On the surface, travel writing means working for someone else. Whether you’re sending off an article to a magazine editor or contributing an essay to an anthology, you’re writing primarily for someone else. It’s not impossible to take a more entrepreneurial approach to your travel writing, however.
A Few Entrepreneurial Options
Your mileage will vary with these options: some require upfront investment, others require an awful lot of time in front of a computer. But these writing ideas can be the starting point for a business that will be bringing in money long after you stop typing, if you’re willing to put some work into it.
- Blogging: if your adventures are entertaining and you can build up a following, you can earn money on a blog in a whole list of different ways.
- Guidebooks: The number of guidebooks online are exploding. If you can put together a guidebook for a very targeted audience — more select than a publishing house might want to cater to — you can make solid money selling it online.
- Self-guided Tours: Put together the text for a day’s walking tour through a city you know well and make it available to visitors (either online or as a physical copy). Depending on the focus of the tour, you can sell plenty of copies.
- Travel Books: You may not have the material for a guidebook, but if you can write a book-length manuscript, it can make you money. There are plenty of small publishing houses focused on travel topics, making it easier for you to get a book to market without self-publishing.
- Anything You Think Of: You can put your travel writing experience to work for you — your experiences may lead you to another opportunity to build a business based on travel and writing.
The Big Concern
The biggest problem with creating your own travel writing projects is cash flow. You’ll almost never get any money in your pocket prior to publication, and even then, you may not get to many checks any time soon. Blogs, guidebooks and other projects are just like any other business. It takes time to create a product, market it and start bringing in income.
You can balance the cash flow issue by working part time on your own projects and dedicating a portion of your time to working for other people. A few articles written for magazines can keep the wolf from the door while you get your own projects up and running — even if that means it takes longer to become operational.
An inspiring and useful piece – it makes me think of many possibilities in future that I could venture into. Thanks Thursday Bram!
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