I expect to learn a lot from from them in the coming months."

Hammer and Newlin announced the titles to be released in the spring of 2008:

--Road Trip Iraq: Jamie Jenson dodges IEDs for a humorous romp through Fallujah, Tikrit, and Mossel.

--Rick Steve's Green Zone Through the Back Door (Quickly! Quickly!)

--The Practically Dead Nomad, by Edward Hasbrouck

--The Run Over Dog Lover's Guide to Iran, by Margaret Littman

Newlin announced that the few authors being retained by Moon will be asked to input more typesetting codes and, beginning in January of 2008, to glue the covers on their books. "We call these Moon 'Handbooks,'" he noted, "so we think that authors ought to have a hand in the production."

Hammer and Newlin also announced a new website that will focus on management. "We've had a lot of success with www.travelmatters.com," said Newlin, "so our new site, which we will roll out when we hire a new web crew to replace the one we just fired, will be called loyaltydoesntmatter.com."

Media inquiries should be sent to Hannah Cox.

# # #

With love and happiness to all,

Jeff

Harper Collins Editor Phil Friedman Won't Mention Tiananmen Square Massacre

Way to go Harper Collins and editor Paul Friedman who will soon produce a book that ignores the civil and military atrocities of the Tiananman Square massacre, and so intend their book to gain favor with the Chinese authorities.

The politics of guidebooks
By Finlo Rohrer
BBC News Magazine

A new book for travellers to China plans to make no mention of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Should travel guides tell the whole history of a place, or bow to local sensitivities?

Hotels are a must. So are tips on the local cuisine. A few key phrases. Some maps. A list of the best tourist sites and their opening hours. Perhaps some cultural do and don'ts.

...and this is another

All are key ingredients of a typical guide book. And yet many also feel the need to offer something more - a grounding in the history of the place that can help flesh out its culture, architecture and art.

Take Nuremberg. You could describe the city's medieval architecture, its beautiful perch on the River Pegnitz and its role in the German Renaissance.

But many travellers might find it strange if you didn't mention the Nazis' Nuremberg rallies. At least once.

And one might find it a little surprising that HarperCollins is to publish a guide entitled Travel Around China to coincide with 2008's Beijing Olympics that will make no mention of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

I don't think talk about the killings is appropriate for a travel guide

Phil Friedman, HarperCollins

The 1989 protest that culminated in demonstrators being fired on by soldiers, and the death of hundreds, is a taboo subject in China. Internet searches that would throw up results relating to the episode are censored. Newspapers do not mention it.

HarperCollins are yet to confirm the content of the book - compiled from contributions from native Chinese writers - but the prospects do not seem to favour a mention.

Years of history

Editor Phil Friedman - who is working on the book - says people want different things from a travel guide.

"I don't think talk about the killings is appropriate for a travel guide... Tiananmen Square had thousands of years of history before that occurred. Tiananmen is a feudal site, hugely important historic site. I'm not sure people travelling there would go there because there were shootings."

You could praise Nuremberg's architecture...
But to Independent travel editor Simon Calder, this attitude is problematic.

"Travel guides are not just about telling you where to get a cheap bed and meet the locals in civil circumstances. They are helping you to understand a place," he says.

"The notion you could get a proper idea of a country as complex, fascinating and in many ways alarming as China without knowing about the history and politics is preposterous."

BBC Link

Lonely Planet Responds

Tony Wheeler has taken some heat recently from fans of Lonely Planet who accuse him of selling out to a British government media monopoly which will only exploit his vast storage of travel information and use it for the exploitation of the masses. But most readers seem to think this is an OK match and that LP-BBC Worldwide will be a comfortable merger that will someday send travel information to travelers on the road along with upscale tourists who still want to know the dance schedule at Nana. Time will tell.

Here's what Tony has to say to the readers of Thorn Tree:

A Message from Tony & Maureen Wheeler
Posted at 05:02PM Oct 02, 2007 by CarolB
A message to the Thorn Tree community from Tony & Maureen Wheeler:

It's time.

Yes, it's finally happened, after 34 years almost to the month, we’re moving on from Lonely Planet. We could say it's so we have more time for travel, but the reality is we've known for some time that Lonely Planet has to make a big step into the future.

But guidebooks are only part of Lonely Planet, the non-print part of our activities from websites to Lonely Planet Images, LPTV to B2B projects, may be a smaller part in turnover terms, but it’s the area which we believe is going to become increasingly important. Since 1994 we have spent a lot of time and money trying to find ways to help travellers access the immense amount of information we have on just about everywhere, as, how, when and where they want it.

We have developed useful tools online for travellers and instigated the mighty Thorn Tree, but to really develop this medium to its fullest extent, to be as innovative and as powerful a resource online as we are in print, we need help. The books subsidise everything else and are the basis of everything we do. We need to continue to invest in researching and collating information, but as technology develops we also need expertise and financial muscle to really exploit our full potential as the travel information authority of the future.

Enter BBC Worldwide. It's the side of the BBC which produces and markets BBC projects for the outside world, not just the British radio and television programs but also magazines, international TV channels, websites and mobile services. It's global, it has a wonderful reputation and as of today it's the new majority owner of Lonely Planet.

Why did we choose them? We had many offers from digital companies to international publishing houses to private entrepreneurs, and many were interesting, however BBCW got our attention because on so many important levels they 'got' Lonely Planet. Innovative and quirky, authoritative and trustworthy, ethical and principled are all words that we use within Lonely Planet to describe our company. All these words can also be applied to BBCW. We have spent several months getting to know BBCW and we are confident they are the right partner to help us take Lonely Planet into the future.

What changes is this going to mean? Only positive ones we believe. Their view is the book side of the operation ain't broke so they don’t have to fix it. That side will continue with new projects and new ideas just as it is doing today. The other side of Lonely Planet – that non-print side – is going to get a lot more energy and push.

And what will we do? Well we’re still going to have a substantial stake in Lonely Planet – 25% ownership – and BBCW have asked us to stay on board and work with them. We think we're going to be involved in some exciting new projects. And we might get more time to travel.

Lonely Planet Thorn Tree Message from Tony Wheeler