You’re a Freelance Travel Writer: You Need to Market

As a freelance travel writer, you’re a business owner. That means that it’s your responsibility to market yourself — it’s up to you to make sure that you grow your business, land new opportunities and continue to find new markets. Freelancing isn’t a ‘get out of marketing free’ card — but don’t let that scare you. Marketing yourself as a travel writer doesn’t need to be complicated.

Get a website

Purchase a domain name — yourname.com if you can get it — and put up a site. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but since you won’t have a storefront, you’ll need some place to direct editors and other prospective clients to, where you can share information about your writing. Personally, I like using a blog as my main site: visitors get an idea of my writing skills immediately and I don’t have to mess around with anything difficult when I want to edit something on my site.

Many web hosting services can automatically set up WordPress on your site. Blog on a topic relevant to your travel writing — you can even just record your adventures that don’t make it into articles — and set up an about page with links to your clips.

Join social networks

Even if you don’t know what country you’re going to be in next week, you can still connect with people online. You don’t have to sign up for every social networking site under the sun, but at least get profiles up on Facebook and LinkedIn. I like Twitter as well — but what works for me may not be the same thing that works for you. It’s also worth getting involved in more specialized sites, like those that cater to travel writers.

Comment on other sites

Commenting on blog posts, especially those related to your own writing is an absolutely basic online marketing strategy, but it can get your name out there, along with links to your site. It’s important to leave worthwhile comments: your goal is to build up some name recognition. When someone sees your name or website, you want them to think, ‘wow! that’s an awesome idea and this person is a great travel writer.’

Find what works for your niche

Depending on just what kind of travel writing you want to do, your marketing will vary. The tactics you can take to catch the eye of the editor of a family-oriented magazine aren’t going to be the same as the tactics you take to land a ongoing blogging job. That means you’ll need to experiment to find just what will work for you. You may even need to do some research to build a complete marketing plan. But a good plan will pay off again and again in new writing assignments.

Your Story’s Begging For A Sidebar

More than once, I’ve been able to turn a ‘maybe we can run your article’ to a ‘when can you get it to us’ with the addition of a sidebar. It’s been my experience that editors love sidebars, not because of the space they take up or the useful information they contain but because most readers focus on headlines, pull quotes and sidebars and then the story, if you’re lucky. That makes it a good practice to include a sidebar suggestion with almost every query. Even if the editor decides to give a sidebar a pass, she might still pick up the article — and the mere offer a sidebar speaks well of you.

Sidebars can be any sort of information tangentially related to the main article — and when you’re writing about travel, sidebars are simple. There’s always a sidebar you can add:

1. A travel itinerary
2. Contact information for a hotel or museum
3. Necessary gear
4. Quotes from other travelers
5. Similar trips in other areas
6. Children’s (or other specialized) activities
7. Nearby lodgings
8. Local customs or rules
9. Packing lists
10. Any other information that doesn’t quite fit in your article

Odds are generally pretty good that you have more information than you can fit in the space an editor has allotted you. Using that information to create a sidebar can win you some brownie points with your editor and — depending on the publication — maybe a few extra dollars in your check.

Bump Up Your Bottom Line: Photography

One of the biggest worries for many full-time freelancers is making enough money on any given story to make writing it at least more lucrative than flipping burgers. For travel writers, this can be exceptionally true, but there is also a fairly fast way to add to your bottom line. Take your camera along with you when researching a story — for some of us, this might also be known as sight-seeing.

Picking Your Travel Writing Niche

If you want a fast way to increase the number of your queries that are accepted, focusing on a very specific niche can truly help. A niche can make it much easier for you to find markets that match your audience, as well as decide on just which facets of a trip will be most interesting.

Interview With A Travel Writer: Sheila Scarborough

Sheila Scarborough has serious travel writing cred — especially in travel blogging circles. Her blog with the BootsnAll Travel Network, Family Travel Logue, has caught the attention of publications like Real Simple and The Guardian newspaper. The Telegraph newspaper called her blog on of the “world’s best travel blogs.” Sheila also blogs at the Perceptive Travel Blog and maintains her own website.