Customer Reviews

TRAVEL WRITING 2.0: Earning Money from your Travels in the New Media Landscape

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Travel Writing 2.0 is an invaluable book for anybody who wants to become a professional travel writer. Tim Leffel prescribes a thorough explanation of the steps you will need to consider to become successful. Mr. Leffel provides great insight about the various publication outlets that are available within the travel writing industry. He also offers experienced advice and tips on how you may become a proficient travel writer "in the new media landscape". The "new media landscape" refers to the change in the way people consume information; from print to digital.

Travel Writing 2.0 also includes advice and tips from many well known names and figures of the travel writing and publishing community like Johnny Jet, Grace Fujimoto, Sean O'Neil, David Farley, and Lara Dunston. He also provides a great list of resources of books for further reading and websites to check out and people you should get to know.

Mr. Leffel advises various ways to building up your writing portfolio, or clippings. He also discusses marketing and how that is heavily related to your success. Mr. Leffel makes no bones about the hard realities and the efforts that are required to become a professional travel writer, especially if you plan to earn a comfortable living from it. Whether you are curious, or serious about a career in travel writing, Travel Writing 2.0 will point you in the right direction towards success.

I've read a lot of books offering advice on travel writing - and have even written one myself. But mine, like the others, is dated and doesn't deal with the travel media world as it is today. This book does. I learned a lot from it, and as I've been a full-time travel writer for about 20 years, that says something.

I enjoyed the many interviews with successful travel writers, willing to share their information about what they're doing and how they do it. Not all of them are into writing for websites and doing blogs. Some stick with the printed media and do it successfully. Others blend the two. Others think outside the box and come up with different ways of getting paid for your travel writing.

If you're at all interested in breaking into travel writing, or even if you're already a successful travel writer, you'll still find this book well worth the investment.

If you have any interest in a career as a travel writer, buy this book! The author not only gives you the nuts & bolts,
but a hammer, screw driver and pliers as well. He paints a realistic picture of the difficulties in this age of diminishing print
media, but also offers hope via dozens of quotes from successful writers. The author's voice comes through well making this
book more entertaining to read than most 'how to' books.

First of all, I want to say that I agree with previous reviewer comments on this book's strengths for aspiring travel writers. I especially appreciated the no-nonsense discussions of travel writing realities. In fact, the book helped me realize travel writing is probably not my future career. And yet, I keep picking up this book, recommending it, pointing out bits and pieces to friends. So much of the information is also relevant to other forms of writing and other web-based activities - how to develop a successful blogging site and/or portfolio site, how to use ads on your blogging site, choosing domain names and host sites, good websites for finding free lance writing jobs, writing good query letters, crafting your writing. Plus all of this useful information is presented in a down-to-earth, humorous style that makes enjoyable reading. Anyone interested in media writing should have a look at this book.

Tim Leffel has written an accurate, insightful, and great to read book on what it takes to be a successful travel writer both creatively and financially. Not only is his work confirming my own experiences in the publishing industry, it is giving me new ideas on how to diversify my efforts and how effectively to harness the new communication technologies that are changing the publishing arena. Not only is Travel Writing 2.0 a terrific resource, but it's also great fun to read. I highly recommend this book to the serious writer who either wants to really know what it takes to freelance in the travel world or who is already out there working several income and creative streams and wants to take their work to the next level.

This is an excellent book.

I am constantly searching for information about travel writing - particularly travel writing on the web. Most of the information I have discovered is in bits and pieces.

And then I found Tim Leffel's Travel Writing 2.0

Leffel has gathered together not only the bits and pieces, but much more, in his new, very readable and highly useful book. He is forthright and honest. You don't come away from this book thinking you are going to spend the rest of your life at an island hideaway collecting bountiful royalty checks. Leffel doesn't say that won't happen but he does emphasize that travel writing is a tough business. And above all he stresses that it is a business.

Tim Leffel, is a veteran travel writer, editor and publisher and he offers common sense ideas about motivation, niche building and entrepreneurial writing. Information is not limited to the digital markets but also includes the traditional ways travel writers have marketed their work. There are comments and advice, throughout the book, by writers who have been very successful both in print and on the web. The resource directory in the back of the book is a gem. I page through this book often to find fresh ideas for my own writing and website. I recommend it highly.

I want to travel and help pay for it with "Travel Writing." This book gave me key points and the confidence to start planning my travel. It showed me how to develop a niche of readers, discounts, and marketing on-line tips.

This book offers great advances over other travel writing books out there by exploring the new media options of websites, blogging, webzines etc. Tim alerts us to the many different ways writers can make names for themselves, and reminds us that we can be our own product--find a niche, establish your expertise, create a website of your own. Publish a book, on demand, like this one!

He has plenty of experience in the field himself, but that doesn't keep him from consulting over 50 successful colleagues. Hearing their stories is a great reminder that there are lots of ways to progress in ones career. He also doesn't sugar-coat anything, emphasizing that it's a fun job with few barriers to entry, so the competition is fierce and success is not guaranteed. He's realistic and not dogmatic--for example, he explores assorted views on whether one should write for free or very cheap, instead of offering a blanket condemnation or endorsement of the process.

If there is one resource a budding travel writer needs to have, this is it.

World's Cheapest Destinations author Tim Leffel lays down a well thought out foundation for would-be travel writing entrepreneurs to gain success in a very competitive field. He doesn't varnish his insights and methodologies with flowery language or lofty expectations; rather he offers very pragmatic courses of action, along with scores of examples and resources for the reader to pursue and ponder.

Mr. Leffel challenges the reader to gut-check her or his motivations and expectations, then to act accordingly. I suspect that there are a fair amount of 'dreamers' that will have their travel writing visions of detailing experiences of beluga caviar on toast points on a veranda overlooking the Mediterranean (on the client's dime) shattered. Once the reader determines her or his path, Mr. Leffel unfolds a cornucopia of ideas, directions and resources that are practical, useful and can be implemented immediately. He unselfishly shares his strategies and knowledge in helping others to ensure success. When reading this book, one gets the sense that the author is genuinely invested in the reader's success. He is the real deal, free of hubris and self-congratulatory drivel.

This is an exhaustive, no-frills guide to becoming successful in travel journalism. It is a must-have for anyone seriously considering a travel writing career on any scale.

This book is an excellent resource for those who want to become travel writers in today's changing world of publication. Leffel is very experienced and knowledgeable. At times, it almost seems as if he is saying 'don't become a travel writer.' But that is because he is telling it like it is. He isn't sugar coating things trying to make you believe it is a piece of cake to become an established travel writer. He is letting you know that it takes lots of hard work.

But then, he leads you carefully along telling you exactly what you need to do. This book can shorten the time that it takes you to become recognized as a travel writer. Buy the book. You'll be glad that you did.