Would you like to “Travel for Profit,” as a recent small newspaper ad proposed?
Then just call the listed 800 number for a free prospectus.
Since the Tribune’s Travel section deals with a lot of free-lance writers of whom very few ever turn a profit from their trips, we made the call to see what we would get.
What we got was an offering for “The Freelance Travel Writer’s and Photographer’s Course.” According to the prospectus, you need a sense of adventure, an inquisitive mind, enthusiasm and a willingness to learn in order to be a travel writer.
You also need $495.
The eight-week correspondence course offers the opportunity to build a career in travel writing and live the “glamorous” life of a full- or part-time professional travel journalist, to travel to exotic locales and stay in luxurious hotels for free or at a discount.
“There is an insatiable demand for competent travel feature material . . . this course is designed to enable you to become one of the fortunate few supplying this limitless market!”
Sounds enticing, doesn’t it? Well, don’t quit your day job just yet.
“If there’s an insatiable demand, show me where the line is,” said Carol Barrington, a former president of the Society of American Travel Writers and a full-time free-lance travel writer for 16 years. “It’s very hard to break into a top-quality magazine. They are hungry for (material), but they’ll go after somebody with a reputation for clean copy and a well-written story.”
The market for travel writing is far from limitless. In reality, said Barrington, it’s extremely competitive, and opportunities are diminishing as budgets shrink.
“The free-lance travel writing markets today are tighter than they have ever been,” she said. “It’s very difficult to break into unless you are very gifted.
“There are wonderful, highly experienced travel journalists today who cannot sell, and they’ve been in the business for years. The markets are so tight today that they’re looking for other lines of work to supplement their income.”
Alfred Borcover, the Tribune’s retired Travel editor who now writes a bi-weekly column, agrees with Barrington.
“Travel is a very difficult area in which to write because it encompasses many different things,” said Borcover. “People think all you have to do to write for a travel section is to use a lot of adjectives. That’s not true.”
Travel writing is also a field where fame and fortune do not necessarily go hand in hand. Arky Gonzales, chairman of SATW’s free-lance council, estimated that most free-lance writers’ incomes hover somewhere around the poverty level.
Those who have experience in the market know that travel writers must be flexible to earn a living, selling their articles as a sideline to another profession or working as a free-lancer in various writing markets.
“I don’t know any travel writers who live solely by the money they earn from travel writing,” said Mark Orwoll, managing editor of Travel & Leisure magazine, one of the leading travel publications in the country.
Most newspapers, Gonzales said, usually pay around $200, while magazines may pay a few thousand dollars for a single article. However, bigger publications are more likely to enlist a novelist or a seasoned writer for such assignments.
Orwoll estimates he receives about 200 queries and story ideas per week. Of those, he said, only 2 percent or 3 percent receive serious consideration for publication-and even fewer actually get published.
“There’s just very little room for access at the lower rungs of the ladder unless you’re hard-working and diligent,” said Dave Houser, a free-lance travel writer and photographer based in Ruidoso, N.M.
As for free travel opportunities, many major publications (including the Chicago Tribune) have adopted policies that forbid them from taking stories from free-lancers who accept free press trips in exchange for a write-up.
“We pay for everything,” Orwoll said. “In that sense, `free’ travel is OK (since his magazine is paying for it). But we don’t accept free meals, transportation or hotel rooms from press trips. Those aren’t offered to people without a track record anyway.”
But don’t lose all hope if you still want to be a travel writer. Learning the skills to break into the field is crucial to attaining success.
Orwoll recommends that budding writers take classes in copy editing and writing at a local college, preferably with a journalism program that is accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Not only will they teach the basics of constructing a story, classes give hands-on experience with word-processing skills and camera techniques.
That $495 course, which is offered by the American College of Journalism Inc., of La Mesa, Calif., is not on the council’s list of accredited institutions. While this does not mean the college or course isn’t legitimate, it does mean they don`t meet the qualifications required for recognition by the council. (In spite of numerous attempts to contact representatives at the college, our phone calls were not returned.)
Seminars on travel writing are also available through college journalism departments and other venues, Barrington said. These seminars feature seasoned travel writers who can give tips about what editors look for in a story and how to break into the market.
Houser recommends checking out several books on travel writing, such as Ann and Carl Purcells’ “A Guide to Travel Writing and Photography” (Writer’s Digest Books; $22.95), to work on your skills at home.
All agree that nothing is more important than attaining experience.
“There’s certainly no guarantee that, unless you have an inherent ability in writing and photography, an eight-week correspondence course can get you any leads into the field,” Houser said. “You scrounge and work your fingers to the bone, get a good reputation with editors, and finally get published. “There’s no substitute for hard work, diligence and skills. No correspondence course can give you that.”
