Product Description

This is the Book Every Travel Writer Has Waited For! Travel writing may be an art-but putting together a guidebook is a craft! Author Barbara Hudgins offers a minimum of hype and a maximum of help for anyone who has ever dreamed of putting their travel lore into prose. Crafting the Travel Guidebook shows the reader how to find his category and his audience, how create a format, construct a framework and flow the chapters. It also offers a heaping helping of travel-writing tips and examples. Aimed at both the author looking for a publisher and those who wish to self-publish, the book covers such topics as basic research, plagiarism and copyright infringement, where to find photographs, creating sidebars, the book proposal, positioning your title and promoting your book. And best of all, there is a 15-page list of publishers, large and small, who welcome travel writers. Written by best-selling guidebook author, Barbara Hudgins, this book offers a roadmap for both the novice writer and the veteran journalist to find his way to the travel bookshelf. From the title page to the appendix and index--everything is laid out. Barbara Hudgins is best known as the original author and self-publisher of New Jersey Day Trips. This guidebook sold over 110,000 copies before she sold the rights to Rutgers University Press. She also co-authored the 10th edition put out by that press. She was the subject of a chapter in Make Money Self-Publishing by Suzanne Thomas, as an example of a successful regional author. Barbara's travel column has appeared in many newspapers in New Jersey. Her free-lance articles have been featured in such magazines as Garden State Woman, Signature, Woman's World and Foreword. The author has lived in New York, New Mexico, Hawaii and Virginia, but has made her home in New Jersey for many years. She holds a Master's degree in Library Science. A former English major in college, she began writing music, movie and theater reviews before gravitating to travel writing. Her experience as an author for a traditional publisher, as a self-publisher and as a freelance writer, positions her as a unique expert in all of these fields.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #178155 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

Some Good Information - But Wouldn't Buy Again
Crafting the Travel Guidebook had some good information in it, mainly of the inspirational nature. However, it also had a lot of typos, strange formatting, omitted words, and other errors that made it seem unprofessional. Furthermore, some of the advice in the book - such as writing your own [[...] reviews and sending them to friends in other states to post for you, to drive up your ratings - were borderline unethical. Some tips were repeated over and over again, while other areas were very thin on content.

The good stuff included inspiration about famous travel guides who started out small, a good overview of self publishing, and a good overview of the different types of travel guides that you can write. Overall, what was good was great, but the book would have benefited from better editing and more solid content in several key areas. It was definitely worth reading, but I wish I'd borrowed this book from a library instead of buying it new.

Simply indispensable reading
Travel writing in general, and the writing of travel guides in particular, is a very specialized genre for aspiring authors and is perhaps one of the most complicated areas in which to seek publication. Therefore it is especially satisfying to read travel writing expert Barbara Hudgins' practical, real-world, comprehensive compendium of sound advice and information on writing guidebooks, directories, travelogues, travel memoirs, in "Crafting The Travel Guidebook: How To Write, Publishing & Sell Your Travel Book". In addition to providing a wealth of useable information on traditional publishing, self-publishing, POD publishing, and subsidy publishing as it applies to travel oriented books, there are invaluable travel writing tips, advice on writing the book proposal, key information concerning publicity and promotion, and a list of publishers who specialize in producing travel books. More specifically to the advantage of the novice author seeking to write a travel guide or a travelogue is what "Crafting The Travel Guidebook" has to offer about finding a category to write about, creating a format, constructing the framework of the guidebook, finding an audience, and finding a 'voice' that will stand out from all the other travel books in competition for the traveler's attention. Simply indispensable reading for any beginning travel author, whether they are writing annotated directories, road guides, memoirs, outdoor recreation guides, destination and regional guidebooks, restaurant and winter guides, specialized audience guides, luxury or budget travel guides, guidebooks for the business traveler, or for the vacationer, "Crafting The Travel Guidebook" is also very highly recommended to seasoned travel journalists seeking to compile their magazine or newspaper travel columns into a travel book.

So Comprehensive, Even a Veteran Writer Found This Guide Helpful
I wish this book existed 10 years ago, before I wrote my first outdoor recreation guidebook. It would have made the process much easier. Barbara Hudgins covers all the details I had to discover by trial and error. Even after publishing 14 guidebooks, I learned some useful information.

If I was new to this world of writing and/or publishing a travel book or a guidebook, this volume would have catapulted me into the fast lane. It gives you the inside scoop on the nuances of the travel book writing and publishing industry and leads you through all the choices and decisions you have to make both before leaping into the foray and as you wander down the path. This comprehensive guide should be read by anyone contemplating writing any sort of travel book or guidebook. I have already recommended it to a colleague who is thinking of becoming an author.

Sue Freeman, author & publisher, Footprint Press, www.footprintpress.com