Guest Editorial

And here's an editorial from a former Moon travel guidebook writer:

OUTSOURCING MOON
by X-Moon, Delhi bureau

Bill Newlin has announced that he is outsourcing all guidebook writing to a company based in Bangalore, India. Further questioning reveals that this company is in fact a plantation where monkeys have been trained to climb trees and twist off coconuts. With the recent rapid decline in world coconut production, unemployed monkeys have been ingeniously retrained by the Bangalore plantation owners to modify content for Moon guidebooks.

There are estimated to be 2,000 monkeys typing away on 2,000 typewriters.

They are divided into huts by continent: North America, Latin America, Asia and Europe.

"The maps have proved problematic," said Bill, "but otherwise, the gibberish is adequate for most travel needs. It's an ideal match for Moon because we pay them peanuts." Bill also mentioned that he is pleased that the monkeys will not dispute the format of the material. They apparently do not go berserk if print-size is drastically reduced, or the work is printed on paper so thin you can see through it. They tend to go berserk, however, if the peanut supply dwindles.

Bill spoke further: "The disconnect we were having with the human writers was causing a lot of aggravation in our editorial offices. What the chimps do is take older editions and change one word on each page, which then passes for the new edition. That's all we need really. Most of our readers don't give a fig about content anyway. What they need is the security blanket of some sort of guidebook to hold. And that's what we give them."

Next on the horizon, Newlin is thinking seriously about outsourcing cover designs to elephants in northern Thailand. "I have heard that they are quite capable artists and very adept with their trunks. Of course, the cost of feeding them is far higher than the monkeys, but still well below human designer rates, even those of starving artists in garrets." Newlin is currently looking into cheaper sources of feed for the mammoth designers, in order to cut costs.

The Art of Travel Writing

I'm not sure of the connection between getting an online graduate degree, and the superb list of resources for prospective travel writers listed below, but somebody did a helluva job collecting links to all kids of useful sites. Great job, Kelly!

If the idea of travel writing leaves you with visions of luxurious vacations in exotic locations completely free of charge and all you have to do is write down your experiences in return, then you need to read the information below. Travel writing is a highly competitive profession, one that doesn’t pay especially well unless you make it to the top, and free travel is usually reserved for the very best writers. However, if you love to travel as much as you love to write and are sure you have something to offer to readers, then you will find the following information incredibly helpful as you pursue a career in travel writing. Below, you will find advice from professionals, tips, opportunities to get to know other travel writers, organizations for travel writers, places to find writing jobs, and resources for traveling.

Graduate Degree Blog

Hard Times at Lonely Planet (slight return)

Another report about the recent layoffs at Lonely Planet.

Melbourne-based guidebook behemoth Lonely Planet will announce the sacking of 50 staff tonight -- around 10% of its global workforce -- as the global economic downturn continues to gut the tourism industry and guidebook sales.

Staff at Lonely Planet’s Footscray office were informed of the layoffs this morning with management calling a meeting this afternoon to discuss the changes and tap shoulders. A formal announcement is due at 9pm tonight to tie in with owner BBC Worldwide's London-centric media strategy.

A spokesman for Acting CEO Stephen Palmer confirmed the cuts to Crikey this morning and said they will impact all areas of the business. Affected staff were still in the process of being informed that they were out of a job when Crikey called.

In an emailed statement, Palmer said the situation was a "difficult" one but that the company had no choice in the context of the economic downturn.

"I recognise that this is a terribly difficult time, particularly for those whose jobs will be made redundant. I would like to reiterate that I would not have taken this action if there was any way I could have avoided it."

Palmer said the cuts were spread across the Lonely Planet's US, UK and Australian offices and did not comment on the specific divisions affected. But sources have told Crikey that the entire online content production division has been dismantled with extra cuts to be made in support roles. The book production section is said to be immune while images staff and commissioning editors appear to have also escaped the axe.

The cuts were foreshadowed on Monday when BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons gave a speech in Cardiff indicating BBC Worldwide’s operations will be scaled back to focus on its core commercial business of repackaging the Beeb's archive for DVD sales. UK MPs have savaged the company for the $250 million Lonely Planet purchase, claiming it has no links to its core business. The BBC is also under pressure from the UK government to use its licence fees to bail out Channel 4. BBC Worldwide made 112 million pounds last year.

Louise Connor of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance said she wasn't surprised at the decision in the context of the global tourism meltdown.

"It’s sad to see decisions made in England affecting so many jobs in Australia," she added.

Lonely Planet staff tell of a sense of foreboding that has gripped the Footscray office over the past few months. Palmer has regularly used company-wide meetings to give frank assessments about revenue problems and website cost blowouts. Sources say that once the new website was completed, the heat was on middle management to justify ongoing staffing levels.

In October 2007, original owners Tony and Maureen Wheeler sold Lonely Planet to BBC Worldwide for around $250 million. The Wheelers retained a 25% stake and are still swimming in the proceeds of the deal, reportedly mulling plans to spend $12 million on a lavish production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

The latest lay-offs mirror a move taken by the Wheelers in 2004 when 40 staff were sacked and those remaining told to forgo a 3% pay rise in the midst of the SARS outbreak.

It is not known whether the 120 staff at Lonely Planet’s Oakland and London offices have been informed of the sackings

Crikey

Hard Times at Lonely Planet

The worldwide economic collapse has hit almost everyone, including publishers of travel guidebooks, as shown by this recent announcement from Lonely Planet. Actually, I'm surprised that they only cut 10% of their labor force, but I do expect more retreachment as the year progresses. I've also heard that Avalon Travel Publishing and Moon Publications are in deep shit, cancelling several of their planned Europe guides, and getting lousy reviews at Amazon on some of their replacement guides to SE Asia. They saved some money with lower royalty rates, but cut off their noses.

Lonely Planet tells staff to pack their bags
Chris Zappone
February 25, 2009 - 2:53PM

Travel guide book publisher Lonely Planet has cut up to 50 positions as the demand for guidebooks shrivels in the face of global financial crisis.The cuts will affect staff in Australia, the US and Britain where most of the company's sales and offices are.

Before the cuts the company said it had 500 people on its payroll.The retrenchments are "directly related to the economic downturn because we're a global company,'' spokesman Adam Bennett said."It represents the decline of the guidebook market in tough times.'' Mr Bennett said the US and Britain, both of which are struggling with recession, represented a combined total of 60% of guide book sales.Lonely Planet, which is 75%-owned by the BBC's commercial enterprise BBC Worldwide, said it was consulting with employees, some of whom were not having their contracts renewed, while others were having their positions eliminated.

Acting chief exectuve Stephen Palmer said in a statement that the global market for travel was not expected to pick up soon."Even the most optimistic forecasts do not predict any sustained recovery until 2010 at the earliest, and even then it is likely to be slow and patchy,'' Mr Palmer said."The US, UK and Europe are all in recession, and these territories account for over 80% of our business.''Mr Palmer cited a UN World Travel Organisation forecast for total outbound travel to dip 2% this year.

But he predicted Lonely Planet's core markets would erode further with a 10% fall in the US, 5% in Britain and 2% in Australia."It has become clear that this economic situation is unprecedented, it will not just be a blip and we need to adjust our costs so we can manage through these tough times.''czappone@fairfax.com.au

On Lonely Planet and the BBC

Another interesting argument against the merger of Lonely Planet and the BBC, with some even more interesting comments on the issue.

I've blogged quite recently about the new Lonely Planet travel magazine which I think is an unfair competitor to Wanderlust (an excellent independent travel magazine which I write for quite a bit).

Why is this unfair? Because LP is now majority-owned by the BBC.

Following on from the new LP Travel magazine (which is written almost 100% by BBC writers and presenters) here's another example of how that playing field just isn't level anymore. Any brand would kill for a tie-up with the BBC on the BBC's homepage. The value in brand terms is huge. And this will translate to more hits for the LP website, more ad revenue and more book sales for LP.

You can't blame LP for wanting to make the most of the fact that its now owned by the BBC (or to be more accurate the commerical arm of the Beeb - BBC Worldwide) and with the clout of one of the world's most influential and wealthy media brands behind it the future for LP looks rosy.

I hadn't thought too much when the deal was announced about the impact on the LP brand of being owned by the BBC, but selling out to a big corporation says heaps about a brand and its future. I can see that Tony Wheeler (LP's founder) quite possibly felt that selling to a cultural corporation like the BBC rather than to a full-on multi-national commercial publisher was a good compromise... and smart too - moving the brand on from being a traditional paper and print publisher to a forward looking media organisation.

But I think it's all wrong. He'd have been better off selling to a fully commercial publisher (or media organisation) rather than one that's subsidised by the UK taxpayer. (Non UK readers - every tax payer in the UK pays an annual TV licence that costs around £130). Whilst some would argue that BBC Worldwide is a separate entity, the reality is that you can't work out where the taxpayer funded elements of the BBC start and where the commerically funded ones take over. And the benefits of association with the BBC brand are - whilst difficult to measure - most probably huge

I'm worried that LP is going to turn into some awful travel publishing megabrand that's everywhere. (take Jamie bleedin Oliver - lovely guy but do we REALLY need a Jamie magazine? For heaven's sake!) Watch this space for LP branded TV shows, LP branded clothes and gear, LP branded areas in tour operators and a plethora or LP branded websites, blog hosting services ane more... not to mention LP guide content being sold to third party tour operators, airlines and so on to use as destination content on their websites

Jeremy Head's Travel Blather

Thomas Kohnstamm: Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?

Right on, Thomas. I'll join you in Hell. You sound like my kinda guy. Southeast Asia is my beat, so guess what: been there, done that. And your comments about the miserable pay of travel writers, and the need to cut corners, is entirely correct.

Right on, Thomas.

Best Article: Away on Business. Read it.

Thomas Kohnstamm Website

Thomas Kohnstamm MySpace

Thomas Kohnstamm Wikipedia

Lonely Planet Forum on Thomas Kohnstamm

Amazon Title: Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?

Amazon Books by Thomas Kohnstamm

The Age Australia April 13

Gadling April 13

Lonely Planet Profile April 14

Times Online April 14

WorldHum April 14

MediaBistro Profile

Brave New Traveler April 14

Away on Business April 15

Brave New Traveler April 18

Random House April 22

LA Times April 22

Jaunted April 22

New York Times Moment April 22

Vagabondish April 23

Simon Sellars: Lonely Planet Writer

No matter whether you are a freelance travel writer under contract with Lonely Planet or Rough Guides, you will be give strict guidelines on the places you must go, the research you must do, and the correct copy you must turn in on a determined date. And then you get the second payment.

Another report from a new LP travel guidebook contract author.

I feel one of the biggest misconceptions about Lonely Planet is that the company pays its authors to swan around on holiday and then do a bit of writing as an afterthought. The reality is that you are on your feet for twelve hours a day, during torrential rain or baking heat or whatever testing conditions you’ve parachuted into: coups; insurgencies; dealing with the horror of warm beer in Britain. There’s very little time for actual sightseeing. It’s actually hard work.

As I mentioned before, reviewing chain hotels is a special form of torture and definitely a grind. But, also, I must stress again that time is always at a premium when doing guidebook work. Although I say I like to listen and observe, in reality financial constraints make it almost impossible to linger at leisure for days on end like some kind of bohemian flaneur, so you are really just crunching as much as possible into your day: visiting 10 hotels, dropping into 10 bars and restaurants (and not necessarily eating or drinking in them, either), visiting the tourist office, the bus station etc. If there’s a moment for quiet reflection then that’s a bonus and you seize on it and make the most of it.

Well, I’ve already spoken about the fact checking. Guidebooks have become a very streamlined business and there’s less and less chance to ’stretch your wings’ as a writer these days. Again, this is also a consequence of the fact that there are far fewer untouristed places on the globe today compared to say 15-20 years ago, when the content of an individual guidebook could still be groundbreaking. I mentioned boxed texts earlier — these are a chance to write as much as 800-1000 words on a topic — but for the most part it is very much templated work, there’s no getting around that. As for the pay, agreed: it’s not an especially well-paid job, and as that NY Times article highlights, there will always be a pool of eager young writers who will do it for next to nothing — a highly attractive prospect for any employer with a tight budget and a year-round schedule.

Travel Happy

Chuck Thompson: Smile While You're Lying

The travel writing community rarely has hot issues to discuss among themselves, but the recent issue of a book called "Smile While You're Lying" by travel writer Chuck Thompson has them up in arms.

Not sure why. He claims he was encouraged by his magazine publishers to write positive or at least not totally negative mentions of the tourist infrastructure (hotels, restaurants, airlines) when he went on assignment.

Yeah, so what. I'm a travel writer, but very few writers sculpt their verbiage; the bad shit is sometimes dropped and you find something interesting to write about your cookie cutter place. I only slam famous places that have gone bad and need a warning, and that's very unusual....I'd say less than five percent. And I have reviewed several hundred, perhaps thousands, of hotel properties in SE Asia.

Chuck Thompson came to San Francisco a few weeks ago and I had a chance to meet him at an Irish pub of the Tenderloin, and Chuck was a friendly guy with no pretensions about his book, which is mostly about his travel adventures and not his existential philosophy about the great good of humankind, but he does resent reviews of his book from journalists who have betrayed his trust, such as Rolf Potts.

New York Times

Brave New Traveler Interview with Chuck

World Hum Opinion by Rolf Potts

Gadling Interview

Robert Reid Talks about the Future of Travel Guidebooks

Robert Reid is a Lonely Planet writer who publishes an amazing internet guide to Vietnam, and doesn't mince words in his recent interview with WorldHum. He laments the demise of experienced travel guidebook writers for novices who will work for peanuts under the illusion it will lead to fame and riches, and thinks internet travel guides will someday replace traditional published guides, when technology advances and handhelds can display the chief advantage printed guides continue to have over internet sources: maps.

Robert Reid: I used to think the most important thing we guidebook authors did for travelers was hotel reviews. People like to have some sense of security that the $5 or $300 place they’re staying in won’t be a brothel or rat-infested dump. But the Internet has already completely changed this. Previously if I had a new budget hotel in a town center, or a mid-ranger with pool, travelers would have to wait nine or 12 months from the time I “discovered” it until it appeared in a guide.

Now Internet booking sites often get them immediately. When I went to China a couple years ago, I stayed at a brand new hostel in Beijing that the Trans-Siberian author had just found, but that hadn’t yet appeared in the guide. It was already full! I was amazed at how nearly all the people there had found it online, and were booking their full China trip’s accommodations online.

At a Lonely Planet workshop a couple years ago, I asked a high-up at LP who they saw as their biggest competitor, and they immediately answered “Google.” I was impressed. So publishers like LP definitely see the Internet as a growing competitor, and have for a while. When the BBC bought LP a couple months ago, one of the key things they cited for future development was online content.

Another thing is that many sites with travel content online don’t have maps. And maps are HUGE. I sometimes think seasoned travelers need only a map, with barebones details of few places to stay, and barebones details of what to see and where to eat. If they trust the author—and that’s a big if, of course—not as much needs to be said as some people think. This, again, is for seasoned travelers only.

The only other thing I fear regarding online guidebooks is if they follow the “I stayed here and it was great” TripAdvisor or Amazon.com model. Those are useful, no doubt, but they’re only based on isolated experiences. If publishers turn things over at some point to reader-generated content, you won’t have the authoritative overviews that guidebook writers can offer, and it’ll end up with deeper beaten tracks, with more travelers doing the same thing.

But I do want to say David Stanley is right, it’s sad and reckless if an old author who did good work on several editions is cut for a new author. In my opinion, in-house editors don’t completely understand what goes into researching these guides—I was an editor for years, and only figured it out once I started writing full time. The best experience for writing a guidebook to X is not living in X but actually having written a guidebook to X. Sometimes publishers forget that a bit.

Sometimes I think we’re living a doomed profession, and that we’ll look back on the wacky wild period from the 1970s to the 2000s when scores of notebook-toting travelers went and sought out the mysteries of places that are no longer mysterious. People will look back on the era like reading Graham Greene books about far-flung places at wilder times.

Will guidebooks in book form die? Probably so. But to be honest, I think there will always be room for the perspective of the “guidebook author,” at least online. Once hand-held devices get even more sophisticated, so that maps and reviews are more easily referred to—or we old folks die out and the younger generations who are not so soft on books take over—things will probably go online completely.

But I sometimes think people like holding those books. So far, though, the TripAdvisor-type sites are excellent resources, but don’t account for perspective. One person goes to Y hotel and says “it’s super!” But they don’t realize A, B, C are similar and $40 less. Who goes to all 15 museums in Bucharest but a guidebook author? So only they can tell you that something like the Romanian National Museum of the Peasant is about the best museum in the world?

WorldHum Interview with Robert Reid

How to be a Travel Writer in Five Easy Pieces

Robert Haru Fisher is a New York based travel writer and author of the guidebook pictured above, available at Amazon at London Off-Season And On : A Guide To Special Pleasures, Better Rater And Shorter Lines. He also wrote the Crown Insiders Guide to Japan, which is from his own publishing company. Fisher also contributes to the Frommer website and has, over the last few months, published a series of "so you wanna be a travel writer" articles with enough positive spin to keep the dreamers happy, and enough reality to discourage all but the most brave. It comes in five parts.

I haven't mentioned money yet, so will say only that you should have resources of your own, or a spouse/partner with a regular job, so someone can pay the bills. The travel writers who have good incomes are either on the staff of some publication and drawing a salary, or have honed the art of freelancing well, usually after many years of hard practice. Newspapers pay chicken feed (e.g. $75 for a column of print), magazines maybe $1 a word at best for writers without a famous following, websites little, and books smallish advances (if any, maybe $5,000) or flat fees not much more than that for a small book.

Part One

Part Two is a short history of travel writing, with a well deserved plug for Arthur Frommer, a man I have great admiration for and was once interviewed by on The Travel Channel.

"You have a dream job!" Half the people I meet for the first time tell me that, and I agree. It's heaven for me because I am intensely curious, always wanting to know what's around the next corner. When you travel, there's always a new next corner, a new surprise. It's no way to get rich, and it can be hell on family and other relationships because you seem never to be home, from their point of view, anyhow. You can't be a new parent, for instance, or taking care of an ailing family member. The most prolific travel writers are away at least a quarter of the time, I believe, sometimes half the time.

Part Two

Part Three tries to define what is travel writing.

Anyone can be a travel writer. You can write your blog, your memoir, your diary of a trip, and the only difference between you and, say, Pico Iyer, is that he writes more beautifully than almost anyone, and he may publish in Harper's and The New York Times while you are just broadcasting your thoughts on your own website, perhaps.

Part Three

Fisher in Part Four espouses the advantages of having a travel blog, and claims he is not trying to sell anything to anyone these days, including his travel writing seminars in Key West as advertised at the bottom of each of these posts.

(Full disclosure here: I don't have a site or a blog myself, as I am not trying to sell anything to anybody these days.)

If you are freelancing, you should also be working on a book, as having a book under your belt makes you an expert, ipso facto.

Part Four

Fisher in Part Five finishes with his analysis of the history of travel writing to reveal a few facts about the income side of the average travel writer. Finally.

"Get paid to travel" reads one headline. "How to Make a Six-Figure Income Traveling the World" is another. In the last few years, several websites have popped up urging you to learn how to become rich while writing about travel. For fees of several hundred dollars, they promise to teach you how to lead the good life.

It's a life I don't recognize as being anywhere near the reality of those led by many friends of mine who are freelance travel writers. To me, the freelancer is a knight errant, the leaderless samurai, a solo gun-slinger, and my hero much of the time.

My first advice to aspiring freelance writers is to marry rich, or otherwise obtain a partner who has, at least, a steady income. Markets are hard to break into, payment is often laughably cheap. One young writer for a major series of guidebooks approached me on a press trip a few years ago and asked me if I had worked for the series and what they paid. I mentioned some figures, and he said, "Good, I'm working for nothing right now, but they told me if I did a good job, they would pay me next time." The figures I mentioned then were a range from $75 for updating a small chapter of a book through a few thousand to revise the entire book up to about $15,000 for the original writing of a new, fairly small title (under 300 pages of print).

Your writing in a newspaper can pay as little as $75, in a magazine $250, though there are higher and lower figures, depending on the publication. When you are successful, you can command a figure of $1 a word or even higher, however. Traditional print outlets (general purpose newspapers) are down, but niche print publications (birding, ballooning, kayaking, etc.) are up. The Internet is fraught with possibilities, very few of them paying much, if anything, though. You may have to self-publish, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Moreover, one site has its sample author writing "In fact, my own editor is crying out for correspondents to report on destinations throughout the world ... and she's not the only editor seeking fresh talent. To be honest, I have to turn work down -- there simply aren't' enough hours in the day to take up all the writing commissions I'm offered." Not bloody likely, as many of my freelancer friends would say.

Part Five

South Pacific Handbook R.I.P.

One of Moon's original authors has parted ways with Avalon Travel Publishing after 28 years but will continue to post South Pacific content on his website. The list of authors cut from Moon Publications now ranges from yours truly to David Stanley, Bill Weir, and even the founder, Bill Dalton. And it's all about money, or lack of, due to declining sales, poor marketing and distribution, and the relatively high royalty rates granted to early authors such as myself and David.

South Pacific Handbook RIP

I regret to inform you that a 9th edition of Moon Handbooks South Pacific will not be published. After 28 years and eight editions, Avalon Travel Publishing and I have decided that it will not be practical to produce a new edition.

There are a number of reasons for this, beginning with the numbers. Over the past 10 years, sales of Moon Handbooks South Pacific have dropped. The 7th edition (2000) sold a third less copies than the 6th edition (1996), and the current 8th edition (2004) has thus far sold just over half as many copies as the 7th.

Why are sales going down? Competition from other guidebooks and the internet is the obvious answer. Many people believe they can find enough free information online to make a printed guidebook unnecessary. What they don’t realize is that much of what is found on websites is dubious and incomplete, or just one-sided advertising. A majority of travel websites are run by companies which want to sell you their products or individuals eager to share travelers tips with their peers. The discipline and quality control exercised by a professional book editor is usually missing.

Since 2000 my book has faced strong competition from Lonely Planet South Pacific and Micronesia. It would be inappropriate for me to criticize that book here, but suffice it to say that the coverage there is far less consistent and detailed than that in Moon Handbooks South Pacific. Lonely Planet is a monopolistic corporation which has pushed Moon titles off the bookshelves in Australia, New Zealand, and much of Europe. Doubtless they’ll be pleased to learn of Moon Handbooks South Pacific’s demise because with no remaining competition other than Frommers South Pacific, they’ll be able to space new editions of South Pacific and Micronesia further apart and cut back on the cost of researching off-the-beaten-track locations.

South Pacific Handbook RIP by David Stanley

Tim Leffel on the Seven Myths of Travel Writing

Tim Leffel, the author of The World's Cheapest Destinations, has written a hard-hitting and eye-opening account of the truths about being a travel writer, and it's a winner.

A few weeks ago I received an interesting piece of mail. It said, “Launch your dream career as a travel writer today and get paid to travel the world.” All I had to do was sign up for an expensive correspondence course on travel writing. After that I could expect such rewards as “a complimentary week on an exotic Asian island” or a luxury vacation in Cancun “with airfare and all expenses paid.” The breathless come-on letter asked, “Why not live on permanent vacation?”

Why not indeed? Get paid to travel the world and live a life of leisure. What could be more glamorous?

Before you fall for it, remember that it is also glamorous to be a rock star, a best-selling novelist, or a starter for the Lakers. It’s not so glamorous, however, to be an aspiring actor (waiter) in Los Angeles, an aspiring songwriter (waiter) in Nashville, or an aspiring novelist (waiter) in New York. It may sound silly to compare travel writers like Tim Cahill or Jeff Greenwald to celebrities such as Tom Cruise and Stephen King, but the odds of getting to that level of success are just as daunting. The big difference is that when you do get to that upper echelon of travel writers, you’re still not making nearly as much money as the lowest-paid bench warmer in the NBA.

Just as plugging in a Stratocaster doesn’t make you a rock star, writing tales about your travels is not going to make you a travel writer. Like any position where supply far exceeds demand, you’ll need to follow the right steps and then pay your dues. It’s not going to happen overnight.

As a service to any beginning travel writers out there who are ready for the real story, here are the seven biggest myths of travel writing and the dirt on what to it will take to defy the odds.

Myth #1: Travel writers make enough money to live on

Transitions Abroad

Avalon Travel Publishing Purchased by Blackwater?

It's just a parody by Jeff, but still a good laugh at the corporate insensitivity and ruthless impersonal actions of Bill Newlin in recent years.

Reuters Newswire

Blackwater USA, the private security firm hired by the Department of Defense and the State Department to provide support in Baghdad, announced today that it has urchased Avalon Travel Publishing. The sale was announced after the close of trading on the Dow Jones Stock Exchange.

"I've long admired the management style of Avalon, particularly the Moon component," said Col. (Retired) Mike Hammer, CEO of the controversial security firm. "I thought we ran a tough outfit, but after seeing how Bill Newlin and his people deal with authors, we knew we had to have his team on board with us. The best way to get talent, I always say, is to go out and buy it."

Hammer elaborated on the management style at Moon. "I admire a kick-ass company with absolutely no heart. That's what it takes to succeed today. If someone's been with you for more than four years, throw them out! They're useless. Cut the wages and hire some dumb bastards who don't know any better. That's how we try to operate at
Blackwater, but we're pikers compared to these guys at Moon. I expect to learn a lot from from them in the coming months."

Hammer and Newlin announced the titles to be released in the spring of 2008:

--Road Trip Iraq: Jamie Jenson dodges IEDs for a humorous romp through Fallujah, Tikrit, and Mossel.

--Rick Steve's Green Zone Through the Back Door (Quickly! Quickly!)

--The Practically Dead Nomad, by Edward Hasbrouck

--The Run Over Dog Lover's Guide to Iran, by Margaret Littman

Newlin announced that the few authors being retained by Moon will be asked to input more typesetting codes and, beginning in January of 2008, to glue the covers on their books. "We call these Moon 'Handbooks,'" he noted, "so we think that authors ought to have a hand in the production."

Hammer and Newlin also announced a new website that will focus on management. "We've had a lot of success with www.travelmatters.com," said Newlin, "so our new site, which we will roll out when we hire a new web crew to replace the one we just fired, will be called loyaltydoesntmatter.com."

Media inquiries should be sent to Hannah Cox.

# # #

With love and happiness to all,

Jeff

Harper Collins Editor Phil Friedman Won't Mention Tiananmen Square Massacre

Way to go Harper Collins and editor Paul Friedman who will soon produce a book that ignores the civil and military atrocities of the Tiananman Square massacre, and so intend their book to gain favor with the Chinese authorities.

The politics of guidebooks
By Finlo Rohrer
BBC News Magazine

A new book for travellers to China plans to make no mention of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Should travel guides tell the whole history of a place, or bow to local sensitivities?

Hotels are a must. So are tips on the local cuisine. A few key phrases. Some maps. A list of the best tourist sites and their opening hours. Perhaps some cultural do and don'ts.

...and this is another

All are key ingredients of a typical guide book. And yet many also feel the need to offer something more - a grounding in the history of the place that can help flesh out its culture, architecture and art.

Take Nuremberg. You could describe the city's medieval architecture, its beautiful perch on the River Pegnitz and its role in the German Renaissance.

But many travellers might find it strange if you didn't mention the Nazis' Nuremberg rallies. At least once.

And one might find it a little surprising that HarperCollins is to publish a guide entitled Travel Around China to coincide with 2008's Beijing Olympics that will make no mention of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

I don't think talk about the killings is appropriate for a travel guide

Phil Friedman, HarperCollins

The 1989 protest that culminated in demonstrators being fired on by soldiers, and the death of hundreds, is a taboo subject in China. Internet searches that would throw up results relating to the episode are censored. Newspapers do not mention it.

HarperCollins are yet to confirm the content of the book - compiled from contributions from native Chinese writers - but the prospects do not seem to favour a mention.

Years of history

Editor Phil Friedman - who is working on the book - says people want different things from a travel guide.

"I don't think talk about the killings is appropriate for a travel guide... Tiananmen Square had thousands of years of history before that occurred. Tiananmen is a feudal site, hugely important historic site. I'm not sure people travelling there would go there because there were shootings."

You could praise Nuremberg's architecture...
But to Independent travel editor Simon Calder, this attitude is problematic.

"Travel guides are not just about telling you where to get a cheap bed and meet the locals in civil circumstances. They are helping you to understand a place," he says.

"The notion you could get a proper idea of a country as complex, fascinating and in many ways alarming as China without knowing about the history and politics is preposterous."

BBC Link

Lonely Planet Responds

Tony Wheeler has taken some heat recently from fans of Lonely Planet who accuse him of selling out to a British government media monopoly which will only exploit his vast storage of travel information and use it for the exploitation of the masses. But most readers seem to think this is an OK match and that LP-BBC Worldwide will be a comfortable merger that will someday send travel information to travelers on the road along with upscale tourists who still want to know the dance schedule at Nana. Time will tell.

Here's what Tony has to say to the readers of Thorn Tree:

A Message from Tony & Maureen Wheeler
Posted at 05:02PM Oct 02, 2007 by CarolB
A message to the Thorn Tree community from Tony & Maureen Wheeler:

It's time.

Yes, it's finally happened, after 34 years almost to the month, we’re moving on from Lonely Planet. We could say it's so we have more time for travel, but the reality is we've known for some time that Lonely Planet has to make a big step into the future.

But guidebooks are only part of Lonely Planet, the non-print part of our activities from websites to Lonely Planet Images, LPTV to B2B projects, may be a smaller part in turnover terms, but it’s the area which we believe is going to become increasingly important. Since 1994 we have spent a lot of time and money trying to find ways to help travellers access the immense amount of information we have on just about everywhere, as, how, when and where they want it.

We have developed useful tools online for travellers and instigated the mighty Thorn Tree, but to really develop this medium to its fullest extent, to be as innovative and as powerful a resource online as we are in print, we need help. The books subsidise everything else and are the basis of everything we do. We need to continue to invest in researching and collating information, but as technology develops we also need expertise and financial muscle to really exploit our full potential as the travel information authority of the future.

Enter BBC Worldwide. It's the side of the BBC which produces and markets BBC projects for the outside world, not just the British radio and television programs but also magazines, international TV channels, websites and mobile services. It's global, it has a wonderful reputation and as of today it's the new majority owner of Lonely Planet.

Why did we choose them? We had many offers from digital companies to international publishing houses to private entrepreneurs, and many were interesting, however BBCW got our attention because on so many important levels they 'got' Lonely Planet. Innovative and quirky, authoritative and trustworthy, ethical and principled are all words that we use within Lonely Planet to describe our company. All these words can also be applied to BBCW. We have spent several months getting to know BBCW and we are confident they are the right partner to help us take Lonely Planet into the future.

What changes is this going to mean? Only positive ones we believe. Their view is the book side of the operation ain't broke so they don’t have to fix it. That side will continue with new projects and new ideas just as it is doing today. The other side of Lonely Planet – that non-print side – is going to get a lot more energy and push.

And what will we do? Well we’re still going to have a substantial stake in Lonely Planet – 25% ownership – and BBCW have asked us to stay on board and work with them. We think we're going to be involved in some exciting new projects. And we might get more time to travel.

Lonely Planet Thorn Tree Message from Tony Wheeler

Lonely Planet Sold to BBC Worldwide

This momentous event in travel publishing history took place a few weeks ago, but it seems that the word hasn't really gotten out that Tony Wheeler has sold his legendary Lonely Planet to BBC Worldwide for an estimated $200M, plus he's keeping 25% in his back pocket....just in case.

BBC Worldwide buys Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet publishes guides to 500 destinations

BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, has bought the travel guide publisher, Lonely Planet. Lonely Planet, founded by husband and wife team Tony and Maureen Wheeler in 1972, publishes around 500 titles that are widely used by backpackers.

The purchase fits in with BBC plans to grow online revenues and expand operations in America and Australia. Lonely Planet also produces travel programmes and its web site receives 4.3 million visitors a month. The Wheelers, who owned the business along with John Singleton, will retain a 25% shareholding in the company.

"We felt that BBC Worldwide would provide a platform true to our vision and values, while allowing us to take the business to the next level," they said.

The amount paid was not disclosed. The BBC said that the deal would strengthen Lonely Planet's visibility and growth potential. It would also allow Lonely Planet users to access BBC content - such as Michael Palin's New Europe.

After travelling overland from Europe to Australia, the Wheelers produced their first book, Across Asia on the Cheap, from their kitchen table. Today, Lonely Planet has offices in Melbourne, Oakland and London, with more than 500 office employees and more than 300 on-the-road authors.

BBC Link

And another report with more information and terms and price.

BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corp., bought Lonely Planet in a deal that values the travel publisher at about 100 million pounds ($203 million), a person familiar with the talks said.
Lonely Planet founders Maureen and Tony Wheeler will keep a 25 percent stake, the BBC said Monday.

The couple, who met on a bench in The Regent's Park of London, started the publisher in 1972 after a honeymoon trip across Asia with "a beat-up old car, a few dollars in the pocket and a sense of adventure," Lonely Planet's Web site says.

More than 30 years after Across Asia on the Cheap, the couple have made about 70 million pounds ($142 million) on the sale, figures from the source suggest, since they owned about 90 percent of the business.

"Joining BBC Worldwide allows us to secure the long-term future of our company within a globally recognized media group," the Wheelers said in a statement.

Lonely Planet, headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, publishes about 500 travel guides, including language, cycling and walking titles. The company, which employs 500 staff and as many as 300 on-the-road authors, has recently targeted a mature traveling audience after focusing on campers and backpackers for decades.

The deal will help the BBC become "one of the world's leading content businesses," BBC Worldwide Chief Executive John Smith said.

The broadcaster also aims to grow online brands, and to increase its operations in Australia and North America, Smith said.

"The association will strengthen Lonely Planet's visibility and growth potential, particularly in the digital arena, as well as providing their users access to the wide range of BBC content (that) connects with their interests," said Etienne de Villiers, nonexecutive chairman of BBC Worldwide.

Deloitte Touche Tohumatsu's Corporate Finance Advisory arm, as well as Australian law firm Blake Dawson Waldron, advised the BBC on the purchase, the broadcaster said.

ZD Net Link

And the best coverage with the best links comes from the Los Angeles Times.

Lonely Planet founders ’sell out’ to BBC Worldwide

The British Broadcasting Trust and Lonely Planet Publications announced today that Lonely Planet’s founders, Tony Wheeler and Maureen Wheeler, have sold their majority stake in Lonely Planet to British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Worldwide for an undisclosed sum.

Here’s a link to an upbeat video of Tony and Maureen’s official ‘adieu’ announcement on lonelyplanet.tv [after the 15-second ad].

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is reporting a sale price of $250 million [in Australian dollars, or roughly US$220mil]. Reuters pegs the price at 100 million pounds (or US$203mil). The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has is at CA$221 million.

Here’s an ABC mp3 audio of Tony Wheeler explaining the deal (and the decision to keep publishing a Burma/Myanmar guidebook), in which he uses the phrase “sell out.”

The BBC and Lonely Planet are both reporting that the Wheelers will retain a 25% share of Lonely Planet and seats on the company’s board. As of Oct. 1, Lonely Planet is still hiring in Melbourne and London, from an Executive Assistant to the CFO to a Business Development Manager for Lonely Planet Images.

Here’s a link to a recent Q&A with Tony and Maureen Wheeler, with the Travel editors at our sister publication, the Chicago Tribune. As of the time of the sale announcement, here’s what the BBC had to say about Lonely Planet:

“BBC recommends: Lonely Planet

Select your destination and find indispensable, money-saving local information, including practical details like whether it’s acceptable to haggle.”

Here’s what Lonely Planet had to say about the BBC:

“BBC World Service - 648AM: Internationally known for its news coverage; also current affairs from around the world with a British accent.”

Finally, here’s what user ‘odecar10,’ a self-described “Economic migrant to the UK from the Emerald isle in the bad old days of the 1980’s and still there” had to say, on Lonely Planet’s Thorntree bulletin board:

“Unfortunately its true. LP now owned by the propoganda [sic] arm of the British Government.”

Watch this space for updates on how these developments might affect the guidebook and “independent” travel publisher’s future publishing, multimedia and broadcasting plans.

Does this move bode well for LP, its vibrant online community and tradition of ‘independent’ travel advice? Chime in below in the Comments section.

LA Times Link

Lonely Planet Job

Have you ever dreamed of being a commissioning editor for Lonely Planet at their office in Oakland. Uh, they have a few qualifications for the job........

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/wri/318190785.html

Cruise Ship Lecturer Wanted

Have you ever wanted to lecture on a cruise ship? Here's the latest update.

Attention Destination Speakers... Tremendous Deals on April & May Cruise Assignments

If you are the kind of person who always has bags packed for the next adventure, then Sixth Star has some tremendous cruising opportunities for you.

From the tropics of the Caribbean to the glaciers of Alaska... from the antiquities of the Med to the pink sands of Bermuda, entertaining speakers are needed on a number of fantastic cruises. And due to the short notice of these assignments, Sixth Star is offering the voyages below at special reduced placement fees.

Qualified Destination Speakers and Destination-Related Special Interest Speakers who are interested and available for these specific assignments below should contact Sixth Star as soon as possible at (954) 462-6760 to learn more and reserve your spot.

April 20 - 27, 2007
Ship: Regent Seven Seas Mariner
Itinerary: Caribbean & Mexico (roundtrip Ft. Lauderdale)
Special Offer: Free (no placement fees)

April 21 - 28, 2007
Ship: Diamond Princess
Itinerary: Mexican Riviera (rountrip Los Angeles)
Special Offer: 50% discount on placement fees

April 26 - May 9, 2007
Ship: Celebrity Century
Itinerary: Miami - Amsterdam (via Azores, Spain & France)
Special Offer: Free (no placement fees) with one roundtrip airfare and gratuities for one

April 27 - May 12, 2007
Ship: Regent Seven Seas Mariner
Itinerary: Panama Canal (Ft. Lauderdale to San Francisco)
Special Offer: Free (no placement fees)
April 28 - May 5, 2007
Ship: Grandeur of the Seas
Itinerary: Caribbean (New Orleans to San Juan)
Special Offer: Free (no placement fees)

May 1 - 14, 2007
Ship: Celebrity Galaxy
Itinerary: San Juan to Rome (via Morocco, Spain & France)
Special Offer: 50% discount on placement fees with one roundtrip airfare and gratuities for one

May 5 - 12, 2007
Empress of the Seas
Itinerary: Bermuda (roundtrip Norfolk, VA)
Special Offer: 50% discount on placement fees

May 8 - 20, 2007
Royal Princess (NEW SHIP)
Itinerary: Mediterranean (Athens to Barcelona)
Special Offer: 50% discount on placement fees with one roundtrip airfare and gratuities for two

May 12 - 19, 2007
Splendor of the Seas
Itinerary: Greek Isles & Turkey (roundtrip Venice)
Special Offer: 50% discount on placement fees

May 18 - 25, 2007
Radiance of the Seas
Itinerary: Alaska (Vancouver to Seward)
Special Offer: 50% discount on placement fees

May 19 - 26, 2007
Empress of the Seas
Itinerary: Bermuda (roundtrip Norfolk, VA)
Special Offer: 50% discount on placement fees

May 20 - June 1, 2007
Royal Princess (NEW SHIP)
Itinerary: Mediterranean (Barcelona to Athens)
Special Offer: 50% discount on placement fees with one roundtrip airfare and gratuities for two

May 20 - 27, 2007
Marco Polo
Itinerary: Mediteranean (Rome to Barcelona)
Special Offer: 50% discount on placement fees

May 25 - June 1, 2007
Radiance of the Seas
Itinerary: Alaska (Seward to Vancouver)
Special Offer: 50% discount on placement fees

May 26 - June 2, 2007
Celebrity Journey (NEW SHIP)
Itinerary: Bermuda (roundtrip Cape Liberty, NJ)
Special Offer: 50% discount on placement fees

May 26 - June 2, 2007
Empress of the Seas
Itinerary: Bermuda (roundtrip Norfolk, VA)
Special Offer: 50% discount on placement fees

May 29 - June 10, 2007
Emerald Princess (NEW SHIP)
Itinerary: Mediterranean (Barcelona to Venice)
Special Offer: 50% discount on placement fees with one roundtrip airfare and gratuities for two

May 31 - June 12, 2007
Legend of the Seas
Itinerary: Italy and Croatia (roundtrip Rome)
Special Offer: 50% discount on placement fees


Go Sailing with Sixth Star's Newest Cruise Line Partner - Lindblad Expeditions

We are thrilled to tell you about a very special lecturing opportunity with our newest cruise line client - Lindblad Expeditions and it's magnificent sailing vessel, the Sea Cloud II.

Limited to only 82 guests, the spacious three-masted barque is 384 feet long with over 29,000 square feet of sails all set by hand. Like no other ship, she combines the timeless elegance of windjammers of the past with the highest safety standards and luxurious comfort of modern cruise ships.

We are seeking a Destination Lecturer or Destination-Related Special Interest to sail from Cadiz, Spain to St. John's Antigua via Funchal, Madeira. The dates of this once in a lifetime crossing are November 7 - 25, 2007. Adding to this special opportunity, gratuities, airfare and grand transportation for the lecturer and his/her guest will be provided.

Lindblad Expeditions' website features a wonderful video of the Sea Cloud II on the home page. If you are interested in this assignment, we encourage you to visit www.expeditions.com to learn more. For more information about booking this assignment, contact Iain Jamieson at (954) 462-6760 ext. 225.


Cruise One of the World's Most Spectacular Destinations - French Polynesia

This summer and fall, Sixth Star has several opportunities to cruise one of the world's most beautiful destinations - Tahiti and French Polynesia.

With its crystal clear water in countless hues of blue, framed by lush and rugged mountain ranges, French Polynesia's spectacular beauty is enjoyed on a regular basis by only two intimate cruising vessels - the Paul Gauguin and the Tahitian Princess.

Sixth Star is pleased to offer lecturing assignments on both vessels to qualified speakers in our rosters. The following cruises are available:

June 5 - 17, 2007
Ship: Tahitian Princess
Itinerary: Tahiti & Hawaii - (Papeete to Honolulu)
Contact: Pat McPherson at pat@sixthstar.com

June 17 - 29, 2007
Ship: Tahitian Princess
Itinerary: Hawaii & Tahiti - (Honolulu to Papeete)
Contact: Pat McPherson at pat@sixthstar.com

June 30 - July 11, 2007
Ship: Paul Gauguin
Itinerary: French Polynesia (roundtrip Papeete)
Special Note: Lecturer on this voyage is requested to speak exclusively on the life and art of Paul Gauguin.
Contact: Iain Jamieson at iain@sixthstar.com

July 19 - 31, 2007
Ship: Tahitian Princess
Itinerary: Tahiti & Hawaii - (Papeete to Honolulu)
Contact: Pat McPherson at pat@sixthstar.com

September 19 - October 1, 2007
Ship: Tahitian Princess
Itinerary: Hawaii & Tahiti - (Honolulu to Papeete)
Contact: Pat McPherson at pat@sixthstar.com

November 3 - December 1, 2007
Ship: Paul Gauguin
Itinerary:French Polynesia, Cook Islands & Fiji (sailing roundtrip Papeete)
Special Note: Lecturer on this voyage is requested to speak exclusively on the Cook Islands and Fiji.
Contact: Iain Jamieson at iain@sixthstar.com

Travel Writing Subsidies

There's been a long running discussion about the ethics of travel writers accepting "freebies" and it's an issue most professional travel writers consider a non-issue. Most travel writers accept free or subsidized travel since the industry does not pay enough to first pay all travel expenses and then write and sell the stories. A free or partially free trip or hotel room does not necessarily mean that the travel writer will give a positive review, but in most cases only means that the service will not be mentioned. It's all covered, once again, in a recent post by a travel writer in Texas.

Subsidized travel is controversial and lots of very ethical and pious journalists look down on me as tainted and corrupt because I do it. Fuck 'em. It's a debate I don't bother getting into anymore. Suffice to say that I can't be bought. I accept only trips I think I can sell. If something isn't worth writing about, I don't write about it. I include negative impressions in larger stories when appropriate but rarely write completely negative stories not because I am beholden to anyone, but because they don't sell. Editors with limited space don't want to squander it telling readers where not to go.

I'm an ethical person doing my best in a squirrely field. A lot of newspapers pay peanuts but don't accept stories from subsidized trips. A lot of newspapers have a don't ask-don't tell policy about subsidies but if you get "caught" you're in trouble, not the editor. Many magazines are less stringent in their policies, although Conde Nast Traveler and Travel & Leisure are among those with strict no-subsidies policies. They pay for their reporters' travel. I cracked T&L once a long time ago but got tired of the effort it took to get back in and haven't tried again in many years.

By stating here that I sometimes travel on subsidies I have ensured that I will never write for The New York Times, which claims never to accept stories from writers who have ever accepted a subsidy. I have heard differently from many publicists, who claim to frequently spot stories in the Times by freelancers they have hosted. Nobody will ever go on the record with that, though, because nobody wants to piss off the Times.

Sophie's Blog

Travel Writing Not All Fun and Sun

The average person may regard travel writing as among the world's most blessed professions, but the reality is often quite different, as once again pointed out in this eye-opening article by Susan McKee.

Travel writing not all fun and sun
Strong ethics, research keys to success

By Susan McKee

As a professional travel writer, I occupy a place in the journalistic hierarchy somewhere just above pond scum. It’s tricky territory for a freelancer for two major reasons: press trips and poseurs.

Almost all newspapers and magazines still buying freelance will not pick up a writer’s expenses, and the rates they pay don’t come close to making up that shortfall. Freelancers are responsible for their own health insurance and other costs that are typically part of the benefits package for an employed journalist. Add in travel time and, as one writer put it, the profit margin shrivels like salted leeches in the sun.

If you don’t have a trust fund to underwrite your travel writing specialty, two solutions beckon: write only about your own hometown (yawn!) or take press trips.

SPJ Link

Carla King Motorcyle Adventures

Carla and Ural with Sidecar

Sorry about the gap in posts, but I've been indisposed. It's always great when a local acquaintance publishes a book, especially when it's about one of my favorite subjects: hitting the road with your motorcycle. I'm known Carla for many years and see her at local travel writing events here in the Bay Area, and followed her motorcycle adventures many Moons ago when she left to explore some of the back roads of the American West. And now, the book.

I'll be going to her booksigning at Get Lost on Market Street later this month, but she's also making appearances elsewhere in the Bay Area and has even lined up a few gigs in Europe. And to think her secret occupation is ....... computer geek.

A journey to explore the borders between the United States, Canada, and Mexico becomes a comedy of breakdowns in small towns all around America in this new travelogue by Carla King, author of the Motorcycle Misadventures series of Internet dispatches. Mechanical, social, and natural disasters punctuate the four-month, ten-thousand mile solo test ride of the newly-imported Russian Ural sidecar motorcycle: cracked welds and electrical gremlins, evil tow truck drivers, roadside romances, even tornadoes and hurricanes.

Carla King Motorcycle Misadventures

Tripso Answers (mostly) Travel Problems

My Dad flew this Plane

My Dad (George Bigler Parkes) flew the plane above many times during his times in the United States Air Force, until the plane finally caught fire, all engines, and crashed into the Irish Sea in the mid-1950s. Everyone died except for my Dad and three other guys. He was deemed a survival expert and moved over to the USAF survival unit where he traveled and lectured for years about survival techniques from the Arctic to Panama.

In other news, always happy to recommend the sage advise coming from Tripso, where a small collection of travel writers and others in the industry continue to answer questions about the trials and tribulations of being a traveler. Not necessarily a travel writer, but it's close enough, and this site always rings true, plus there's an RSS feed for easy daily access.

Question: Recently, I booked airline tickets from Chicago to the Greek island of Crete online through Sam's Club. When I called to confirm my reservation, I was told that my flight had been canceled. A representative asked me to mail the old tickets back and we agreed to pick a new flight.

Although I was led to believe that we had made another reservation, something apparently went wrong with the transaction, and the booking didn't go through. I called Sam's later, when the tickets didn't arrive, and it turned out that my credit card number had been typed into the system incorrectly by one of its agents.

In the meantime, the price of the tickets had gone up $500 each. Sam's agreed to pay the difference and we settled on a new flight.

Problem solved? Not quite.

On my return flight on Aegean Airlines, I was told my tickets were "no good." If I wanted to catch a flight home, they said, I would have to stand in line and buy another ticket for about $300. The reason the tickets weren't valid? Sam's had printed the Aegean tickets on the wrong ticket stock, which made them unacceptable.

I'm trying to get my money back from Sam's for the extra ticket I had to buy, but so far, no luck. Can you help me?

Kathy Winters, Cottage Grove, Wis.

Answer: Wow, talk about the vacation from hell. It looks like almost everything related to your airline tickets went wrong: a cancellation, a booking that didn't go through and then a worthless ticket.

Although Sam's tried to make things right, it ultimately left you with a bill for $300. Then it stonewalled you when you asked for a refund.

Tripso Link

Times Links to Travel Sites

Canned Heat in SF

I don't know who collects or checks these links from the Sunday Times (London), but they really don't have a clue about decent and useful websites for the traveler. This is just another knock against having some junior, young, newly hired editor given the assignment to survey the travel world via blogs and websites, when it really takes a great deal of time to understand what is going on.

The 108 best travel websites
From bookings to blogs, Gareth Scurlock picks the essential sites

NOT SO LONG ago, finding what you wanted on the internet was hard, and buying online was beset with worries. Now search engines are better at finding the site that you need, and reliable, top-quality travel websites have emerged.

But the joy of the web is its sheer size and variety; there are hundreds of independent travel specialists offering something quirky, different and fascinating.

Our choice of the Top 100 Travel Websites has been based on quality of information, design, value for money and ease of use. In the freewheeling spirit of the internet, we have aimed to make our selection new and surprising, so we have excluded many bigger sites.

Instead, our list leans towards “indie” websites run by enthusiasts, bloggers telling of their adventures, round-ups of handy tips, and any free and useful service.

Times Online Link

Funny Stuff Mistakes from a PR Hack

Whine, Whine

I would assume that many of you travel writers know the missives of Durant, who actively participates in many of the travel writers forums on the web, and so he posts a short but very humorous missive from some PR person (unnamed) with all the guffs. Not really earth shaking news, but always fun, so thanks Durant.

Shit, I can't find it. Problems with Blogger. Perhaps later.

Found it!

AN APOLOGY FOR ERRONEOUS AD

To all our readers,

With all sense of responsibility, the staff, management and editors of
eTurboNews apologizes for the error in yesterday's Rail Europe ad featuring
France Wine Tour.

We are sorry that the subject for the eTurboNews Travel-Telegram broadcast
read "France Whine Tour" instead of "France Wine Tour"....

Here's his link to all things Europe:

Durant Link to Europe for Visitors

New York Times on Travel Guidebook Work

A Happy Travel Writer

That's Brad running through the water in some warm, sunny place. Since it seems that most readers of this blog can't be bothered to click the links, I'll go ahead and give you a heads up about the recent story in the New York Times about the "trials and tribulations of being a travel writer." See, it fits right into my theme.

It's summer now, and countless travelers are fumbling their way around the globe, heads buried in guides published by Let's Go, Lonely Planet, Rough Guides and Frommer's among others. Probably few stop to consider what goes into producing travel guides or even who wrote them. And as it turns out, many of the intrepid young writers scouring the planet doing research for next year's crop of guidebooks never stopped to consider what those jobs would entail, other than the romantic — and often overstated — prospect of being paid to travel.

While the phrase "travel writing" may invoke thoughts of steamer trunks, trains, Isak Dinesen and Graham Greene, or at the very least, well-financed junkets to spas in Rangoon for some glossy magazine or other, writing budget travel guides is most decidedly yeoman's work. Most who do it quickly learn the one hard and fast rule of the trade: travel-guide writing is no vacation.

"Many underestimate exactly how much work goes into making a guide book," said Jay Cooke, an editor for Lonely Planet. "Some potential authors think it would be fun to travel and get paid for it. But they're expected to write tens of thousands of words. It's a big, big job, and it goes far beyond journal keeping on a beach somewhere."

Indeed a day in the life of a guide writer can be wearying. Amelia Atlas, a recent Harvard graduate who is now in Berlin researching a guide to that city for Let's Go, said that last Wednesday she set out early to case a new neighborhood, Prenzlauer Berg, for her Berlin guide. She visited three hostels and three restaurants before collecting the shopping and eating options around a particular square. She visited a section of the Berlin Wall that still stands, made notes about the historical displays there, and set about walking the neighborhood block by block to see what she might find. After a quick dinner, Ms. Atlas went to her apartment to write about the day's findings. Then she planned to go out to sample the night life. "Manic is a good word," she said.

New York Times Link

Travel Happy on Travel Guidebook Work

Airline Seating Configuration

When it rains, it pours. After the post below by Erik at Gadling, Travel Happy from Southeast Asia follows up with some more discouraging advice for prospective travel guidebook writers, including a link to the recent controversial article published last Sunday in the New York Times.

Becoming a travel writer for one of the major guidebook companies like Lonely Planet or Let's Go is not the romantic idyll many imagine before they hit the road.

The New York Times has a pretty dispiriting piece on the state of the travel guidebook industry, where young, eager writers are paid a pittance to spend thousands of hours on the road collating info about hotels and restaurants for the next guidebook edition. Pay rates have spiralled downwards because there are so many people willing to take on the job and whose words can be hacked into readable prose by editors at the mothership office. It's essentially become a McJob, which one guidebook writer likens to "data entry". There's a lot of travelling in terms of logistics but precious little in terms of travel experience per se, and a huge amount of ongoing stress to submit all that information on time.

You'd have to be incredibly well organised and efficient to leave some time over for you to actually enjoy the places you're travelling and stay within your advance budget. I'm not saying it can't be done - but I am saying you should think, think and think again before getting involved with this sort of gig. Personally, I think saving up a few thousand dollars and then going travelling without any ties in South East Asia would be much more preferable, even if it doesn't have the kudos of being a guidebook writer - kudos which isn't much use because you can't tell anyone you work for one of the major guidebooks anyway for fear of favouritism.

It's definitely worth checking Josh Berman's advice on how to be a travel guidebook writer and Friskodude's TravelWriters blog - he's a veteran travel journalist who's resolutely unsentimental about travel writing for a living.

Travel Happy Link

Gadling on Travel Guidebook Work

Travel Truths?

Blogger seems to somewhat screwy this morning, so I'm not sure if these posts are going through. Readers sometimes ask me why I don't add more content to this blog, but do please remember that I have a theme here: the trials and tribulations of being a travel writer. It's always somewhat difficult to find new, appropriate content, but I do want to follow this theme. If you want to know where to give away your travel writing content for free, or next to nothing, you'll need to go elsewhere. And if you want to read fine travel literature, the usual suspects are listed over to the right.

In other news, Erik at Gadling has graciously put up a new post today about "the trails and tribulations of travel writing," so it fits right into the theme of this blog. Do check the link for some additional hot links. The link to the blog of Lief Pettersen is just outstanding......

For those who have ever entertained dreams of gallivanting off to exotic lands to pen travel guides, hold on just a moment. The travel-guide writing life ain't all it's cracked up to be. In fact, when you are a guidebook writer, you are more likely to find yourself checking under toilet seats or sniffing mattresses than hanging on the beach or sipping tropical drinks with the locals. The job is work, not vacation. There was an interesting article about this in a particular paper about which I cannot write. But as a secondary source, I point you to two places. Both of these sites actually do a fine job conveying what life as a travel writer is like. In this site by the travel writer Leif Pettersen, who happens to be in right now, we learn a lot about guide writing in Eastern Europe. Here in this post he coaches you along to help you nurture your skills of asking for free carp...um, I mean crap.

And then in one of my old stand-bys, I urge you to pay a visit to FriskoDude, aka Carl Parkes, who often ruminates on this very subject. And even if you can't find a post to your liking (unlikely), you can at least admire his wonderful sense of humor in the photos he posts.

Gadling Link

Leif Pettersen on Free Crap for Travel Writers

World Map

I wasn't going to post this link, but just let you folks follow the link provided by Gadling, but it's such a great piece of work that I just had to pass it along. In fact, do take the time to explore the entire blog of Leif Pettersen, who's an enormously talented travel writer with plenty of useful messages and advice for prospective travel guidebook writers. I don't necessarily agree with his opinions about accepting free crap while researching guidebooks, but it's still an hilarious piece of writing.

The delicate art of asking for free crap

You may be surprised to hear that travel writing has a seedy underside. Quite often, almost routinely in fact (when you’re not working for Lonely Planet), travel writers are given a free room, meal or service, with an accompanying wink, on the condition that they compose glowing praise for whatever the free thing was, no matter how much ass it sucked.

The nadir of this ritual is called a ‘press trip’. This is where some tourism bureau organizes an all-expenses paid trip for a pack of travel writers (with assignment letters in hand, obviously, we gotta keep out the riffraff), arranging for flights, hotel rooms, meals and tours, hands held for every waking second, and then the travel writer is sent home to write an article, or more preferably articles, about how great the destination was, even if it was Miami.

Mostly this is just underhanded advertising under the guise of what lay-people assume is an objective travel article. However, tourism bureaus aren’t completely to blame for the popularity of this tactic. In the defense of what may seem like greed on the part of the travel writers, the reality is that newspapers can’t find it in their hearts to pay more than $100-200 per article. So, if a professional travel writer were to pay their own way on a one week trip, even to some relatively cheap destination like Duluth, then came back and spent two days diligently writing the article for an average newspaper fee, the travel writer’s net earnings for that assignment (nine days of time, plus expenses) would be about -$500. Over the course of a calendar year, that travel writer would net between -$25,000 and -$50,000, depending on trips and expenses. The upshot is all these negative earnings would be tax free. In your face IRS!!!

Clearly, this isn’t a feasible arrangement. Tourism bureaus saw a slick, promotional opportunity that helped both them and the travel writers and press trips were born.

As if to cement their positions as blood-sucking wankers, now many newspapers won’t accept articles that were written on the strength of a press trip, meaning unless their field of hopeful travel writers is independently wealthy, none of them can afford to take a newspaper assignment that ranges further than local zoo. Since no one is beating down their doors to work for negative money, the newspapers usually end up printing some soulless shite they bought off a syndicate that was probably written by someone who themselves wrote the piece off a press trip, or worse, wrote the piece from Internet research and thinly veiled plagiarizing off other travel articles. While the newspapers fancy this approach as being honorable and legit, in actuality everyone loses, particularly the readers.

Leif Pettersen Killing Batteries Link

Travel Guidebook Agent Warnings

The Road to Mandalay by Carl Parkes

Kipling wrote that famous phrase about the Road to Mandalay (up the river from Rangoon) but did you know that Kipling never visited Mandalay? Reading this blog, you get all kinds of trivia that might come in useful in your next game of Trivial Pursuit.

In other news, it's bad enough that freelance travel writers must navigate around terrible contracts, but those suckers who actually resort to using the services of an "agent" must keep their radar on high alert.

Also, I've had a few questions about why I don't update this blog very often. The answer if simple. I'm trying to keep this blog focused on the Trials and Tribulations of being a Travel Writer. If you want leads to writing gigs for no money, you can check other blogs. If you want fine travel writing, see WorldHum. If you want to know the dirt on the real world of travel writing, see this blog. I don't get much information that fits in this blog, and rather than just fill blank space, I let this blog lay dormant until I find something relevant to the subject matter. Of course, if you find something of interest, do please send it along and I'll repost it here.

Victoria Strauss -- Top Ten Signs Your Agent is a Scammer

Because we can't be serious all the time.

10. Your offer of representation comes via form letter (somehow, you never do get his phone number).

9. Whoever typed his contract didn't use spel chek and can't rite real gud neither.

8. You first heard of him when [pick one: you found his ad in the back of Writer's Digest/you saw his ad on Google/he solicited you].

7. When you asked if he'd worked for another agency before establishing his own, he said yes--a real estate agency.

6. When you asked for a list of recent sales, he told you the information was confidential, because he didn't want you pestering his clients. And by the way, only a bad, ungrateful writer would ask that kind of question.

5. When you asked what publishers were looking at your manuscript, he told you the information was confidential, because he didn't want you pestering the editors. What is he, anyway, your secretary?

4. When you got his contract, you discovered you had to pay [pick one: $150/$250/$450/more] for [pick one: submission/administration/marketing/circulation/other].

3. He told you your ms. was great, but when you got your contract you discovered you had to [pick one: pay for a critique/pay for line editing/pay for a marketability assessment].

2. He got you an offer from a publisher--but you have to [pick one: pay for publication/pay for editing/pay for publicity/buy 1,000 copies of your book].

And the number one sign your agent is a scammer: You got an email from his assistant telling you he'd been killed in a car crash, but when you called to ask where to send the sympathy card, he answered the phone.

(And in case you're wondering, I didn't make that up.)

A. C. Crispin Blog Link

Another Warning Against Writing for Free

Japan MPC Five Cents 1960

Writing for free is the single most powerful element destroying all possibilities of survival as a freelance writer, as once again pointed out in the excellent weekly email newsletter. Writers Weekly. A guest columnist provides an introduction and then passes along a few email messages he recently received commenting on his previous column on the same subject. All writers were opposed to giving away their writing skills for free, aside from one surprising exception, Tim Leffel.

In my previous spew concerning sites that offer to place your blog entries in publications to give you more "exposure," I indicated that I was not comfortable with the concept of opportunists feeding off my carcass without benefit of compensation.

But, since this write-for-free debate is such a tired standby, I sighed and said maybe I was becoming the crab on the block. What do you think? I asked. My mailbox overflowed!

One writer, who is a top-rated contributor to one of the sites mentioned, commented: "Although it's very nice to have a star by my name and be recognized for my superior writing prowess (gag, she adds), the articles haven't done a thing for me professionally. The only thing writing for free has done for me is gain me a reputation as a generous spirit - or sucker - depending on your vantage point."

"This ties to my pet peeve, trawling craigslist.org for legitimate writing job links and instead, finding several advertisements looking for writers for 'no pay,' just 'Coverage, Resume building! Exposure!' ad nauseum," writes feng shui expert Katy Allgeyer (www.fengshuibyfishgirl.com). "I actually emailed Craig himself. Much to my surprise, Craig emailed me back 20 minutes later and said they are working on the problem. I suggested they come up with another heading for these types of jobs. 'slave labor' comes to mind."

Betsy Crowfoot, a journalist and screenwriter for 11 years, says this controversy is being fueled by the existence of two camps: Those who are full-time writers and want/need to make a living at this profession, and those who want to be writers, but are making their living in another profession and don't rely on writing gigs to feed their children. (I would add those with working spouses to that list.) "Unfortunately," she says, "this gives editors/businesses the idea they don't have to pay writers or pay them on time."

"I can't tell you the number of times I"ve had these robber barons try to blow smoke up my rump with their lines about how they have helped writers by ripping off their content," writes DeAnn Rossetti. "I just read an ad yesterday on Craigslist that said, 'Do it for the love of writing.' Ha!"

Continues Rossetti: "These same people pay for everything else on their site, the hosting service, the website layout, and I am sure they pay a doctor when he has taken care of them. I doubt they tell him that by taking care of their health concerns, he is getting good publicity!"

Writes Kevin Murphy, author of Degrees of Murder and other books, "The only 'freebies' I ever do are for no-budget community organizations of which I am a member - and I do very few of those."

Writers Weekly Link

Whispers and Warnings from Writers Weekly

Victim of Writer Scams

The always informative Writers Weekly often posts warnings relevant to all writers, whether your thing is fiction or travel, this weekly email site is well worth subscribing to. See the link below for hot links to each article. Thanks, Angela.

Whispers And Warnings For June 21st

EzineArticles.com - Charging $750 to get published?!?! HA HA HA!!!

Writopia Inc. / T-zero Xpandizine / The Writer's E-Zine / thewritersezine.com - Writer not paid until WritersWeekly intervenes

Freelance Work Exchange / freelanceworkexchange.com - Another Complaint.

publishforlesscompany.com - SPAMMER and this guy gives us the creeps!

Long Story Short / lsswritingschool.com - SPAMMERS

AllGoodArticles.com - SPAMMERS

The Village Magazine / Privilege Media Group International - And another complaint!

Writers Weekly Link

Passport News

My Expired Passport

Last month, I was invited on press trips from Tourism Malaysia and Tourism Authority of Thailand, and so checked my passport, which expired in April 2006. Yep, the long-time world traveler hadn't checked his passport in almost a decade, and it had gone out-of-date just before the 60th coronation of the Thai king and a trip to the northeastern section of peninsular Malaysia......so I was out of luck.

Tripso, the "last honest travel website" (I guess that eliminates this blog) has some reminders and tips about keeping your passport current for future travels.

It’s true: Some countries require that your U.S. passport be valid not only for the duration of your visit, but also for three to six months after your entry or return from their country. This means you have to check your passport expiration date carefully. For example, if your passport expires on March 1, 2007, and you want to travel this coming November, you may need to renew your passport before you go.

Here is a list of some countries that have special passport expiration rules.

Tripso Link

Packing Light

Travel Journalist on the Road

J. Flynn at the S.F. Chron Sunday travel section recently posted his travel tips about packing light here but I've got my own list culled after over 20 years of travel in Asia, and kept tucked away inside my passport for easy reference before each trip.

* office supplies: rubber bands, tape, stapler, scissors, white-out, only fine-point pens

* misc: swiss army knife (in all plastic version), can opener, superglue

* misc: small umbrella, alarm clock, sunglasses

* misc: zip-lock bags (six), notebooks, briefcase

* pants: 1 pair cotton, 1 pair nice slacks

* shorts: 2 pair (1 wild, 1 conservative)

* shirts: 2 pair wild short-sleeved shirts

* shirts: 2 polo shirts with pockets

* shirts: no long-sleeved shirts!

* socks: 6 dark only

* shoes: 1 pair light and comfortable; good sandals

* maybe: ground coffee beans and melita filters

The Decline of Photo Stock Agencies

World Map by Population

Think the decline and fall of the professional travel writing industry is a sad, sad thing? Then consider the crisis now facing professional photographers, who have been making a respectable living via photo stock agencies for many decades. Looks like the photo stock agency as business model is almost on it's last legs.

After several weeks of back-and-forth, Menashe emailed Harmel to say that, regretfully, the deal was off. “I discovered a stock photo site called iStockphoto,” she wrote, “which has images at very affordable prices.” That was an understatement. The same day, Menashe licensed 56 pictures through iStockphoto – for about $1 each.

iStockphoto, which grew out of a free image-sharing exchange used by a group of graphic designers, had undercut Harmel by more than 99 percent. How? By creating a marketplace for the work of amateur photographers – homemakers, students, engineers, dancers. There are now about 22,000 contributors to the site, which charges between $1 and $5 per basic image. (Very large, high-resolution pictures can cost up to $40.) Unlike professionals, iStockers don’t need to clear $130,000 a year from their photos just to break even; an extra $130 does just fine. “I negotiate my rate all the time,” Harmel says. “But how can I compete with a dollar?”

He can’t, of course. For Harmel, the harsh economics lesson was clear: The product Harmel offers is no longer scarce. Professional-grade cameras now cost less than $1,000. With a computer and a copy of Photoshop, even entry-level enthusiasts can create photographs rivaling those by professionals like Harmel. Add the Internet and powerful search technology, and sharing these images with the world becomes simple.

Wired Link

Writing Job Opportunities in the Bay Area

World Map to Explore

Several intriguing writing job opportunities has recently popped up on Craig's List for those of you living in the Bay Area, or willing to relocate.

********************************

Common Ground Editor (SOMA / south beach)

Reply to: jobs@cenlightenment.com
Date: 2006-05-24, 6:26PM PDT

Common Ground is looking for a new editor and writers for our revised publication. Common Ground has been covering the spiritual, political, environmental issues of the Bay Area for over 30 years. We are looking for writers/editors who want to make a difference.

Our ideal candidates are spiritual, not religious, love the environment and have an activist vibe, and knows San Francisco. If this is you or if you have articles that you think may be of interest to us please send them along.

************************************

Editor/Content Manager (potrero hill)

Reply to: employment@cca.edu
Date: 2006-05-24, 3:36PM PDT

POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT
EDITOR/CONTENT MANAGER
SAN FRANCISCO CAMPUS
FULL TIME (37.5 HOURS/WEEK), EXEMPT
May 2006
Job #1745

THE COLLEGE:
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts is the largest regionally accredited, independent school of art and design in the western United States. Noted for the interdisciplinary nature and breadth of its programs, the college offers studies in eighteen majors in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design, and writing. The college confers the bachelor of architecture, bachelor of arts, bachelor of fine arts, master of architecture, master of arts, and master of fine arts degrees. With campuses in San Francisco and Oakland, California College of the Arts currently enrolls fifteen hundred full-time students.

REPORTS TO: Director of Publications

DEPARTMENT: Communications

SUMMARY
Under the direction of the director of publications, the editor/content manager is responsible for managing copy for a variety of college publications.

RESPONSIBILITIES INCLUDE:
* Manage college copy across departments in order to promote a unified image/voice of the college; develop database of copy that can be drawn on for a variety of print and web publications
* Serve as editor of and write feature articles and news items for Glance, the biannual college magazine; work with in-house and freelance writers on other magazine articles
* Maintain CCA¡¦s house style guide
* Contract and supervise freelance writers and proofreaders
* Work with clients from various departments of the college to help them develop copy
* Manage new copy and updates for college listings in Peterson¡¦s and Princeton guides; also, coordinate copy for college listings in various online guides
* Manage copy for various print publication series, e.g. CCA Wattis Institute catalogs, Architecture Studio Series
* Compile collegewide calendar listings for use in web and print materials
* Work with news team and web manager to write news items and repurpose copy for college website
* Write articles, press releases, brochure copy, and other texts, as needed
* Proofread college publications, as needed
* Work on publications with in-house Sputnik design team, as well as freelance designers

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:
* BA and three or more years editing and writing experience, preferably within an educational or cultural setting
* Excellent copyediting, proofreading, and writing skills
* Detail-oriented with a thorough knowledge of and experience using The Chicago Manual of Style and The Associated Press Stylebook
* Ability to work on deadline and manage a number of assignments at once
* Outstanding interpersonal skills; the ability to work well with faculty, staff, and students; and a proven record of working both independently and as part of a team.
* Flexibility and ability to thrive in a fast-paced, creative environment.

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS:
Applicants are invited to submit a letter of interest, resume and the names and telephone numbers of three professional references to:

California College of the Arts
Human Resources (Job #1745)
5212 Broadway
Oakland, CA 94618-1487
fax (510) 594-3681
employment@cca.edu

Application Deadline:
Screening begins immediately and will continue until the position is filled.

California College of the Arts is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes
applications from individuals who will contribute to its diversity.

Compensation: Starting salary $43,000 to $46,000, and includes a comprehensive benefits package.

This is at a non-profit organization.

Dead Magazine Reviews

One Magazine Dead

If you're thinking about sending off your latest travel missive to some suspect magazine, you might check the website below to see if the mag will still be in business in six months, and able to send you that hefty check for your writing skills.

Besides, any website that can quote obscure lyrics from Alice Cooper is completely all right with me. Did I tell you I was in Phoenix last week, and that Cooper has a restaurant/nightclub in that town? He, apparently, hangs out there on a regular basis, when he's not working on his nine-iron shot at the local links.

Bundle: RIP April 2005 - May 2006

Alice Cooper is one of the Grim Reaper's favorite bands from the 70's with their classic 1971album Killer, and the song "Dead Babies." Perhaps you remember the lyrics? Sing along with the Reaper if you know this one: "Dead babies can't take care of themselves/Dead babies can't take things off the shelf."

Well, here's one magazine that can no longer take care of itself. Harris Publishing shut down their baby shopping magazine Bundle today after five issues.

Even the Reaper has to admire this feat from the under-the-radar Harris -- not only did they fail in the much hyped "shopping" category, but the Reaper can't remember the last time a baby magazine went under.

Perhaps like men and Cargo, mommies just don't want baby shopping magazines when they already get inundated with real baby catalogs in the mail, gifts from friends, and oh yes, the other five zillion parenting magazines.

So we are taking this "Bundle" down the dark river, while the Reaper puts on his DiePod for some more Alice Cooper: "No more Mr. Nice Guy/No more Mr. Cle-e-e-ean!"

Magazine Death Pool

Outside Travel Issue

Mt. Abu India by Carl Parkes

I just got back from a two week press trip to Arizona organized by SATW, which featured several travel writers and editors pontificating on the perils of travel writing in the modern age. The travel editor and former freelance travel writer who now oversees Arizona Highways, and Larry at the Dallas Morning News both had the same message for travel writers: get "chunky" and learn to love bullets in 500 words or less. I just wanted to hang myself in the nearest bathroom after hearing the doom and gloom outlook from both of these respected travel editors.

In other news, Outside magazine has posted some travel tidbits in "chunky" version (I think that means "bullets" rather than long, involved discourse) that is worth a gander, but don't expect any critical or meaningful insight. But do expect some clever and quick writing.

You can click the link at the bottom of each page to go to the next travel matter.

With 78 percent of U.S. travelers now using the Internet to plan their trips, you might assume guidebooks are on the wane. You'd be wrong. Sixty-eight percent of American travelers still turn to guidebooks for travel advice. "You can read your guidebook in the bathroom or on a train or on a ferry on the Congo River," notes Simone Andrus, whose Seattle travel store Wide World Books & Maps has seen guidebook sales rise by 10 percent since 2004.

When shopping for a guide, check the copyright page (you want something that's been updated more recently than, say, the tax code) and find one that focuses as narrowly as possible on your destination. Look for a personality that matches yours—but let go of any decade-old stereotypes. Books from Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, and Moon are still designed for adventurous travelers but now cater to those who'd rather not rough it at bedtime or mealtime. And guides from Fodor's and Frommer's have hipped up to appeal to a younger crowd, with colorful maps and graphics, plus advice on a broader range of attractions, from classic to quirky. Most important, remember that every guidebook is just that—a guide. Use it for context, consult it for planning, and know when to put it away. The best discoveries are those you make on your own.

Required Reading

"I take Graham Greene's THE QUIET AMERICAN everywhere. Whether I'm in Yemen or Saigon or Havana, it's an almost infallible guide to the perils of foreign wisdom, the resilience of native cultures, and the way we fall in love with places precisely because we can't understand or even handle them."—Pico Iyer, Travel Writer

Moving Words // Where Guidebooks Are Going

With Internet competition hot on their heels, guidebook publishers are constantly tweaking format—and focus—to keep up with travelers' needs. Here are the trends to watch. Scratch a Niche: Look for guides that cover themes, not specific regions, including The Traveling Marathoner (Fodor's, $28), Hip Hotels Atlas (Thames & Hudson, $50), and the new Take a Hike series (Moon Outdoors, $17). Undersize It: Mini-guides are hot. Perfect for quick trips, they zoom in on a destination, with fewer pages and a smaller, more packable size.

We like Insight Pocket Guides ($13–$14), 96-page books covering key sights, with handy foldout maps. Get Wired: DK's new e>>guides ($15), covering cities like San Francisco, Chicago, and Barcelona, come with passwords for access to exclusive online information, including hotel and restaurant updates. Radio-Free Planet: To increase their online presence, travel publishers are venturing into Internet radio.

Check out the new podcasts—free travel-related reports narrated by expert globe-trotters—at www.roughguides.com, www.lonelyplanet.com, and www.ricksteves.com. Go Deep: With the basics readily available online, guidebooks are amping up their historical and cultural information. Fodor's Compass American Guides ($21–$22) specialize in putting travel in context, with detailed maps and color photos.

Best of All: Top-ten lists and "best of" roundups, intended as shortcuts to the ultimate travel experiences, are also big this year. See Lonely Planet's Bluelist ($20), a guide to the travel trends of 2006, with 40 best-of categories like "most remote" and "best train trips," and National Geographic's The 10 Best of Everything: An Ultimate Guide for Travelers ($20).

Outside Magazine Link

Laurie King Travel Writer Newsletter

India by Carl Parkes

Just back from a two week press trip to Arizona, and realized that I haven't done any new posting to this blog is quite some time, so will pass along a very informative website and subscriber blog from Laurie King, based here in the Bay Area. Although many of the postings on her blog are oriented toward those travel writers living in the Bay Area, there's enough general content to make this a useful website for anyone active in the travel writing arena. So bookmark her website and subscribe to her weekly notices and updates.

Nice work, Laurie. See you down at the Monticello!

Laurie King Website

The History of Travel Guidebooks

Tony and Maureen 1973

I don't quite understand the posting policy of Publisher's Weekly, but it seems that some of their articles are posted on their website, while large parts of their site are off limits, unless you a paid subscriber, and Publisher's Weekly ain't cheap.

And so I was pleasantly surprised to find this PW article today about the history of travel guidebook publishing, with mentions of Bill Dalton and his adventurous days selling his Indonesia Handbook at the freak festival. It's the same orange guide I used on my first trip to Bali in 1979, or perhaps the first formal guide rather than a collection of notes, typed, and stapled.

Travel has changed radically since the days of the Victorian Grand Tour, when the privileged classes would pack their steamer trunks for European journeys that could stretch into years while the common folk contented themselves with a trip to the shore or to a town with a springs. Travel in our time has become much more democratic, global and fast. Two decades ago, says travel writer Rick Steves, Eurailpasses were guarded as carefully as passports. "People would do 17 countries. Now, it's the south of France, or Portugal, or the heel of Italy. People are more focused."

And taking shorter trips, says Avalon Travel publisher Bill Newlin. "They are valuing time over money, looking for ways to make educated decisions. People want to find something new, have stories to tell, but what that means has changed." Newlin and Steves are just the latest in a long line of travel book folk who have tried to keep up with the changing whims of travelers. The much-cherished Baedeker guides of the late 19th and early 20th centuries are collectors' items today, valued for the excellence of the writing and the romance that still clings to a world of empires and hat boxes. But the books themselves are obsolete in a world of cell service and time-shares. "The unknown is harder to find today," says Newlin, "but the craving for adventure survives." As does the determination of travel book publishers to remain relevant.

Indeed, all the major travel lines today—Fodor's, Frommer's, Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Moon, Insight, Rick Steves, Michelin—started in response to a perceived need in the marketplace. Even Karl Baedeker felt that there were no books available at the time that filled the traveler's need in the precise way he saw it. Not a single publisher watching over today's once eponymous (for the most part) imprints said that the spirit of the founder had changed, though the scope and breadth of the offerings are far different from what they used to be.

Let's Go has more than 50 titles covering six continents; Rough Guides takes in more than 200 destinations. Fodor's lines encompass more than 14 different series, and Frommer's titles number more than 330. Michelin now offers about 200 different guidebook titles, while Lonely Planet's number exceeds 600.

When Eugene Fodor brought out his first book, in 1936, Baedeker's (published in Germany), Murray's Hand-Books (London), Michelin Guides (France) and Hachette's Blue Guides (also France) were preeminent. Baedeker's had a venerable place in the annals of travel, but Fodor perceived new needs for the tourists of his era: he wanted them to have up-to-date, practical information and to understand what he called "the human side" of the places they visited. He researched his first book, 1936... On the Continent, while working for a steamship line and writing freelance travel articles.

In the introduction Fodor reminded his readers that the rewards of travel derive from the interactions with people in the visited locales. "We have proceeded on the assumption that your thirst for historical knowledge is nothing like so great as your thirst for the beer of Pilsen or the slivovitsa of Belgrade," he wrote. In 1950 Fodor took his guides to the David McKay Company and published books on France, Switzerland and Italy. His guide to Great Britain and Ireland, compiled in a single book, evoked loud protests from the Irish and were subsequently issued as two distinct titles.

In large measure attracted by the Fodor franchise, Random House bought David McKay in 1986 and undertook a major overhaul of the guides. Despite considerable diversification, the books haven't deviated from Fodor's vision, says Fodor's publisher Tim Jarrell. "The experience of travel has changed, but why people travel and the motivation is still the same."

Fodor's dominated the travel market for roughly a decade, until an ex-OSS employee named Temple Fielding entered the arena in 1948 with a hardcover guide to Europe. A bit more high-tone than Fodor's, Fielding's Travel Guide to Europe had become, by the time a profile of the author appeared in Time magazine in 1969, a 1,485-page, 909,000-word primer weighing just over two pounds. The company existed as recently as 1997—Robert Young Pelton, author of Fielding's The World's Most Dangerous Places, bought the company name from Morrow in 1993 and published traditional guides for a while—but Pelton's books are now published by HarperCollins and few Fielding guides are still in print.

In 1957, Arthur Frommer, a young lawyer in the U.S. Army, wrote a slim travel guide for American GIs in Europe, then produced a civilian version that caught the popular imagination of the era: Europe on $5 a Day. The book ranked sights in order of importance and included budget travel suggestions. "Arthur showed that everyone could travel and had the right to travel," says Michael Spring, the publisher of Frommer's Travel Guides, now published by Wiley. "We've gone from one book to over 320 books, but the vision hasn't changed."

Frommer's idea was that by traveling cheap you'd get inside the culture. "You'd stay at a B&B and talk to the owners at the breakfast table and meet the other guests," says Spring. By 2004 Frommer's signature guide to Europe was up to "starting" at $85 a day, while the 2006 Paris guide starts at $90.

Frommer continued to self-publish his guides while practicing law and in 1977 he sold the business to S&S. Through a series of subsequent sales the books ended up at Wiley. By the time Spring came in as publisher, in the early '90s, "the books were safe, geriatric, schoolmarmy, for a generation that hadn't traveled much," he says. "We started from scratch and wrote for the active, curious savvy traveler." Some of these travelers happened to be well-heeled. "It's our feeling that money shouldn't be held against you. The issue in traveling isn't how expensive, but how special," Spring says.

As travel became easier—planes faster, fares cheaper—students started thronging charter flights to get a taste of Europe during summer vacations. The guides on the market, which were aimed at a middle-class crowd, didn't address their needs. Over the next decade, several young entrepreneurs—hippie idealists—wrote guides for this young, curious (and underfinanced) group.

The first to appear was Let's Go Europe, in 1960. The original was a mimeographed pamphlet put together by students at Harvard Student Agencies and handed out gratis to those who booked charter flights to Europe. Two years later the guide had grown to 124 pages and carried a $1 price tag. "The budget advice available at the time was staid," says Tom Mercer, editorial and marketing manager for Let's Go at St. Martin's, which has published the series since 1982. "The authors of Let's Go were the audience themselves, young, adventurous Americans starting to sow their oats."

Publisher's Weekly Link

The Beatles

The Beatles Hard Day's Night 1964

I was a pretty young kid when I first heard the Beatles on the radio station in Omaha in 1964, but it still stands out. The radio DJ came on and said something "we've got a new rock group from England called the Beatles, and we're now going to play four tunes from them, and invite listerners to call and vote their favorites: "She Loves You," "I Wanna Hold your Hand," "Please Be True" and another.

Anyone remember?

This was the launch of the Beatles. I watched the Beatles the following two weeks on Sunday evenings Ed Sullivan show, and it's true. The Beatles changed everything.

The Future of Airline Travel

New Airline Strategy for Transporting Bodies

International Airlines have just come up with a new method to pack more bodies into their aluminum coffins: strap bodies into vertical body bags, or perhaps the human horizontal body hotels in Tokyo? I have another suggestion. Six passenger levels based on how much you can afford. Body bags (cheap) to full-beds (pretty penny). Why must the budget-minded suffer while the ultra-rich get unreacheable perks? Let's have some mid-choices.

Some airlines are already doing this, such as ANA, EVA, and a few others to Asia, that offer some great deals on mid-level travel with comfort at mid-level prices. That's the solution.

One Day, That Economy Ticket May Buy You a Place to Stand
Chris Elliott
April 25, 2006

The airlines have come up with a new answer to an old question: How many passengers can be squeezed into economy class?

Airbus has been quietly pitching the standing-room-only option to Asian carriers, though none have agreed to it yet. Passengers in the standing section would be propped against a padded backboard, held in place with a harness, according to experts who have seen a proposal.

But even short of that option, carriers have been slipping another row or two of seats into coach by exploiting stronger, lighter materials developed by seat manufacturers that allow for slimmer seatbacks. The thinner seats theoretically could be used to give passengers more legroom but, in practice, the airlines have been keeping the amount of space between rows the same, to accommodate additional rows.

The result is an additional 6 seats on a typical Boeing 737, for a total of 156, and as many as 12 new seats on a Boeing 757, for a total of 200.

That such things are even being considered is a result of several factors. High fuel costs, for example, are making it difficult for carriers to turn a profit. The new seat technology alone, when used to add more places for passengers, can add millions in additional annual revenue. The new designs also reduce a seat's weight by up to 15 pounds, helping to hold down fuel consumption. A typical seat in economy class now weighs 74 to 82 pounds.

"There is clearly pressure on carriers to make the total passenger count as efficient as possible," said Howard Guy, a director for Design Q, a seating design consultant in England. "After all, the fewer seats that are put on board, the more expensive the seat price becomes. It's basic math."

Even as the airlines are slimming the seatbacks in coach, they are installing seats as thick and heavy as ever in first and business class — and going to great lengths to promote them. That is because each passenger in such a seat can generate several times the revenue of a coach traveler.

At the front of the cabin, the emphasis is on comfort and amenities like sophisticated entertainment systems. Some of the new seats even feature in-seat electronic massagers. And, of course, the airlines have installed lie-flat seats for their premium passengers on international routes.

Seating specialists say that all the publicity airlines devote to their premium seats diverts attention from what is happening in the back of the plane. In the main cabin, they say, manufacturers are under intense pressure to create more efficient seats.

"We make the seats thinner," said Alexander Pozzi, the director for research and development at Weber Aircraft, a seat manufacturer in Gainesville, Tex. "The airlines keep pitching them closer and closer together. We just try to make them as comfortable as we can."

There is one bit of good news in the thinner seats for coach class: They offer slightly more room between the armrests because the electronics are being moved to the seatbacks.

One of the first to use the thinner seats in coach was American Airlines, which refitted its economy-class section seven years ago with an early version made by the German manufacturer Recaro.

"Those seats were indeed thinner than the ones they replaced, allowing more knee and legroom," Tim Smith, a spokesman for American, said. American actually removed two rows in coach, adding about two inches of legroom, when it installed the new seats. It promoted the change with a campaign called "More Room Throughout Coach."

But two years later, to cut costs, American slid the seats closer together and ended its "More Room" program without fanfare. When the changes were completed last year, American said its "density modification program" had added five more seats to the economy-class section of its MD-80 narrow-body aircraft and brought the total seat count to 120 in the back of the plane. A document on an internal American Airlines Web site, which was briefly accessible to the public last week, estimated that the program would generate an additional $60 million a year for its MD-80 fleet

New York Times

American Travelers Perception

American Travelers in Patpong

Once again, the old and tired cliche about American travelers abroad has been brought up with several articles in magazines and on the web. The familiar story is that Americans abroad are a boorish lot, given to bad fashion and yelling across the restaurant. Yeah, well, who cares?

I don't. Americans are a very, very friendly group of people who yell and scream at almost anything, and welcome anybody and everybody into their party. It's America, and it's a celebration of life. American tourists are well loved throughout the world, and rank among the favorite nations along with Australia, New Zealand, and some other places on the European continent. And most people around this planet can easily tell the difference between an American tourist and the present political policies of the American government. In other words, nobody blames me for the idiocy of George Bush or his personal vendetta against Iraq.

Erik Olsen at Gadling has more:

Lots of folks are atwitter over the release of the "World Citizens Guide" - which we posted about - that seeks to help reduce the amount of ugliness Americans export within themselves when they head abroad. Only you can know exactly what your "AUE" (American Ugliness Export) quotient is, but my guess, esp. if you like fast food and Hawaiian shirts, is that it's pretty high.

The guide was underwritten/assembled by the Business for Diplomatic Action (BDA), a non-profit group funded by big American companies, who are saying the anti-Americanism is bad for business. It features some 16 etiquette tips on how Americans can help the country by not fulfilling stereotypes of themselves as brash, loud, annoying, fat, stupid, bossy philistines. Ed Gomez over at SF Gate examines the subject and finds many of these stereotypes sadly accurate. While, over at the UK Telegraph, Philip Sherwell probably has the best take on the subject, as he makes the point that it's not really American tourists who are the problem, it's more often the perceptions of American policy...although loud fat Americans don't help themselves much either.

So let me put the question out there? Are we fat, loud, bossy, annoying, etc.? Or is it just that people like to pick on the big guy? Or more, are people in general becoming more like us? I mean, have you ever seen German travelers? Let's get the debate started.

Gadling Link

The Forgotten Book Advance

Alice Dines

Did your publisher somehow miss a scheduled advance payment on your latest book? It happens more often than you might imagine, thanks to poor bookkeeping or selected memory. Writers must keep track of their contracts and payment schedules, and remind their publishers of their obligations, as shown today by an insightful article by Angela Hoy.

Dear Angela:

I think you have a great service, and now, as a fellow writer, I am asking your help.

I have a book contract. However, while I received the first part of my advance, I did not receive the second half. Nevertheless, the book is already for sale. Now, I have another manuscript that I submitted to the publisher, and he said it was too long, but, that he liked the writing and the work, so he broke it up into two works. He has indicated the second will be coming out on his next list. I am gratified to have such a reception, but, the second work has no written contract, I have not been paid the second part of my advance on the first, and there has been no discussion about money on the second. I do not know what to do. I know I need an agent, but, I am in a bind. My work is already sold! However, I need money to live as well! I have no "new" work to present to an agent.

Sincerely, D.

You need to immediately remind the publisher that you're still waiting for the second half of your advance. But, check your contract first to ensure there's not some clause in there you're not aware of.

From your note, it appears you haven't bugged him about the second half yet. Don't be afraid to. He may be unaware it hasn't gone out or he may simply have forgotten.

The fact that he hasn't even given you a contract on the new book, however, is quite troubling. Even if you have a relationship with a publisher, you should never, ever work without a contract. This, coupled with the missing second half of your advance, could either spell ignorance or laziness on behalf of the publisher, or it could mean he's purposely trying to rip you off.

Writers Weekly Link

Stolen Books

Alice with Question

Something to contemplate. I've seen photocopies of my books on the sidewalks of Saigon and Bangkok, and while not a serious problem, book authors and other travel writers need to be aware of the problem of piracy and how to combat the challenge.

What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content

Having been the target of copyright thieves, and working with writers, authors, and photographers on copyright protection and laws for over 25 years, I thought I’d talk a little about what to do when someone steals your content.

First, you noticed that I didn’t say “if” someone steals your content. That was on purpose. With the glut of information on the Internet, it’s now a matter of “when” not “if”.

The first step in learning about what you can do when someone steals your content is to know that it will happen, so the more prepared and informed you are, the better your chances of prevention and having a plan in place when they steal.

As the number of websites and blogs grow, especially splogs, the demand for content puts more pressure on website administrators, who may resort to stealing content in order to fill space on their sites and attract traffic. Website hijacking, as such an example, is on the rise. This is the blatant use of part or all of your site’s content on another site without permission. This is also a copyright violation and needs to be dealt with accordingly.

Lorelle Link

Still the Freaky Goa

Puri Sunrise by Carl Parkes

It's been a helluva long time since I visited Goa, but I've been hearing depressing stories for many years, that Goa had gone upscale and was now populated with group tourists who all stayed in five-star hotels. Good news this week from the travel section of the New York Times, which claims that hippie culture is alive and well in the former Portuguese colony. But only the Times could write a three-page article about Goa and never mentioned weed or mushrooms.

There ain't nothing like this in the real world. Come to Goa. Change your mind. Change your way. It's hard to imagine a better jingle for this sandy strip of India's western coast, a venerable Catholic-Hindu enclave where American hippies came to turn on, tune in and drop out in the late 1960's, and where globe-trotting spiritual seekers, party kids, flag-wavers of the counterculture and refugees from the real world have fled ever since.

It's a place where the palm trees bear a strange fruit —fliers for crystal therapy, Ayurvedic healing and rave parties — and every road seems to lead to an organic restaurant or massage clinic. At the yoga centers, postures are manipulated by top Indian and international instructors. In clubs, where trance music is the favored genre, D.J.'s carrying myriad passports provide the mix. Bodies receive needle-inked adornments at skin-art parlors; minds seek enlightenment, or at least expansion, at many meditation clinics.

New York Times Link

Sihanoukville -- The Next Ko Phangan?

Angkor Beer

Can you believe the travel section of this week's New York Times? Two articles about Asia, when they typically only do about one article per month. This story provides a sharp contrast to another story they published a few months ago about Sihanoukville, where the author apparently spent his vacation at some five-star resort and perhaps took a quick drive around the district.

This week's story is almost the complete opposite, though a better comparison would have been Sihanoukville to Ko Phangan.

THE "largest and wildest" full-moon party, promised the yellow flier taped to a phone booth on Khaosan Road in Bangkok. Another installment of Thailand's girls-gone-wild bacchanal on the island of Ko Phangan? Or its bigger brother, Ko Samui? Or maybe it was the newcomer Ko Phi Phi, a remote island that is luring younger partygoers in the post-tsunami boom.

Not quite. This particular moonlight spectacle, in fact, wouldn't even be in Thailand, but across the border, in Cambodia's budding seaside town, Sihanoukville. It is "just nine-and-a-half hours from Bangkok," according to the flier, the work of Cambodian entrepreneurs hoping to turn Sihanoukville into the latest party hot spot.

Like bohemians colonizing a sketchy up-and-coming neighborhood, European and Australian backpackers have been blazing trails through Cambodia steadily since the mid-1990's. Although the last of the Khmer Rouge traded their machetes for plowshares only eight years ago, this nation of 13 million is fast becoming a companion destination to Thailand — that is, another seemingly safe haven of lush landscapes and warm embraces for Westerners.

Nowhere is this more apparent than on the low-key but alluring beaches of Sihanoukville, where development is being modeled after Thailand's resorts. Along the touristy strip of sand known as Serendipity, several restaurants brazenly advertise "happy" pizza and "happy" pancakes, seasoned with a certain illicit herb. Nearby, Victory Hill is trying to become Cambodia's version of Soi Cowboy, one of Bangkok's more garish red-light districts.

New York Times Link

Real Job Posting

Engrish dot com

I think this job posting is real. But I'm not sure, so be careful and cautious. This is a real-world job, and not another travel writing pitch. Most websites looking for travel writing are just collecting fodder for their site, to then sell to advertisers for monthly payments. Don't fall for it-They say they will give away some fabulous cruise to Norway or Tahiti or Bermuda, so do send in your 2000 word travel essay about the most fabulous place you've ever stayed. They want all rights.

To sell more ads.

"do you wanna be a travel writer scam." Skip phonies. Buy a few books about being a travel writer. Write a dozen travel pieces, end them to 100 newspapers. That's all you need to do. A few newspapers will purchase your travel story for $150, and then the editor will remember your name, and that person will buy more of your stories in the future. Yes, it's that simple. Write a good story and mail it out to 100 newspapers.

Director of Internet Sales and Marketing
Publication or Company Chronicle Books
Industry Book Publishing
Salary
Benefits
Job Duration Full Time
Job Location San Francisco, CA USA

Job Requirements

The primary purpose of this position is to set and execute a strategic plan to increase Chronicle Books direct website sales and website outreach to end consumers to promote the website, the Chronicle Books brand and all Chronicle Books’ titles.

This position will also act as the primary strategic thinker and planner for how the company can use the web and other technology to increase sales and brand awareness.

This individual needs a thorough understanding of ecommerce sales, an understanding of the web and the technologies associated with it, and an ability to create and execute plans for growth.

WEB SALES

Oversee the plans and execution of our website sales to increase visitors, increase sales and build brand awareness and loyalty
· Oversee the Web order fulfillment system and the customer service process; make changes when necessary
· Create and implement programs and the calendar for all Web promotions to increase sales and increase visitors to site
· Develop ways to convert existing traffic to buyers.
· Monthly report to the company on site sales, site visitation, promotions and strategic plans
· Create and implement user surveys as needed
· Work with the Direct Sales task force to drive sales through the site

CONTENT

Oversee the overall creative direction of the site
· Work directly with website manager on the editorial calendar for books to be featured, promotions offered and ensure web is updated in a timely manner
· Ensure that content of site aligns properly with promotions and ideas surrounding ecommerce initiatives
· Design mini sites as needed for most important titles.
· Delegate and approve the creation of content for all three site “home pages” (books, kids, gifts)
· When necessary, oversee redesign of entire site or special areas.

ONLINE MARKETING

· Advocate, educate, and implement all online marketing strategies for the company. This person is the resident expert on all online and mobile marketing opportunities. Stay on top of market trends and find ways to implement them into our operations here.
· Work with marketing and publicity to create plans for all key titles, and for online marketing of Chronicle in general.

DEVELOPMENT

· Oversee the technical evolution of the site, add (or commission to have added) new functionality as needed.

DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER

· Partner with direct to consumer team to find ways to use the website as a way to increase sales and outreach to new consumers directly. This includes working on ways to use site for selling to end consumers, corporations, organizations, and through the Metreon retail store
· Oversee all web only promotions through these venues; including marketing collateral which is created
· Find creative ways to use the web to expand our current reach to direct consumers.

OTHER

Work directly with in house staff in operations, production, sales and marketing on how CB can use website as a tool to improve internal processes and communication

MANAGEMENT

· Supervise Website Manager

Prerequisites:

Knowledge of HTML, CSS, and some Flash. Experience managing an ecommerce site. Experience with Web marketing a must (banner ad campaigns, email newsletters, and Web promotions). Knowledge of Google AdWords a plus. Publishing experience a plus.

Must have experience managing a team with various abilities (from creative to technical). While it isn’t necessary for this person to be a programmer per se, it is essential for her/him to be well versed in what different technology can offer and how to manage a programmer to deliver. A keen eye for design is essential to keep in pace with the visual integrity of our books.

Most importantly, must have knowledge of and interest in our eclectic list, and be versatile enough to create Web marketing plans for everything from the kooki
About Our Company Chronicle Books, a San Francisco based publisher, was founded in 1966 and over the years has developed a reputation for award-winning, innovative books. The company continues to challenge conventional publishing wisdom, setting trends in both subject and format, maintaining a list that includes illustrated titles in design, art, architecture, photography, food, lifestyle and pop culture, as well as much-admired books for children and ancillary products through its gift division. Chronicle Books boasts best-selling titles that include The Beatles Anthology, Sylvia Long’s Hush Little Baby, The 52-Deck series, Olive, the Other Reindeer and The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook series. Chronicle Books’ objective is to create and distribute exceptional publishing that’s instantly recognizable for its spirit, creativity, and value.

Contact Ms. Renee Banks
Email Address jobs@chroniclebooks.com
Address 85 2nd street
6th floor
San Francisco, CA 94105 USA

Phone 415.537.4200
Fax 415.537.4450
Special Instructions Please include a cover letter with resume.

Humor? From Gadling?

Japanese Fans by Carl Parkes

The good folks at Gadling have gone all out today, with some half-dozen hilarious posts in honor of April Fools Day. I sense from these posts, that the fabulously paid Gadling authors are mostly frustrated humor writers, who would rather be working the opening monologue for Conan O'Brien, than ragging on about esoteric travel trivia. Fine work, and too bad this sort of opportunity only comes up once a year.

Fans of our America’s 43rd president will finally have something to rejoice about later this month when the new Bushland presidential theme park opens. Built atop the breeding grounds of the endangered Texas blind salamander, Bushland embraces the life and accomplishments of George W.

This wonderful family getaway has something for all ages; the Michael Moore Harpoon Toss, the Cheney Shooting Range, the Deficit Roller Coaster (which only goes up), and the Karl Rove Spinner (the opening of the Karl Rove Steamboat Cruise has been postponed until problematic leaks are fixed).

Gadling: Bushland to Open

From the same people who have brought you volumes about single topic esoterica, comes the newest, perhaps most important book: Foot Odor: The Complete History.

Author Mark Farklansky, whose books about Flour and Glue revealed the untold stories of these common products, has really outdone himself here with a mesmerizing account of where foot odor came from and its impact on world history.

Gadling: Foot Odor, A History

Pangaea is one of the more difficult places to reach on this planet, but also one of the most rewarding. I was therefore pleased to discover that Old World Travels has just announced a two-week tour of this fascinating region which leaves later this month. An April trip is perfect timing because springtime in Pangaea is indeed wonderful. Plants and animals are slowly blossoming to life and every day seems so very fresh and new. I’ve never been myself, but this is indeed the Old Country from where my ancestors, in one form or another, originally heralded.

Gadling: Springtime in Pangaea

Here's an odd one: The Nepalese government wants to make it easier, much easier, for people to climb towering Mount Everest. Turns out they are planning to build a working, electric escalator that will carry people from base camp to the summit in less than an hour. The engineering effort is being put in the hands of the Japanese, in a serious political snub to the Chinese who had also bid on the project. The proposed escalator will be approximately fifteen miles long and will rise and fall with the jagged gradations of the mountain. It will move approximately five miles an hour and will offer superb views of the surrounding Himalayas. There will be rest stops, as well, built into the structure, that will allow riders to stop for tea or snacks. For children who grow easily bored by gaping mountain vistas, they are planning to offer portable DVD players and a wide selection of films.

Gadling: Nepalese Plan Everescalator

Mark Burnett Productions has just announced a new travel themed reality show to be carried by FOX next season. The concept, tentatively titled Long Pigs, combines the successful themes of two other hit reality shows; Survivor and The Surreal Life. Long Pigs stars a cast of B-level celebrities who have to share a yurt in the barren Gobi desert with a tribe of Korowai cannibals from southeastern Papua for 40 days.

The cast will have to rely on finely honed outdoor skills to survive as the only food provided are salt and pepper, a barrel of wine reduction basting sauce, and a three day’s supply of Fig Newtons (the show is sponsored by the cookie company

Gadling: New Mark Burnett Reality Show

If you enjoy the outdoors and getting back to nature, you’re going to be downright feral over one of the hottest new trends in adventure travel. Forget expensive Gortex and metal ice axes, we’re talking pre-bronze age here. Yes, everyone is abuzz about the new hunter-gatherer parks that are sprouting up around the country, as well as in other parts of the world.

Gadling: Hunter-Gatherer Parks

Newspapers with No Hot Links

Yogyakarta Batik by Carl Parkes

Is it just me, or do newspapers seem to be shooting themselves in the foot with every passing day? You write a story about ten useful travel websites, and you don't even provide any hot links in your website? Hello, newspapers, there is this new thingie called the internet, and it survives and blooms off something called "links."

I can hardly believe this.

Every year, as more travelers use the Internet to plan and pay for their vacations, more players are trying to get a piece of the action.

In 2005, more than 64 million Americans bought or reserved an airline ticket, hotel room, rental car or package tour online, up nearly 20 million from 2004, according to the Travel Industry Association of America. With each leisure traveler spending an average of $1,288 online, real money is changing hands. We took a look at several dozen sites that have come online during the past year. Most weren't worth more than a cursory glance, but several broke new ground, fit a niche or at least accomplished what they set out to do.

Here are 10 sites worth checking out.

Arizona Central Link via Washington Post