Travel - Friends - Dating -- JoinMate.com!

Professional travel writers, please?

I'm aspiring to be- I understand the structure of articles, how to 'slant' a story, how to write succinctly within guidelines, etc- I took a very good travel writing course. I'm also a fairly decent photographer. And I travel a lot. But the one thing I never understood was how to find your markets- every publication has specific times of year they do pieces on certain areas or themes- so how do I know when to write what? Do I need to solicit every single travel editor, and find out what they're looking for every year? Or is there a publication like Travel Writer's Market?
Any help is greatly appreciated!

Public Comments

1. I'm not a travel writer, but I do write for trade magazines and for Womens magazines as well as radio.

My advice is to look in The Writers and Artists Yearbook and find all the travel magazines listed there...and then phone them all up and see what you can glean from whoever answers the phone.

Yes, it is a bit laborious but it does work...ask them initially for their guidelines...sometimes they'll offer you a copy of the mag. too....if not you have to invest and buy it.

Reading the publication really helps with understanding what they're after.

2. I'm not a travel writer either but I know a company called AWAI (maybe you know about them already) - http://www.awaionline.com/ that provides a lot of good information (free and paid) on finding a market for your work too.
Another company I know of is International Living, they publish a daily email newsletter and a montly magazine too and I know they're always looking for contributors. Not sure how much they pay but it's a platform to get your articles to 400,000 people every day. Check this out: http://www.internationalliving.com/about_il/write_for_us
Best of luck! I wish I had your talent!

3. I've got a grand total of one travel article published. ha ha! So I guess that sort of qualifies me to answer your question. ;) I'm also a professional photographer (my day job! I write by night) so I've got a pretty decent collection of travel photos.

What I've been doing is writing articles or outlines and notes for articles to go with good photo collections. When I think I have a decent idea, I send an article proposal to a magazine that I think might be interested, based on what they usually publish.

With most nonfiction stuff, it's often best to send a proposal - "This is what I plan to do. What do you think of this idea. Would you be interested in buying the article?" - rather than a finished manuscript. That way, if the editor is looking for a particular slant or a special feature that comes close to what you're proposing, you can write it to their specifications.

Writer's Market has lots of travel magazines in their magazine section. And you can always start out small, by going for newer or smaller-circulation publications (local magazines, etc.) to get plenty of cred before you start querying bigger, national publications.

Good luck! It's a fun way to write.