Each week I receive numerous emails from would-be writers who think travel writing must be the most glamorous lifestyle in the world, and, frankly, it is an awesome lifestyle. However, it is a hard way to make a living. If you are considering a career in travel writing, this may be of interest to you. In this article, I will share some background as to the kinds of pieces I have sold and how I lived while selling them, answer the most frequently asked questions that appear in my inbox, and finally I will give some advice on how to get started.
My story
After having spent the last four years continuously on the road, I returned to the United States for my book tour. My base of operations in Asia was my apartment in Taiwan, and later in Cambodia. In Hong Kong, I started doing a series of one-day adventures: hiking, rowing, and climbing. This is not typical of what I like to write, but it was well paid. If you google my name, or check my website, you will find hundreds of real adventure stories, which entail sleeping in tribal villages and monasteries, for days, weeks, and even months at a time. My books are full of the same type of long-term adventures.
Living on the road, your life becomes disorganized. I have belongings scattered everywhere: boxes of clothing and my walking stick in Hong Kong, my laptop and motorcycle in Taiwan, all my documents and diplomas in Taiwan, another motorcycle and a desk top computer and half my clothing in Cambodia, and two bags of clothing and equipment in Thailand.
I do not have a home and I travel light, so I wind up leaving things behind in case I ever go back. However, I don’t usually go back. I wind up buying a completely new set of equipment every year or so.
Is it worth it? People always ask how hard it is to sell your articles.
Find a unique niche and work it.
My selling points are that I do unusual adventures in strange places. I am one of the few writers who has ever written about some of the places and tribes and people I have visited, therefore it was easy to place those stories. The Hong Kong stories floating around the web were part of my latest marketing plan. I pitched to several magazine and book publishers with the idea of doing a series of articles and a book about adventures in Hong Kong. Many people write about Hong Kong, but I am one of the very few that writes about adventure there. So, in this instance, I wrote about a well-documented place, but with a new twist. That, plus the fact that magazines already knew me, made it easy to sell those stories.
I have a background in linguistics, so for every new country I live in, I write an article called "On Learning the Awful Language." Another niche for me is my martial arts. I study and write about the fighting arts in the different countries where I go. I also do comparative religion. Since I speak Mandarin, I do articles about the Chinese minority in each country.
Other successful travel writers I have known write about fine arts, dancing, music, food, or women’s and workers’ rights in the countries where they operate. After they published the first articles in the first country where they worked, they established a name for themselves. They made media contacts, and every time they change countries they can do similar stories in the new country. Part of working a niche is finding all of the publications that may use similar stories. For example, there are NGOs (non-governmental organizations) working in each of these fields I mentioned above. Many of them will buy stories for their newsletter; some of them will pay money for research. They will all provide opportunities for established writers and experts to speak.
Sell Yourself
People always ask if travel writing pays enough so that you could live comfortably.
You must be a good salesperson and have good marketing ideas in selling your stories. In addition, you have to be able to negotiate contracts and set up sponsorship for yourself. For example, I just did a series in Cambodia, where a tour operator paid for two months of adventure travel. They paid for travel, food, lodging, and adventures, but did not give me a salary. After I finished the stories, I had to sell them to magazines to get cash to live on. Sometimes, if I am seriously broke, which is often, I will take a contract like this just so I can eat.
Some magazines pay $40 a story. Some pay $250. You have to patch all of this together and make a living. Some magazines don’t pay at all, but you still publish with them because your sponsors want to get some free advertising in exchange for the support they gave you. In addition, you need to get as much exposure as you can, therefore, you give some stories away free.
My books work well with my financial and marketing plan. It is easier to convince a potential sponsor that I am someone worth investing in by using my books as a lead-in. Now that I am in the United States for a while, I am on a tour as a paid speaker. Speaking pays much better than writing, but it was the writing that launched my speaking. Each speech also results in a few book sales, so I get a little money from selling books at speaking events. If you choose to go on the speaking circuit, a variety of people will come to hear you speak. Some of them will be media or have media contacts, and you will get more writing work out of it. Exposure and additional paid work are two benefits of speaking. Later, if you have enough speaking and publishing under your belt, you will get a bigger publisher, and they will pay you an advance on your next book. One of my competitors just got a huge break, an advance of $250,000 on a book about the Shaolin Temple. My book was first, but he got the break because he had paid his dues, writing for larger and larger magazines, until he got to the big payoff. I know other people who get $8,000 per booking for their speaking.
The money is there. You just have to know how to get it. And, you will have to put in a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.
Fast-paying Markets
The fastest way to be paid for your travel writing is to sell it to the English language media in the countries where you operate. You should always do research, find the names of the publications in that country, and submit to them. In spite of the large number of ex-pats floating around the world claiming to be writers, there is actually a shortage of good writers overseas.
Publishing abroad is a double-edged sword, however. Most of my magazine publishing has been in Asia, and I am virtually unknown in America. In Cambodia, I am recognized on the streets because I have done kung fu movies and TV and radio spots. In Thailand, my writing is in the magazines every month. In addition, I fight professionally and my fights tend to get a lot of coverage because I am a crazy foreign journalist who likes to fight. Therefore, people know me. My stories are appearing frequently there and a huge magazine based out of Hong Kong and Taipei is running an eight-page story on me.
I have had very little success in magazine publishing in America. Martial arts magazines are the only print magazines where I have published frequently, and most of my US publishing has been in web magazines.
So, as we say in Italian, I have to make my bones. I have to make a name for myself here, in this country.
Live on the Cheap
The good news at the end of all of this is that if you get big and you get good commissions from magazines, a big magazine like Outside, Men’s Health, or National Geographic could give you as much as $25,000 or more for a single story if it is commissioned by them.
On the book side, a small publisher will give you $5,000, while a big publisher could give you tens of thousands. In Asia, you only need about $30,000 a year to live like a king in a large apartment with domestic staff to do all the cooking and cleaning. When I go on a long story in a desert, a monastery, or in the jungle, I may even close up my house and live on $200 a month. So, a $5000 advance could easily last me six months. Twenty-five thousand could carry me for two years.
Take Every Opportunity
Giving your writing away free and speaking free may pay off in the end. You may be passing up a $40 commission today in exchange for enough money to live for two years overseas. When it comes to hitting the big money in America, you only need one. One good story in America could keep you writing a long, long time back in Asia.
The easiest place to publish is in web magazines. Web magazines may seem less prestigious in the beginning; however, the beauty of the web is that it will always be there. Ten years from now when someone is researching a particular subject, they may come across your name, whereas few people would dig through ten years of back issues of a magazine to find you. In addition, if they googled your name, even ten years from now, they would find all of your articles.
