31 Ekim 2010 Pazar

Travel Quotes from Southeast Asia Handbook


SE Asia Handbook by Carl Parkes Posted by Hello


To many people holidays are not voyages of discovery, but a ritual of reassurance.
--Philip Adams, Australian Age

Travel broadens the mind.
--Anonymous

Three hundred years in a convent and fifty years in Hollywood.
--Anonymous

Though an airplane is not the ideal place to really think, to reassess or reevaluate, it is a great place to have the illusion of doing so, and often the illusion will suffice.
--Shana Alexander

Never journey without something to eat in your pocket. If only to throw to dogs when attacked.
--E.S. Bates

There are two kinds of travel--first class and with children.
--Robert Benchley

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.
--William Blake

The traveler is active and strenuously searches for people, adventure and experience. The tourist is passive and waits for things to happen.
--Daniel J. Boorstein

In traveling: a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.
--James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson

Countries, like people, are loved for their failings.
--F. Yeats Brown, Bengal Lancer

"Are you a god?" they asked.
"No."
"An Angel?"
"No."
"A saint?"
"No."
"Then, what are you?"
Buddha answered, "I am awake."
--Buddha

Of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of Habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the slavery of Home, man feels once more happy.
--Richard Burton, Journal

To travel in Europe is to assume a foreseen inheritance; in Islam, to inspect that of a close and familiar cousin. But to travel in farther Asia is to discover a novelty previously unsuspected and unimaginable.
--Lord Byron

Every man carries within himself a world made up of all that he has seen and loved; and it is to this world that he returns incessantly, though he may pass through, and seem to inhabit, a world quite foreign to it.
--Chateaubriand, Voyage en Italie

For some ill-defined reason, lovers have a particular penchant for travelling, perhaps in the hope that by exchanging backdrops for that of the unknown, those fleeting dreams will be retained a little longer.
--Carole Chester

I shall always be glad to have seen it--for the same reason Papa gave for being glad to have seen Lisbon--namely, that it will be unnecessary ever to see it again.
--Winston Churchill

The glamour of the East had cast its spell upon him; the mystery of lands in which no white man had set foot since the beginning of things had fired his imagination; the itch of travel was upon him, goading him to restlessness.
--Hugh Clifford, The Story of Exploration

I prefer mythology to history because history starts from the truth and goes towards lies and mythology starts from lies--fantasy--and goes toward truth.
--Jean Cocteau

There are only three things which make life worth living: to be writing a tolerably good book, to be in a dinner party for six, and to be traveling south with someone whom your conscience permits you to love.
--Cyril Connolly, A Romantic Friendship

I believe if I were to one day accept a religion, it would be of Buddhism. No other faith seems to offer such an eloquent expression of hope and beauty with its array of imagery, fashioned seemingly by devoted geniuses of a fantasy world.
--Joseph Conrad, The Shadow Line

Some men go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having been made to see all it may contain of perfidy, of violence, and of terror.
--Joseph Conrad

Everybody in the world is a little mad.
--Joseph Conrad, The Shadow Line

30 Ekim 2010 Cumartesi

Guidebook Selection Tips


New Guinea by Carl Parkes

Who's guiding the guidebooks?
Savvy travelers check the fine print to determine whether writers know the stuff of which they write.
By HERB HILLER
© St. Petersburg Times
May 14, 2000


Ten years ago when I served as area editor of Fodor's Florida guide, I was offered the opportunity to update a guidebook on Jamaica. I knew Jamaica well. As a former cruise line vice president and later as executive director of the Caribbean Travel Association, I had logged more than 70 trips to Jamaica.

I figured the update job at three weeks, maximum.

The publisher's offer: $500, and I would have to pay my own expenses.

I turned the offer down, though of course somebody was willing.

The question is, who?

Was it anyone ready to work up to 12-hour days for two to three weeks for $500? Was it anyone competent at all? That question of competence becomes critical when you need a guidebook. Even when you already know where you're traveling, you are likely to find dozens of books on store shelves and wish there were a guide to the guidebooks. But guidebooks rarely get noticed.

Newspapers and magazines publish infrequent reviews, although National Geographic Traveler broke the mold in its January/February issue this year by comparing 16 guidebooks to France and then commenting on 21 additional series.

Among the big online sellers, Amazon.com reviews the most titles but these reviews mainly enthuse about what's good, instead of providing helpful critiques. No authoritative standard exists for guidebook authors or publishers. There is no guild. Guidebookwriters.com has banded a hundred or so top writers together but its objective is self-marketing its research to individual travelers. The members do not set standards.

So how do you check out authorial competence? The place to start is up front -- in the book you are looking at, the stuff before the actual guiding begins.

Consider Lonely Planet's Florida guide. Authors Nick and Corinna Selby have produced Lonely Planet's usual good read. They are brilliant on everything they cover, from the Everglades and Palm Beach history to the South Beach night scene and the roadside whirligig man along U.S. 17 in north Volusia County.

Yet though the Selbys take South Florida history seriously, the book ignores Lake Wales and Bok Tower Gardens, Ocala and thoroughbred ranching. Nothing at all about Tarpon Springs or Destin. Nothing about Lake Okeechobee as a destination or the Panhandle away from the Gulf Coast. The book says nothing about DeLand as houseboating capital of Florida -- the sort of tip a visitor might build into a vacation.

Why all the exclusions? Maybe the job was rushed or space was tight, though this book is unusually large at 615 pages. But more to the point, read the authors' biographies, which appear in the front: The Selbys live in Europe; their Florida credentials are tinsel thin.

Even the most-skilled guidebook practitioner cannot fathom a place and credibly guide others there without immersion. Outsiders rarely get perspective right. Extent of coverage and detail become equally suspect. But, as mentioned above, guidebook work rarely pays enough to allow an itinerant writer the time to dig in.

LESSON NO. 1

For the consumer: Does the author live in the place or otherwise connect deeply with it?

Tom Brosnahan, for example, who for 23 years wrote the Frommer Guide to Turkey and since 1982 has covered Turkey for Lonely Planet, may live in Concord, Mass. But he spent 21/2 years in the Peace Corps in Turkey, speaks fluent Turkish and returns to the country at least every two years.

Publishers proud of their author's credentials highlight them up front or on the back cover. Look for this.

You will see in A Paddler's Guide to Everglades National Park, newly published by The University Press of Florida, that author Johnny Molloy is an outdoors writer and adventurer based in Knoxville, Tenn., with years of paddling in the Everglades, "logging trips of two hours and up to two weeks (and in) writing this book, he paddled over 500 miles in one season."

Similarly, the Compass Guide to Florida lists author Chelle Koster Walton's several Florida books, cites her Florida freelance credentials and her 17 years as a Florida resident. You can learn more by having your store check Books In Print for other books an author has published on a given destination.

The guidebook field is notorious for writers who accept free accommodations while doing their work. Publishers' refusal to pay research expenses almost guarantees this. Authors insist their objectivity remains uncompromised but seldom acknowledge this freebie practice in the pages of their books.

The worst abuse of objectivity shows up in bed-and-breakfast books, where B&B owners often pay to get reviewed. That's how the late Norman Simpson put together the granddaddy of B&B books, Country Inns & Back Roads. The read was always charming and accurate. But then, Simpson only wrote about places he liked, while loads of others, equally good, went unreviewed.

Bernice Chesler, author of Bed and Breakfast in New England, publicly defended her charge of $125 per listing as a "processing fee," in a Boston Sunday Globe report a few years back: "What difference does it make as long as it's true?" she asked.

Still other guidebooks accept ads, which may skew coverage.

LESSON NO. 2:

If at all in doubt, e-mail the publisher and ask whether any source identified in the book has had to pay to be included. These practices by writers and publishers go hand in hand with over-dependence on official sources.

So check an author's acknowledgments: If writers are chiefly beholden to people from tourist offices, they are more likely to rely on official viewpoints and on media handouts instead of first-hand observations. This suggests the book may not be authoritative or critical as it ought to be.

Instead, look among the acknowledgments for historians, preservationists, naturalists and other folks whose advice would more likely be free of promotional taint. This suggests the author made contacts and personally checked things out.

No official tourism acknowledgments appear in Arthur Frommer's book on Branson, Mo., a book he called a guide to "what's good and what's bad." While praising the music shows and general affordability of the Missouri music capital, Frommer, different from other writers about Branson, wrote about what he called "right-wing excess (coupled with) political and religious proselytizing."

It is easy to believe that this kind of book would be equally forthright in its lodging and restaurant reviews. It was, yet advertising coupons appeared in the back of the book.

LESSON NO. 3:

Work Web sites against guidebooks.

Countless destinations and hotel chains have their own Web sites, but that means they are serving themselves by posting that information. Now publishers increasingly lay out their wares online: Rough Guides was first to provide entire books this way. Lonely Planet supplies generous excerpts. Fodor's lets you organize your own "mini-guides" from a menu of hotel and restaurant offerings.

Check the destination Web sites against what guidebook authors say (online if you can, otherwise in print). Also, compare what different authors say on the same topic -- or whether they say anything at all.

Some guidebooks, like the Fodor's and Frommer series, detail hotel rooms to the color of bedcovers and art on the wall, and three or four entrees in restaurants. Other guide series, such as Insight Guides, relegate places to sleep and eat to the back of the book. Insight prefers that listings include only places in business a long time. That is meant to improve the odds that these hotels and restaurants will still be there when you come by with the book in hand.

Years can pass before Insight updates its lavishly photographed books. But these books are largely essays, written for background by informed locals.

LESSON NO. 4:

Know what kind of information you are looking for and then buy what best suits you, which could be one for readable background and another for informational detail.

Paul Glassman, editor of Passport Press, who for years divided his residence between Central America and Montreal and has authored books about both, cautions book buyers to look for mistakes in foreign-language terms. Glassman says these tip off unfamiliarity with the territory.

On the other hand, sudden change in writing style or point of view indicates plagiarism or outdated information, he says, "to the degree not masked by editors."

LESSON NO. 5:

Do read sections of the book you're holding in your hand before buying it. At least see if the book covers what you know to be there -- and how well it does that. Guidebook writer Connie Emerson, who lives in Reno, Nevada, and has written three books about Nevada, cautions readers not to assume a book is up to date just because it is in a well-known series. To the contrary, Emerson says, "Those are the guides most likely to be carelessly updated by underpaid researchers."

That reminded me of a writer updating a book for a major series who once called me about a restaurant she was not going to visit herself. When asked why, she said the job did not pay enough to justify revisiting all the places originally listed. One reason for the great rush to the Net for travel information is that it's more likely to be up to date than print.

When I wrote for Fodor's, material had to be turned in by February for books that would bear the following year's date. That meant starting the update around October or November, a year before the book appeared in stores.

Rough Guides keeps its books up-to-date electronically with letters from user-travelers. But Lonely Planet online outdoes the competition with its so-called Upgrades. These author-written reports detail changes in everything from politics and environment to travel safety and currency exchange rates since the previous edition of the relevant guide. The reports are quick journalistic reads, invaluable as updates -- and they are free.

But at least Fodor's, like Frommer's, updates most books yearly. Few other series do. Tired information can go on misleading for years. Case in point: The Insiders Guide to Florida's Great Northwest lingers on the shelves of at least some Barnes & Noble stores though its publication date is 1995.

Finally, with most of us spending big money on travel these days, $20 for a guidebook is a bargain for getting the most out of it. But research the books thoroughly. Then buy two, three or four among what look like the best. Take the trip, see how the books perform. Guide yourself accordingly when you are back at the store.

* * *

-- A Florida resident since 1958 and longtime Florida traveler, Herb Hiller is completing Florida Inside Out: A Guide to the Clouding Sunshine State, due out in 2001 from Moon Travel Handbooks. He is chairman of the Society of American Travel Writers' Institute for Guidebook Writing. You may contact Hiller by phone at (904) 467-8223 or by e-mail to hiller@gbso.net.

St. Petersburg Times Article by Herb Hiller

28 Ekim 2010 Perşembe

Gadling on my Flickr India Photos


Kerala by Carl Parkes

For today’s POTD we have to go back to one of our favorites: Friskodude. The guy is just amazingly prolific, both with his written blog and his Flikr site. This one comes from his India collection. If you have not checked out his stuff before, I urge you to do so. Now. I promise, you can easily find yourself clicking around for an hour.

Thanks Erik!

The Age Interview with the Wheelers


Maureen and Tony Wheeler

The Age
From backpack to business class
By Orietta Guerrera
April 15, 2005


Lonely Planet co-founder Maureen Wheeler makes no apologies for flying business class on long flights with husband Tony, or for enjoying the occasional stay at architecturally splendid hotels.

"I'm 55 years old, I've been working at Lonely Planet for 32 years, and we started flying business class maybe 10 years ago," she said yesterday. "And I'm certainly not going to go back to economy unless I have to.

"I'll fly economy on any trip less than nine hours - that's my general guide. Above nine hours, I'll go in business class."

Her comments come in the wake of questions being raised in the prestigious magazine The New Yorker as to whether the Footscray-based company has lost its point of difference from other travel guides and travelled too far from its roots of catering for generations of backpackers.

Ms Wheeler and her husband came under the microscope in a New Yorker feature written by Tad Friend titled "Have Tony Wheeler's guide books travelled too far?"

Friend visited the Wheelers - who still own 70 per cent of the company - at the Footscray headquarters and then travelled with them to Oman in January. He commented on the couple flying business class and staying at $500-a-night hotels.

The world's biggest independent travel publisher started on the kitchen table of the couple's Sydney flat in 1973. Newly married, and having just arrived penniless from a journey beginning in London through Asia and on to Australia, they wrote the guide Across Asia on the Cheap. The 94-page, hand-collated, stapled guide sold 8000 copies.

Today, countless travellers clutch Lonely Planet guides as they experience the world's sights. Sales are between $80 million and $100 million, with 600 titles - including guides and phrase books - available. Their original "shoestring" guides now make up about only 3 per cent of their sales.

The company that has long boasted that it does not accept advertisements, is now considering a hotel booking service on its website.

Friend's article noted that Ms Wheeler had raised a finger back to a child "beggar", who "flipped her the bird" when she did not give him money. Yesterday Ms Wheeler - who was holidaying with a friend in Queensland - denied the child was a beggar but rather a young boy playing up in front of his rowdy mates.

"(Oman) is a prosperous, developed country," she said. "This was not some poverty-stricken little beggar by the side of the road that I was being nasty to.

"It was one of those sorts of things... it took two minutes of my life and I'm going to go down in history as the woman who flips (her finger) to beggars."

There was mostly sympathy from Lonely Planet's readers on the company's website yesterday. The Wheelers had "paid their dues" and were "reaping the fruits of their success", readers wrote.

They noted that the company continued to donate 5 per cent of its net profits to grassroots community projects and made a $500,000 donation to tsunami victims.

One reader wrote that they had bumped into Mr Wheeler in Iran last year and, "contrary to the article, he was staying in a hotel even crappier than the lousy one we were staying in".

Ms Wheeler said there was no denying the brand had become mainstream - "It would be ridiculous for me to claim that we were still the same little cult company that we were when we started 30 years ago."

But, she said, the travel industry had also changed. For instance, many people who were once attracted to package holidays, now wanted something more and turned to Lonely Planet guides.

"Because there's so many more of them travelling, and because we're doing the books that they want, I think in that way travel itself is a mainstream activity."

The Age Interview

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

The Australian
Travel bible authors' wheel of fortune
By Georgina Safe
April 14, 2005


Maureen Wheeler ... reportedly gave the finger to a beggar, although she was provoked. The Australian founders of the Lonely Planet guides stay in $500-a-night hotel rooms, give the finger to beggars and have lost touch with their counter-culture roots, according to a profile in The New Yorker magazine.

"Have Tony Wheeler's guidebooks travelled too far?" asks journalist Tad Friend in the article in next week's issue.

Wheeler and wife Maureen "established Lonely Planet, in 1973, as the scruffy but valiant enemy of the cruise ship and the droning tour guide," writes Friend. Now, with annual sales of more than 6 million guidebooks, Friend believes the company may have lost its point of difference.

"At the same time, however, a number of the company's authors worry that Lonely Planet itself has begun to manufacture ersatz Lonely Planet guides," writes Friend. "The books' iconclastic (sic) tone has been muted to cater to richer, fussier sorts of travellers, many of whom, like the Wheelers themselves, fly business class."

Friend spent time travelling with the Wheelers in Oman and in the Lonely Planet headquarters in Melbourne to research his 7000-word article.

In Oman, he writes, hotel stops "would usually be the best available. (The Wheelers' room at the Chedi, in the capital, Muscat, cost some $US400 a night.)" Friend and the Wheelers were approached by a small boy, a beggar, asking for "baisa, baisa" - money.

Writes Friend: "'No biasa,' Maureen said in a friendly way. She showed a real interest in children and always replied to them. This boy waited till we got in the car and then flipped her the bird. She flipped it back: 'Sit and spin, kid!"'

Friend also observes "the company that had prided itself on not taking advertisements is about to start a hotel-booking service on its website".

For all his criticism, Friend readily admits "the Lonely Planet guides were my lifeline" while travelling in the late 80s. However, he opines, "Like Apple and Starbucks and Ben & Jerry's, all of which began as plucky alternatives, Lonely Planet is becoming a mainstream brand."

In the article, Wheeler concedes he is concerned about his company's outlook changing from bohemian to bourgeois. "Those vivid colours of the early books ... once they get blended with so many other authors and editors and concerns about what the customer wants, they inevitably become grey and bland."

Maureen Wheeler told The Australian she did not believe the article was an accurate representation. "Tad told us that he thought it would be interesting to do the idea of how Lonely Planet has become a mainstream publication, which there is no doubt that it has," she said. "(But he) came to the story with it pretty much framed in his mind ... there are different interpretations of stories, and that is his."

The Australian Article about The New Yorker Article

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

Thorn Tree
The Australian Article


I think this is a bit much, so what if they stay in hotels now, when I go somwhere on business now, I use my same lonely planet guide for hotel advice, it makes sense to have different accom options for people, I think the Wheelers have paid their dues!

The beggar thing suprises me if true bearing in mind I think LP were the first Aussie company to put their money where their mouth was post Tsumani.

Thoughts people?

Posted: 13 Apr 2005

----------------------

"there are different interpretations.........................and that is his" about sums it up. Re the beggar, a chap in Vietnam had best idea - he'd offer to buy a kid a bread roll or piece of fruit etc. - kid not interested, you've to wonder where the money might go.

It is a bit of an industry in some places, and as reported, this kid gave the bird, so he gets it in return - good on Maureen

Not changing with the times is a sure recipe for your demise.

Posted: 13 Apr 2005

-------------------------

Who gives a toss where the Wheelers stay? They're reaping the fruits of their success.

It's all relative in my opinion. There would be many people who access this site who have been through the hoop so to speak spending extended periods of time abroad living and squatting in flea and bed bug infested dorms/hostels. I know, I used to and had the time of life notwithstanding the fact I didn't know of, nor did I have access to finances to do it any other way.

Older, wiser but still employing the backpack and having more disposable income than previously, there is absolutely no way I'm spending my hard earned living in a windowless/airless room subsisting on dhal and chapatti just so I can prop myself at a table in a hostel somewhere indulging in that time honoured and fatuous one-upmanship pastime of who can travel on the most miserable fucking budget for the longest period of time.

As for the beggars - I've got my own rule of thumb on that one. Able bodied beggars with all limbs intact and looking you straight in the eye get shunted post haste. Blind/crippled and the limbless get my money every time.

Posted: 13 Apr 2005

----------------------------

2 brilliant contributions above (yes, includingyou G&L).

Nothing shits me more than backpackers here, and in person, getting into a pissing competition about who travelled for the smallest amount of money and got the cheapest digs/food etc.

When you heaepeople talking this way it quickly becomes obvious it became the whole point of the holiday and they spent so much time cutting corners they missed the whole point of the travel.

I knew people who worked in Kyoto for a year doing English language classes - they stayed in a single room, lived off packet noodles and made a fortune - but never once ventured out to see the temples and gardens and restaurants - what a waste! And guess what, they reckon Kyoto (one of the most beautiful places I've ever been) was a hole.

I reckon Lonely Planet is just moving with the times and growing up - anyone who wants a guide to living off $5 a day can get one of dozens of other guides - LP seems to have recognised most of its readers are looking for a bit more these days.

The author knew that wouldn't sell his story, so decided to get stuck in - a very easy and cheap trick for journo but it always works.

Thorn Tree Thread -- Read the Rest

26 Ekim 2010 Salı

The New Yorker on Lonely Planet


Tony and Mauren

The New Yorker has just published a very lengthy but also very informative article about Tony Wheeler and the present state of travel publishing. I could have done with the trip to Oman, but the background about travel publishing and the changing nature of LP was fascinating. First a couple of exerpts, then the link.

At the same time, however, a number of the company’s authors worry that Lonely Planet itself has begun to manufacture ersatz Lonely Planet guides. As the company has expanded to cover Europe and America, markets already jammed with travel guides, it has been updating many of its guidebooks every two years, which requires that it use more and more contributors for each book—twenty-seven for the forthcoming edition of the United States guide alone. The books’ iconoclastic tone has been muted to cater to richer, fussier sorts of travellers, many of whom, like the Wheelers themselves, fly business class. And Lonely Planet’s original flagship, its “shoestring” series for backpackers, today makes up only three per cent of the company’s sales.

Yet over the years, Wheeler seems to suspect, something essential was lost. “Those vivid colors of the early books,” he said to me, “once they get blended with so many other authors and editors and concerns about what the customer wants, they inevitably become gray and bland. It’s entropy, isn’t it?”

The Wheelers long maintained an implicit non-aggression pact with other countercultural handbooks. But, as Tony Wheeler tells it, in 1984 he noticed that the Moon Travel Handbook’s renowned Indonesia guide was seriously out of date, so he commissioned a book on that country. After Penguin bought a majority stake in Rough Guides, in 1996, Wheeler noticed that Rough Guides were undercutting Lonely Planet’s prices. “So we thought, How can we hit back?” he told me, with a steely grin. “We targeted their twelve or so top-selling guides and produced competitive titles for every one. They stopped being so aggressive on pricing.”

Though sales kept rising, by the late nineties Lonely Planet had begun to falter. The company’s rapid expansion—in 2000 it published eight new series, including “Watching Wildlife” and “City Maps”—was accompanied by constant cash-flow crises. Sixty per cent of the guides weren’t getting to the printer on time.

The morning after the planes hit the World Trade Center, in 2001, the company called an emergency meeting, knowing that travel was about to plummet. A hundred people (nineteen per cent of the workforce) were later laid off, and author salaries were reduced by up to thirty per cent. The company was further buffeted by sars, the terrorist bombing in Bali, the Iraq war, and the threat of avian flu, and it lost money for two and a half years running.


Read More

25 Ekim 2010 Pazartesi

Jim Benning Interviews Don George


Nicole

A few years ago, Jim Benning of WorldHum fame interviewed the former travel editor at the San Francisco Examiner. The review has largely been lost in cyberspace, so I'll post it below for your inspection, as it seems timely with the recent release of a new book by Don George, published by Lonely Planet. It's a book about travel writing, and the first book ever written by Don George.

Don George is one of the most successful travel writers in the country, and has promoted an inspiring viewpoint about the wonders and benefits of travel writing for many, many years: Travel broadens our view of the world, tears down walls, increases understanding, brings peace. Arthur Frommer said it first, but Don has carried on the message for many years, and for this, god bless his soul.

Soul-Stretching Adventures Don't Sell Ads
A conversation with Don George of LonelyPlanet.com
Jim Benning
posted: 2001-05-29
modified: 2002-07-15

In founding Salon's travel section, Wanderlust, in 1997, Don George created a home for the Web's most ambitious literary travel writing. The section featured contributions from writers such as Pico Iyer and Jan Morris, and memorable stories from up-and-coming writers. Quality, however, doesn't ensure longevity, especially online.

Last year, citing money woes and disappointing traffic figures, the online magazine closed the travel section, leaving George out in the San Francisco cold, looking for work.

After a brief stint at Yahoo, George recently landed an editing job at Lonely Planet. The company publishes guidebooks revered by world travelers. It also maintains a thriving Web site. We asked George recently about Salon, the state of online travel journalism and his new gig.

Much has happened since we last talked. What are your thoughts on Salon these days? Are you optimistic about its future?

How can I put this? (Pause.) Salon is facing the greatest challenge of its life, and that's surviving this downturn when advertising all over the Internet has fallen off sharply. What I want to believe is that quality will triumph in the end and that Salon, because it's so great editorially, will pull through. There will come a time when advertising rebounds. I just hope Salon will be around to benefit from that.

How did the closing of the travel section affect your feelings about the future of great online travel writing?

(Sigh.) I felt that if the kind of travel journalism I felt passionately about was going to survive anywhere online, it would have been at Salon. Everybody's hearts and minds were in the right place with what I was doing with Wanderlust. I was tremendously disappointed when it didn't make it. I feel that a purely literary travel site would be almost impossible to make a go of online. What you have to do, I think, is either marry great travel editorial to a site making money some other way, like perhaps a Travelocity or an Expedia, or you have to become the electronic branch of a tree that already has very deep roots in some other medium. That's where Lonely Planet comes in.

After the section closed, where did you look for work?

I talked to online people who fell into two camps. I talked to small, enthusiastic start-ups, which were spiritually wonderful and tempting but didn't offer the kind of stability I wanted. I've had enough of that wild ride already. And then there were the Yahoos and the Travelocitys. I was actually affiliated with Yahoo for a while. That was an exciting opportunity to try to create some original travel editorial content for them, but it ended up not working out. We both saw some great potential there, but as the Internet evolved and Yahoo's concept of editorial offerings evolved, it didn't seem to make as much sense as it originally had.

Did you talk to print magazines, too?

Yeah. I talked to a lot of magazines. I went to New York and Washington and spoke with many editors, and I just came away thinking that there weren't any positions available that were perfect for me. I was looking for something that would allow me to stay on the West Coast and still have a full-time staff job that would involve writing and editing. While there was a lot of interest from people at some of the magazines and from me, this has been a tough time for the magazines. They're not expanding. The kind of job that might appear attractive to them in an age of expansion, such as a West Coast editor, isn't compelling in a time of cutbacks.

I don't see a lot of great travel writing being done at magazines anyway these days. Can a magazine that focuses on literary travel writing even survive?

I think it could survive but not thrive. The kind of great story-telling that Salon majored in is not a core part of any magazine out there now, probably because most of the editors-in-chief look at the bottom line. Tales of unforgettable encounters and soul-stretching adventures don't sell ads as well as tales of glitzy hotels and high-priced restaurants.

That's disappointing.

Yeah, it is disappointing. It doesn't mean that the editors' hearts aren't in the right places, but they have to be quite practical about what their jobs are, and that's to keep the magazines profitable. That said, there is great writing out there. Some of the adventure-oriented magazines like Outside and National Geographic Adventure publish in each issue at least one great read. It's not that the well is dry, it's just that the well is low.

That's so strange, because never before have there been so many travel narrative books being published. Books by Paul Theroux and Bill Bryson. Anthologies. There's a market for this style of writing. The book publishers see it. You'd think magazines would find a way to tap into that.

That's a really interesting point. People's mind-sets when they sit down to read a book might be different than when they pick up a glossy magazine. Hmmm. I wrestle with this stuff all the time. I don't lie awake at night and think, why didn't Wanderlust succeed? But I thought I was doing exactly what I wanted to do and I had a vision of what that was. You can say the Web is a new medium and advertising models weren't sophisticated and that, had it had two or three more years, it might have made it. But none of the print magazines are like that. Is there something else here, that a combination of great tales isn't economically viable? I don't know.

Related to all this, of course, is that last year Villard published a collection of Salon travel stories in a book titled Salon.com's Wanderlust. Has the book done well?

The book has done very well. The initial run was 15,500 copies, and when I was in New York a few months ago, they had sold about 10,500. I assume that a few thousand more have been sold since then, so it's probably on the cusp of another printing. It was on the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List a couple of weeks ago, and I was really shocked. That was very exciting.

How did you wind up at Lonely Planet?

I realized that right in my backyard was Lonely Planet, literally 12 minutes from my home. I've always loved Lonely Planet, ever since I got my first guidebook 20 years ago. It's a publisher I respect immensely, with a huge range of titles, and happily, they had a Web site and a literary travel books series. I've known the founders for 15 years. It hit me that this is a company that I should be looking into. So I did. We were able to craft a job description that seemed to be exactly what all of us were looking for. I officially joined the company March 12. It's like a dream come true.

Was it important that the company was rooted in the print business?

Yes. Lonely Planet's headquarters in Oakland is in a warehouse. When I walked in and saw stacks and stacks of books, that was a really good feeling for me. It was something really palpable that the company was based on.

What exactly do you do?

My title is travel editor. My mission basically falls into three areas. The first involves the Web site. I'm writing a weekly column, already launched, called Traveller at Large. Over time I'm going to be working with other members of the e-team, the people who put together the Web site and wireless stuff. I'll be working with them to develop more robust original content down the road.

Does that mean we might see Wanderlust-style travel stories on the site someday?

It means that portions of something like Wanderlust will resurface down the road. Lonely Planet is trying to prioritize and strategize and figure out what the role of the Web site is in the context of the whole company. The notion of Wanderlust-type content is very much a part of the ongoing conversation.

The Web site has a lot of great components, including the news section.

Yes, that's called Scoop. It's updated every day with about four or five very interesting news stories from around the world. They're these vignettes that teach you something about the countries where they take place.

How about your other roles?

I'm involved with their travel literature books series, called Journeys. I'll be helping to bring in new writers for that. Lastly, we want to create something called Lonely Planet Conversations, which would be me interviewing great travel writers and travelers. We'd excerpt the interviews online in text, and eventually with sound and video clips. We also hope to try to syndicate the interviews either to radio stations, maybe PBS, and or to other TV stations. We'll be filming and recording these interviews for multiple uses. We'll get started in the next few months.

You've got a lot going on.

I've got a lot of plates, and they're all filling up rapidly. But it just feels perfect to me because I didn't want to turn my back on the Internet. I'd invested a lot of my passion and energy into understanding the medium, so I didn't want to just get out of it altogether. This job is so wonderful because it combines the print background I had before Salon (as travel editor of the San Francisco Examiner) with the online background I've gained at Salon. And as for the interviews, I did interviews at the Examiner for my column. That's when I first met people like Pico Iyer and Paul Theroux. So it all feels like it's coming together.

Are you still traveling much?

Happily, yes. Last fall I went to London and I did a cruise in the Mediterranean that began in Venice and ended in Rome and took me to Croatia and Greece. I'm going to Australia in a week and a half, and then I have trips planned for the summer.

Ever get tired of it?

Never. What I have not liked in the past is business travel. When I was at Salon I flew to Paris for a conference and spent the entire time going to meetings, giving speeches. I looked longingly out the taxi window and wanted to claw my way out. Business travel can be anti-travel. You go to an exotic place, but you never get to really be there. But pure travel, that feeling is still there. Being at Lonely Planet feeds that feeling so much. Lonely Planet is completely about the wonder of travel.


Don George Interview about Travel at Slate

Pearls Before Swine


Card Shark Jen Leo

Jen Leo is a sweet, young lady who has worked at Travelers Tales for many years, editing several books and contributing some of her own writing. She also has her own travel blog and is planning a move to Vegas, to keep up with her new blog about gambling. In the meantime, Jen posted some great cartoon links about book signings, guaranteed to amuse all guidebook authors.

Pearls Before Swine on Book Signings

I like Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis. This week they did some strips on book signings.

March 21: Goat and Zebra talk about Rat's new book,

Dickie the Cockroach
.

March 22: Rat's booksigning

March 23: Rat defines comic strips to someone at his author event

March 24: Stephan Pastis attends Rat's signing.

March 25: End of the book signing


Jen Leo and Written Road

24 Ekim 2010 Pazar

More Good News for Writers


Gates Food in Central Park

This announcement has been five or six years in the making. After the issue went to mediation it seemed stuck. Writers whose work was used online without permission are entitled to compensation. Now to plow through the fine print and the red tape.

Dear ASJA Member:

The following press release was just sent out by the three major writers' organizations to the media. Please feel free to circulate it to any and all writers and writers organizations.

Brett Harvey Executive Director

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

$18 Million Settlement to Freelance Writers Filed for Court Approval

Contact: Jim Morrison, American Society of Journalists & Authors,757-451-2434 or jimmor@aol.com Kay Murray, The Authors Guild, 212-563-5904 or kmurray@authorsguild.org Gerard Colby, National Writers Union, 212-254-0279 or GColbyVT@aol.com

New York, March 29 - The American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Authors Guild, and the National Writers Union today announced the filing of a motion for court approval of an $18 million settlement in a class action suit they and 21 freelance writers filed on behalf of thousands of freelance writers whose stories appeared in online databases without their consent. They expect preliminary court approval of the settlement within the next month.

'We are delighted,' said Nick Taylor, president of the Authors Guild. 'This is a substantial settlement, and, if approved, it will vindicate freelance writers who deserve compensation and control for their work in the electronic marketplace. It proves our contention all along that access and online advertising revenues shouldn't all go into the pockets of big media, but should be shared with the creators.'

'ASJA has long preached to freelancers that they demand extra pay for extra uses,' said Jim Morrison, ASJA's president from 2001 to 2003 and the organization's representative in the settlement negotiations. 'Today, we have an $18 million validation of how valuable electronic rights are to publishers. Freelance writers should remember that when negotiating their contracts.'

Gerard Colby, president of the National Writers Union, noted that in its historic 2001 ruling in Tasini vs. New York Times, the Supreme Court ruled that the principles of copyright apply to online distribution of editorial content, and that articles cannot be distributed in cyberspace without permission of their creators. The Tasini litigation was initiated by the NWU and funded in part by its parent union, the United Auto Workers.

'This settlement will put money in writers' pockets,' Colby said. 'Individual awards for individual articles could add up to big money for writers who had more than one article published electronically without their consent, and who take action to file proper claims. This settlement underscores the fundamental importance of the Constitution's copyright clause and proclaims that the rights of writers and artists to own their own creations and to earn a living from them must be respected -- even by the nation's most powerful media corporations.'

'This monetary settlement is the final chapter in a 12-year fight to right a gross injustice,' said Jonathan Tasini, president emeritus of the NWU who served on the settlement negotiating team on behalf of the union. 'But, more important, it shows that writers can stand up, fight and win.'

The filing seeks court approval of a Class Notice, which gives a full description of the benefits of the settlement, identifies which articles are included and which are excluded, and explains authors' rights under the settlement. The settlement is complex, and the three organizations have set up a joint website (www.freelancerights.com) dedicated to helping authors understand the terms and make claims.

Under the terms of the settlement, publishers including the New York Times, Time Inc., and the Wall Street Journal and database companies including Dow Jones Interactive, Knight-Ridder, Lexis-Nexis, Proquest, and West Group agreed to pay writers up to $1,500 for stories in which the writers had registered the copyright in accordance with timetables established in federal copyright law. Writers who failed to register their copyrights will receive up to $60 per article; the organizations believe that many such writers will have valid claims for hundreds of such articles.

The amount paid will depend on a number of factors, including whether the writer registered the copyright, the original fee paid for the article, the year it was published, and whether the writer permits the future use of the article in the databases.

Lisa Collier Cool, current president of the ASJA, urged freelance writers to go online and make their claims when the settlement is approved. Taylor and Morrison noted that fulltime freelancers likely will have substantial numbers of stories eligible for claims. 'I wouldn't be surprised if there are many writers who did not register their copyrights who will earn thousands of dollars from the settlement because they have so many stories eligible for claims,' Morrison said. 'That is why we strongly encourage freelancers to make claims.'

The settlement is filed under In re Literary Works in Electronic Databases Copyright Litigation, MDL No. 1379, in federal court in the Southern District of New York with U.S. District Court Judge George M. Daniels presiding.

### The American Society of Journalists and Authors (www.asja.org) is a trade association of freelance writers founded in 1948 with more than 1,100 members who have met the ASJA's exacting standards of professional achievement.

The Authors Guild (www.authorsguild.org) is the nation's oldest and largest society of published book authors and freelance journalists. The Guild advocates on behalf of its 8,000 members on copyright, contract and free speech matters.

The National Writers Union (www.nwu.org), the nation's only labor union for freelance writers, was founded in 1981. The NWU is Local 1981 of the United Auto Workers. On behalf of its 3,400 members, the NWU advocates for writers rights and fights to improve the income, contracts, and working conditions for all freelance writers including journalists, book authors, business and technical writers, essayists, poets, playwrights, script writers, writers for the web, and campus writers, including instructors and professors.

22 Ekim 2010 Cuma

Good News for Writers


Gates Parody 3

Finally, some good news for writers, including travel writers whose work has been stolen for many years by major corporations and posted on websites littered with banner ads and paid advertising. This scandalous theft has been going on for over a decade, but several writers organizations (ASJA, NWU, AG) have won a fairly large judgment against these thieves.

Many thanks to the groups who filed this lawsuit, but you really wonder: where the hell was the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW)? Scoring their next free press trip for their geriatric freebie loving former travel writers?

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

A settlement reached last Wednesday in a class-action online publishing lawsuit could mean plenty of freelance writers will be eligible to receive their share of up to $18 million dollars from big media companies, once the agreement receives court approval that is expected in the next few weeks.

The settlement, which could net qualifying freelancers a collective minimum of $10 million and maximum of $18 million, is the result of a lawsuit meant to remunerate writers for work that had been published over the years in online databases without their approval.

Originally, three separate lawsuits were filed over time, starting in August 2000. They were eventually combined into one large class-action suit. Plaintiffs, who filed on behalf of thousands of freelance writers, included the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Authors Guild, the National Writers Union and almost two dozen freelance writers.

The suit was filed against several media companies, including Time, Knight Ridder, Reed Elsevier (of which LexisNexis is a division) and The New York Times Company. Under the terms of the settlement, freelance writers who had work published between August 1977 and December 2002 will be eligible to fill out a form -- online or by mail -- that will entitle them to money for works to which they had not signed away their rights to electronic publication, said Jim Morrison, a past president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors who helped negotiate the settlement.

According to a joint press release put out by the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Authors Guild and the National Writers Union, those eligible could receive up to $1,500 for stories that they had registered a copyright for, or $60 for those they had not. The release said remuneration amounts depend on other things as well, like how much was initially paid for the article when it was published, and if the writer allows future utilization of the article in the databases.

A site called FreelanceRights.com has been set up to help disseminate information about the agreement. Morrison thinks there will be many freelance writers owed money for hundreds of stories. "There will be some freelancers who registered their copyrights who will make six figures under this settlement," he said.

On Tuesday, March 29, a motion was filed for court approval of the settlement. Morrison said a judicial rubber stamp is expected in about a month. A spokesman for Time said, "We think it's a fair resolution to the issues at hand."

21 Ekim 2010 Perşembe

Fodor Photography Request?


The Kitty Gates - New York

I'm somewhat skeptical (sceptical?) that the original post is authentic, and that somebody's chain isn't being pulled with this one, but at least it set off some discussion and controvery on one of the travel writers forums.

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

Here's a message I received via email this morning. I find it a bit insulting that they are not paying photographers. Then again, I wonder if the message is legit.

I am a freelance photo researcher working with Fordor's, gathering images for use in the interiors of the Fodor,s famed Gold Guide travel guides. There is no fee for inclusion in our books, we will give you credit for the images as well as supply you with the travel guide, once it printed. We are looking for either high-resolution digital images or transparencies. Listed below are the images that we are looking for our travel guide book on Mexico, for the section on Mexico City. Please advise if you are able to assist me in locating these images.

Museo de Frida Kahlo, Coyoacan
Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, San Angel
Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño, Xochimilco
Museo Mural Diego Rivera, Alameda Central

Also photos of both Diego and Frida as well as a few paintings.

Please advise
All the best,

Pam

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

like the line: "There is no fee for inclusion in our books." That's certainly generous of them. :-)

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

Someone will send them photos, a few of which will be included (along with photos, duly licensed and paid for, from more professional photogs), and the free-photo senders will brag that they have their photos in Fodor's, then they will see that having photos in Fodor's doesn't really induce others to pay them big fees for their photos.

Although other publications will be happy to "give them exposure" "at no fee." Actually, I think that what the free-photo people will find is that they are required to sign a contract giving Fodor's universal, eternal, extraterrestrial rights to use the photos however, wherever and whenever they like throughout the universe till the end of time, with or without name credit to the photog.

Non-exclusive rights, of course... :-)

And some people will do it. Why else would the researcher send out such missives, if there were never any responses? Actually, I'd like to see the contract offered to the free-photo people. It might be the ultimate exercise in temerity.

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

As a photographer/travel writer I speak with some reasonableness when I say that this is shocking. How are we to become a profession with professional standards when we are treated as rubes?

What a ridiculous attitude on their part!

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

Seriously folks, how many other professions are treated the way writers/photographers are treated? Some craftspeople are expected to work for the joy or creating and not get paid for their time I guess. Is it only things that are created by machines or computers that are worthy of earning money!!

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

We work in a market economy. If Fodor's can get stuff for free, they will. Heck, if I can get stuff (legally) for free, I will. Zagat has made a good business and useful products with free info. The basis of TripAdvisor's appeal is its free info. Ditto Amazon.com and its product reviews and book lists.

Travel writers are not needed now as much as they once were. Photogs please sit down to receive this: neither are photographers. Digital photography and "darkroom" software has made it much easier for less professional photogs to produce more and better pix, which means that the value of many categories of pix is in decline.

Watch the big phone companies battle one another to the bloody end, while VOIP eats their lunch...with relish. The phone companies and the post office and FedEx got bashed by email. The world owes no one a living. The creative survive.

Think nimble!

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

20 Ekim 2010 Çarşamba

Fantasy and Sci Fi Writers Advances


Famous Fantasy Writer

Somebody recently posted what appears to be a fairly accurate survey of the advances given to fantasy and science fiction writers, and then has a quick look at possible annual incomes. Seems that slightly over 50% pf the writers in these two fields actually make a living from their craft, which must be far superior to travel writers, of which I would guess that less than 10% can pay their bills with their efforts.

How much does a science fiction or fantasy writer make?
01/03/2005
Source: Tobias S. Buckell


Several weeks ago I announced that I would be collecting data on genre advances to grab a snapshot of the field. I'd hoped we could get some better data for conversations. I posted a form online with a series of questions that I hoped would allow us to gather some basic data with which we could learn something together.

Size of Sample Group:

So far 74 writers responded, and since the responses have slowed down, I thought it was time to gather the data and present the results as best I could for what has been gathered so far, and address some of the initial concerns and criticisms I've received via email about this little project. 3 of the writers who responded were 'of genre' but had published outside of the SF/F/H I was looking at, so I have removed their contributions for now.

Summary:

The typical advance for a first novel is $5000. The typical advance for later novels, after a typical number of 5-7 years and 5-7 books is $12,500. Having an agent at any point increases your advance. There is some slight correlation between number of books and number of years spent writing as represented in the 5-12.5 thousand dollar advance shift of an average of 5-7 years. Charting individual author's progressions, which I will not release to keep anonymity, reveals a large number of upward lines at varying degrees of steepness for advances, some downward slides. Some authors noted that they'd gotten large advances in the 90s but were being paid less now
.
Read the Rest

Bob Bone Remembers Hunter


Bob Bone and Hunter, Rio, 1963



Hunter, Bob Bone, Sean Penn, Honolulu 2001

Bob Bone is a newspaper journalist, magazine columnist, and guidebook author who lives in Hawaii and is a fellow member of the Society of American Travel Writers. He's also an old friend of Hunter S. Thompson, and today he posted a most heartfelt and revealing profile of his early days with Hunter, which I have posted here with his permission.

The writer is the Faust of modern society, the only surviving individualist in a mass age. To his orthodox contemporaries he seems a semi-madman. -- Boris Pasternak

I was shocked -- but not surprised -- to hear of Hunter's death. It was completely consistent with his approach to life.

During the 1960s, when Thompson and I were first trying to make an indelible mark on the world at large, if I had said to him, "Hunter, you're going to kill yourself some day," I'll bet he would have puffed on his pipe, nodded and thoughtfully agreed that it was indeed not outside the realm of possibility.

When we first met, in 1958 while we were on the staff of the Middletown, (N.Y.) Daily Record (now the Times-Herald Record), Hunter revered and frequently quoted Ernest Hemingway. If his life were to have any parallels to that of the great author, he would certainly have approved. Hemingway, of course, was obsessed with death and subsequently took his own life with a gun in 1961.

But Hunter, who pretended much of the time to be angry or incensed at the effronteries and absurdities with which he was frequently confronted, was also fun-loving in his own way. He set up amusing situations -- usually ones which embarrassed those of lesser intellect, but fascinated and delighted others. He often related stories of his conflicts with his superiors in the air force. One later account, which involved himself and a friend getting in a fight in a New York bar, had as its central theme the fact that they both just happened to be carrying bags of flour or cement (I forget which). Of course the bags eventually broke causing havoc on the premises, at the same time that it obscured their escape.

In those days of his relative obscurity, he was often a character of apparent annoyance, but enjoyable enough to be suffered by his friends in spite of it. He was usually broke, but he carried printed personalized checks from an expired bank account in his pocket. If you asked him if could now pay back the 20 bucks you lent him last week, he would reply with a sardonic smile and say, "Of course. I can give you a check!"

I always turned down those worthless checks, but I wish now I had not.

Hunter didn't last long at the Middletown Record. He was already skating on thin ice since he refused to wear shoes while in the news room. But one day, he had an argument with a candy machine. When Hunter lost his two nickels without receiving his due reward, he beat the machine savagely until it disgorged all of its contents. Hunter strolled away carrying only the candy bar that he had paid for. But management soon discovered that everyone in the newsroom and the back shop all were eating candy bars, and so Hunter was discharged. It was certainly just the outcome that he wanted.

Hunter followed me to Puerto Rico. I worked on the first staff of the San Juan Star, a new English-language daily. Hunter worked briefly for an ill-fated local sports magazine. The Star knew better than to hire him, but its managing editor, William Kennedy, and Hunter began a life-long friendship. Kennedy later went on to fame as the author of Ironweed and other novels. In Puerto Rico, Hunter lived in a small community which he claimed was the haunt of witch doctors and other practitioners of voodoo. There he wrote his first novel, the Rum Diary, which ironically was not published until 1998 -- long after his later successes.

The early-60s found us both in Manhattan. Many of our small group of wannabes were at various times resident of a single modest tenement apartment in Greenwich Village. The official tenant was Sandy Conklin, who later became Hunter's first wife. We made beer in the kitchen, and most of us tried to write, with greater or lesser degrees of success. I still have tape recordings of some of our conversations. In 1961, Hunter left for South America. His letters to me contained words and terms which are now famous -- his "gonzo" approach to journalism and to life.

In 1962, I left my job at Popular Photography to edit a small business magazine in Brazil. A few months later, Hunter showed up on Copacabana Beach. I spotted him while riding in a convertible with a friend, and we stopped to let him in the car. He had a drunk monkey in his jacket pocket. His explanation was that he met someone in a bar who would buy him a drink only if he could buy the monkey a drink at the same time. The monkey eventually committed suicide, leaping into the air from the balcony of my tenth-floor apartment -- we presumed a victim of the DTs.

Back in his hotel room Hunter also had a coatamundi, a small furry animal that he said he had rescued from some who were mistreating it in Bolivia. The coatimundi distinguished itself by eventually becoming toilet trained. It also liked to play with soap, thus apparently washing its hands. Hunter named it "Ace."

We had several adventures together in Brazil before we both left within a few months of each other in 1963, Hunter to California and I back to the same traditional Village apartment in New York, and I began working for the New York Post and then for Time-Life. We had considerable correspondence during that period, and occasional meetings on both the West and East coasts. We sought advice from each other on the crises that young men have, but I suppose we seldom followed any of our words of wisdom. I still have many of these letters, whose acerbic terminology presaged those of his later public persona. I even have a Hunter Thompson cartoon which he drew. It's still pinned on the wall above my computer in Hawaii. Not many knew that Hunter could draw a little, too.

After Hunter's first major literary success, his saga on the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, we seldom saw each other again. I married, had a child, and moved to Spain. He promised to follow me, but never did. Hunter married Sandy, and he also had a child, and he moved to Woody Creek, Colorado. He began moving in circles vastly different than my own, although we never completely lost touch. My family and I moved here to Hawaii in 1971, where I began writing a series of travel guidebooks. But if my phone rang in the middle of the night over the past 34 years, it was most likely Hunter.

Every now and then, a mutual acquaintance would mention my name to Hunter. He almost invariably mumbled something like, "Ah, yes. Bone. A good man, Bone." Actually, he regarded me as somewhat intellectually challenged in comparison to himself, and I'm sure he was right.

We last met in person when he came in 2001 to cover the Honolulu Marathon for ESPN.com. It was not entirely a satisfactory meeting. He seemed not much more than a shell of the vigorous and vital friend that I knew nearly a half-century ago. Hunter's body had been taking a beating from his lifestyle for a long time, and I asked him if he realized that he could hardly sit down without slightly rocking back and forth for several minutes afterward. Nevertheless, I felt encouraged by the fact that he still seemed to be hanging in there in spite of it all.

I was never one of Hunter's legions of fans, but I was proud to be one of his good friends, blessed with shared and very fond memories of some of the best days of our lives. I will miss him and his 3 a.m. phone calls.

Robert Bone Travel Writer

19 Ekim 2010 Salı

Vagabonding at its Finest


Balinese Children by Carl Parkes

Ever wanted to quit your job and hit the road for a few years, but also do something worthwhile to satisfy your soul and help improve the world's situation? Looks like this young lady from Silicon Valley has found the perfect combination of travel and good deeds.

After I completed and received my degree from Santa Clara University in the Silicon Valley, I moved to San Diego, found a job in an office tower and put nothing less than every drop of my passion into it. I worked 80-hour weeks, slept under my desk on weekends, and quickly became one of the highest paid employees in the company. But after two years of this life, I sat up from my computer one day and realized this; I had a successful job with prestige, an apartment by the beach, a nice car, a pretty boyfriend, and an income greater than that of my parents combined…and it wasn’t enough. Or rather it was enough. It was too much. I was grasping at the wrong dream, desperately clenching onto the airy and materialistic notions of a magazine dream, instead of picking myself up and pursuing my own.

And that’s how I learned that sometimes we spend a lot of lives learning not what we want to do, but what we do not want to do. And that’s okay. It’s not important how many mistakes we make, only that we learn from those we do.

So where was I to go? I had no idea. But on an intuitive whim, I caught a clue as to where I could go to find MY dream. So I sold everything I owned, strapped on a backpack and left the country...

I spent the next four years travelling over six continents and through forty-something countries: working with the children living in the squatter community in the dumpster of Guatemala, building houses for Habitat for Humanity in Fijian villages, strolling the beaches of Costa Rica at midnight keeping the eggs of Leatherback turtles safe from poachers, fighting off Lantana from overtaking the native plant species of Eastern Australia, giving daily massages to the crippled limbs of those left at the Mother Teresa House of the Destitute, preparing the gardens for feeding an orphanage in India, teaching English to refugee monks who escaped from Tibet, and, most recently, planting trees in a reforestation effort in Coastal Ecuador.

Over the course of those years, attending the prestigious "University of Life," I found my path and my passion in "service learning" and in what Dragons calls in its mission statement, "experiential education," which simply means -- using the world as our living classroom and our real experiences and interactions within it as the lesson plan.

So having found my own life-driving inspiration abroad, I quickly realized that the only thing that matched my excitement in making my own reality-quaking revelations was watching, guiding, and sharing that process of "travel-induced-enlightenments" with others -- specifically, with young, enthusiastic and inspired people like you!

Read Her Blog

17 Ekim 2010 Pazar

Time Out Guides Gets Punk'd


Slate

I'm no expert on Time Out Guides, as they don't produce any guidebooks to Southeast Asia, but I've glanced at their other titles and admired the slick looks and high production values. I've also used their regional weekly publications to find out what's happening in places like New York City, and always got a kick out of their snarky, collegiate level humor. Hip, cool, always in the know.

But this style of always being the "insider" and "cooler than anyone else" doesn't translate well into guidebooks, as pointed out by Slate a few months ago. Thanks Rolf, for reminding me about this amusing and insightful article before it disappears into oblivion.

A few snippets:

Anyone who has used the excellent weekly Time Out guides to London or New York is familiar with their self-consciously savvy voice. It works beautifully for reviewing new bars. It's utterly grating when describing 15th-century architecture.

Rather, my Time Out destination guide was written by and for people who think the optimal amount to know about anything is a little. Knowing nothing is bad, because it shows. But knowing too much about one thing is bad too, because it takes up brain space you could devote to shallower things, like the names of all the nominees in the lesser Oscar categories. The Time Out mind-set is all about achieving a vast, shallow pool of knowledge.

Personally, though, I'll take my information without the snarky bells and whistles. In traveling, I don't want to be counseled on what to enjoy. I cling to the hope that visiting a new place can be about more than what's hot and what's not; that I can still do a few things without mediation. After all, I travel partly to escape the sort of place where knowing the names of obscure bands has become a substitute for enjoying music, and getting into the newest restaurant a stand-in for appreciating food.

Read the Rest

WannaBe Travel Writer

14 Ekim 2010 Perşembe

Travel and Leisure Blog Links


Travel and Leisure

Nothing Earth shattering here, but TL has just published a short collection of travel blogs, with a fine mention for WorldHum and BootsnAll.

A new blog may be born every 7.4 minutes, according to search engine Technorati, but which travel blogs are actually worth reading? The best on-line travel diaries include a mix of tips, breaking news, and (of course) juicy personal tidbits. In the end, that's what reading someone else's journal is all about. Here, a few of our favorites.

BootsnAll www.bootblog.com

BEST FEATURES Writing is superior: this is a highly literate collection of travel journals. Members are generally responsive, creating a "classic" blog community feel. Insiders in more than 100 countries are available to answer trip-planning questions.

CAVEAT No mapping function, and you must bookmark the site; postings take you outside it.

Fodor's www.fodors.com/blog

BEST FEATURES Written by Fodor's editors. Offers updated guidebook entries and news. Many useful links to other travel sites, including restaurant blogs, search engines, and in-flight mags.

CAVEAT Organized only by date. Search function scans the entire Fodor's site, not just the blogs.

IgoUgo www.igougo.com

BEST FEATURES One of the largest on-line travel communities (350,000 members and 4,000 destinations at last count). Entries are organized and searchable by destination, interest, member, or keyword. Won a Webby for best travel site.

CAVEAT Though editors post their picks, the huge number of member blogs makes it hard to sort through them.

VirtualTourist www.virtualtourist.com

BEST FEATURES Great for those seeking practical advice; newest entries are organized into categories—tip, discussion, and comment. Othersections include "off the beaten path," "warnings or dangers," and "members living here."

CAVEAT Ads on the site are nearly indistinguishable from content.

World Hum www.worldhum.com

BEST FEATURES More like an on-line travel magazine. Writers submit stories, which are then vetted by the editors. No "What I did on my summer vacation" reports. A comprehensive list of links to newspaper travel sections and travel bookstores.

CAVEAT No search function: stories are organized by date only.

Read the Rest -- with Hot Links

Gadling on the Travails of Travel Writing


Gadling on Travails

I doubt this bloggy question is going anywhere serious, but I've challenged Jen Leo at Written Road about the issue of travel writers giving away their work for free. Yep, another nail in the coffin. Erik picks up the thread at Gadling.

Travel Writers Lament
Feb 12, 2005
Erik Olsen


Jen Leo, who runs the fun and always interesting Writtenroad blog, posted a thoughtful post on travel writing. She blogs about the pay (um, low), the difficulty of making it (though she seems to be doing fine, with a new book out shortly) and some thoughts on strategy. The post is in response to several posts on the travails of travel writing by Carl Parkes (aka Friskodude) who we’ve linked to several times. Anyway, give it a read. Perhaps you’ve no desire to write about travel, you might still find the discussion of interest.

Gadling on Travel Writing

13 Ekim 2010 Çarşamba

Travel Books Too Depressing?


Travel Writer at Work

Ever since Paul Theroux penned his enormously successful book about his train travels in Asia (two decades ago!), travel writing has turned away from sunny dialogues to stories of trials and tribulations. You know, some travel writer signs up to go fishing in the Arctic Ocean in the dead of winter, and almost dies, but produces a book about his foolish adventure.

Also see: Tim Cahill.

The following article is somewhat of a new approach, in that it openly dislikes these tales of woe and wishes for a return to happier times. Sort of like Lowell Thomas -- all the adventure without the pain.

I've won two Lowell Thomas Awards from the Society of American Travel Writers, and his lovely mug, on the award plaque, is posted on my wall just below the clock. Nice mustache, Lowell!

Thanks, Jen. Great find. How's life in San Mateo? Ready for Vegas?

Jen Leo at Written Road

The good, bad and the self-indulgent
TRAVEL BOOKS: Around the world from an armchair
Tom Spears
CanWest News Service
February 06, 2005


The Cat in the Hat would make a successful travel writer today because he has the right attitude. He says: "Look at me, look at me, look at me now!"

Repeat: I am radical! I am extreme! I am snooty!

Yup, must be a travel writer. The good news: If you plow through the travel section at the book store, you can find some good books among the show-offs. But first you have to work past items like this:

- Hell or High Water, by Peter Heller. It's about some guys kayaking a fearsome river in the Himalayas.

He writes like this: "There was no guarantee any of them would get back alive . . . If anyone could get it done, though, it would be these seven."

That's the narration. The dialogue runs like this: "Nobody has ever died on my watch." A kayaker talks about how he can't get hurt any worse and the doctor will shoot in "stuff," and it's just a matter of how much he can endure.

I felt that way, too.

- The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer, by Eric Hansen. His adventures include birdwatching with strippers (which is a little creepy, despite his hands-off approach) and recovering body parts, including half a head, after a plane crash.

OK, but what if you want to go somewhere and read about what it's like first? Or even read about a place where you don't plan to travel? What if you just want a travel book about travelling? Travelling by non-extreme people like yourself?

You're in luck. You do not, as one writer recently claimed, have to settle for crass pitches for tawdry resorts. There are some fine travel books. Among them:

- New York, the Unknown City, by Brad Dunn and Daniel Hood (Arsenal Pulp Press, $22.95). The series is Canadian, with previous books on Toronto and Montreal. Which may explain the toned-down approach: It lists hundreds of neat facts but doesn't scream about New York being the biggest and best.

Instead you'll learn where mobster Lucky Luciano hung out; why the bedrock allows skyscrapers only in some locations; where Woody Guthrie met Pete Seeger; how organized criminals shoplift from high-priced retailers; and where Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes Booth, performed. He was an actor, too.

- Time's Magpie , by Myla Goldberg (Crown Journeys, $23). This short book is a loving look at Prague, the title referring to the city's ability to hang on to buildings from its past and store their rich history-- a heritage that got bombed out of many European cities.

Read the Rest

11 Ekim 2010 Pazartesi

New Guinea Images at Flickr


Gadling Photo of the Day



New Guinea Man Dressed for Sing Sing



New Guinea by Carl Parkes



New Guinea Kids by Carl

A few years ago, I managed to make my way over to Papua New Guinea and spent three weeks exploring the country, from the dangerously anarchic capital to the interior highlands and up the Sepik River into the virtual heart of darkness. And last year, I joined Flickr with their FREE 100-image account and started over a dozen groups centered around photography in Asia. One of those groups was New Guinea Images.

Nobody joined. Well, it's got three members.

My Japan Images and Thailand Images have proven very popular with almost 100 members each, and loads of great images added daily. Best of all, India Images is absolutely superb and the quality of photographs is nothing short of astounding. I go over all my groups daily and delete the turkeys, but I rarely need to do anything with India Images (thank god).

But New Guinea just limps along. However, Erik at Gadling just gave a mention, so perhaps a few folks will join Flickr and post new stuff at New Guinea Images.

Really, I'm begging. Help me out with this group.

New Guinea is one of those few great last places where it sometimes seems time has stood still. Our old favorite Friskodude (aka Carl Parkes) has posted some of his stellar pics on Flickr, and we’re calling out this one as our POTD today.

Erik at Gadling

New Guinea Images at Flickr

10 Ekim 2010 Pazar

Travel Writers Wanted


Travel Writers Wanted

Are you an established travel writer about to embark on an interesting, intriguing adventure in the next few months? Are you also an engaging and entertaining blogger? Looking for candidates to blog on commission for MSN/MSNBC for about a month, starting in the spring, on adventurous travel. Please, established bloggers only need send me their pitch to james.eng@msnbc.com

9 Ekim 2010 Cumartesi

Think Your Guidebook Sales are Lousy?


Young Burmese Monks by Carl Parkes

Just thank your lucky stars you didn't waste a large portion of your life writing about the Enron collapse or some other corporate scandal that has passed like dust in the wind. Who was that guy, Ken Lay? And why is he still a free man when Martha is doing time in the Big House?

Boom or Bust
Slate....
via MediaBistro
via GalleryCat
via my RSS Reader
Feb 11, 2005


Simon & Schuster is printing 200,000 copies of DisneyWar, but recent boardroom dramas have had much less exciting numbers. Slate 's Daniel Gross reports:

...The excellent Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, written by three Fortune writers who collectively received $1.4 million for their troubles, has probably sold around 70,000 copies. Power Failure, penned by Mimi Swartz and whistleblower Sherron Watkins, sold fewer than 30,000 copies. According to Nielsen BookScan, which counts about 70 percent of U.S. sales, 24 Days: How Two Wall Street Journal Reporters Uncovered the Lies that Destroyed Faith in Corporate America has sold 16,765 copies.

But the Enron books were blockbusters compared with those about the botched AOL-Time Warner deal. According to Bookscan, Fools Rush In: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner by Nina Munk, sold 5,000; There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for a Digital Future by all-star Wall Street Journal reporter Kara Swisher, sold 3,744; and Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner by Alec Klein of the Washington Post, sold 9,176.

Read the Rest

Publishing Fraud at Vanity Press


Godzilla Celebrates His First Novel



This is just too funny. Last year, a group of 30 sci-fi writers in San Francisco decided to test the waters with a "traditional" publisher (that is, not a "vanity" press) and sent in the worst possible manuscript they could invent. And guess what? The sci-fi novel was happily accepted, until the scam was discovered and then the offer was rescinded. The San Francisco jokers have issued the following press release:



Science Fiction Authors Hoax Vanity Publisher

"Atlanta Nights," by Travis Tea, was offered a publishing contract by PublishAmerica of Frederick, Maryland.

Washington, DC (PRWEB)

January 28, 2005




Over a holiday weekend last year, some thirty-odd science fiction writers banged out a chapter or two apiece of "Atlanta Nights," a novel about hot times in Atlanta high society. Their objective: to write a deeply awful novel to submit to PublishAmerica, a self-described "traditional publisher" located in Frederick, Maryland.



The project began after PublishAmerica posted an attack on science fiction authors at one of its websites (http://www.authorsmarket.net/). PublishAmerica claimed "As a rule of thumb, the quality bar for sci-fi and fantasy is a lot lower than for all other fiction.... [Science fiction authors] have no clue about what it is to write real-life stories, and how to find them a home." It described them as "writers who erroneously believe that SciFi, because it is set in a distant future, does not require believable storylines, or that Fantasy, because it is set in conditions that have never existed, does not need believable every-day characters."



The writers wanted to see where PublishAmerica puts its own quality bar; if the publisher really is selective, as the company claims, or if it is a vanity press that will accept almost anything, as publishing professionals assert.



"Atlanta Nights" was completed, any sign of literary competence was blue-penciled, and the resulting manuscript was submitted.



PublishAmerica accepted it.



From: PublishAmerica Aquisitions

Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Subject: Atlanta Nights




As this is an important piece of email regarding your book, please read it completely from start to finish. I am happy to inform you that PublishAmerica has decided to give "Atlanta Nights" the chance it deserves....Welcome to PublishAmerica, and congratulations on what promises to be an exciting time ahead.



Sincerely,

Meg Phillips

Acquisitions Editor

PublishAmerica



The hoax was publicly revealed on January 23, 2005. PublishAmerica withdrew their offer shortly afterward:



From: "PublishAmerica Acquisitions"

Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005

Subject: Your Submission to PublishAmerica




We must withdraw our offer to publish "Atlanta Nights". Upon further review it appears that your work is not ready to be published. There are portions of nonsensical text in the manuscript that were caught by our editing staff as they previewed the text for editing time assessment pending your acceptance of our offer.



On the positive side, maybe you want to consider contracting the book with a vanity publisher such as iUniverse or Author House. They will certainly publish your book at a fee.



Thank you.

PublishAmerica Acquisitions Department



Those who wish to see the novel, "Atlanta Nights" by Travis Tea, for themselves can find it at http://www.lulu.com/travis-tea



Publication at Lulu.com is free.



For more information about PublishAmerica and vanity presses, see:

http://www.sfwa.org/beware/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25187-2005Jan20.html



Sci-Fi Writers in San Francisco Test the Waters



Atlanta Nights Official Web Page -- Read the Hilarious Reviews......You Might Just Order This Book!



7 Ekim 2010 Perşembe

Advice from a Travel Writer


Travel Writer at Work



I'm often asked about being a guidebook writer

By Joshua Berman




How'd you get that job?



I've always written, edited all my school papers and, after college (Environmental Studies, Brown University), I published my first couple of magazine articles and was hooked. Then, I joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to a beautiful tropical country that was just beginning to crawl out from under a particularly intense period of gritty, vibrant history. Nicaragua still conjured up violent images of the civil war of the 1980s in most of the world's mind, but the strife had been over for years and things were, as they say, muy tranquilo. Word was getting out in backpacker circles and beyond, and we began to notice a trickling of curious gringos poking around along the border with Costa Rica; my fellow volunteers and I more or less witnessed the birth of tourism in Nicaragua with nary a guidebook in sight.



After completing our two-and-a-half-year tours of service, my companero, Randy Wood, and I decided to write the first, longest, and bestest-ever guide to Nicaragua. We pitched it to Moon (after finding their book proposal guidelines online) and they bought it. A year later we were holed up in the Pimp Tower, cranking away toward our first big deadline.



What is Moon Handbooks? Why did you choose to work for them?



Moon Handbooks is one of eight guidebook series produced by Avalon Travel Publishing (ATP). Randy and I approached Moon because the depth and quality of their books matched our vision of what we wanted to do in Nicaragua: use our combined six years experience living among Nicaraguans to create a thorough, in-depth guidebook with emphasis on the cultural and geographical characteristics that make this country totally unique in the region. The book was an important personal project for each of us, one that sometimes seemed an extension of our Peace Corps service. It was both an excuse to remain in Nicaragua and an opportunity to pay tribute to a country that had generously taken us in.



We wanted a publisher that would allow us to write in our own style in order to properly portray our passion for the place, even as we followed the necessary guidelines of the series. Moon encourages its authors to do just that. After signing with them, we learned that ATP is considered to be one of the better guidebook producers to work for, granting its authors copyright to their text and royalty-based contracts.



How long does it take to write or update a guidebook?



Writing the first edition of Nicaragua took two of us six months working every day, every night, and every weekend, traveling to every corner of the country. When I updated and rewrote Belize in 2003, I spent four straight months scouring the countrys resorts, restaurants, ridges, and reefs, writing it up as I went along, without a single day off. Randy and I once made a pact never to calculate our hourly pay.



How often do you update your books?



Each one gets updated every three years. Latin America and Caribbean titles are always released in the fall, when folks are planning their winter vacations. That means a book being released in November is based on research done during the previous December and February.



Do you pay any attention to your reader mail?



I read every single piece of correspondence I receive. People e-mail me either directly (josue AT stonegrooves DOT net) or through my publisher (atpfeedback@avalonpub.com). In fact, the very first thing I do when updating a new edition is go through the accumulated mail and press releases, filing them into folders based on the chapters of the book. Moon readers are generally a thoughtful, observant, and articulate crowd, and I always appreciate reading their observations and experiences.



How can I get my business listed in one of your books?



There are no fees to be listed in any Moon Handbook and no advertising (except for a single page in the back of the book). Inclusion is based on merit and accessibility, both of which are determined by the authors. Build the quality of your service, earn a good reputation, and I (or one of my co-authors) will eventually seek you out (Belize and Nicaragua are not large countries). If you're worried about getting mistakenly passed over (it happens), contact me at one of the e-mail addresses above and tell me where you are, what you offer, and why travelers should be told about your establishment.



What's a typical day for you? How do you spend your time?



During a pre-deadline research run, I am charging around the country (usually alone), sometimes walking the streets and lurking around bus stations, and often holed up in some hotel (from every fleabag hospedaje to $200-a-night suites), slamming local coffee and lost in my laptop. There usually isn't much (if any) time for boat tours, diving, or long hikes (I only dove once in four months in Belize!); still, when asked by tour providers to help them test out a new trail route or a product like volcano surfing, I try to oblige.



I'd break my time down like this: one third of my time is spent researching on the road. This means not only visiting as many tourism-related businesses and destinations as possible, but also making phone calls, interviewing government employees and taxi drivers, and bribing Peace Corps Volunteers with alcohol in exchange for local knowledge. The second third of my time is spent typing it all up, transferring volumes of notebook scratchings into my iBook, and then turning it all into publishable text.



The other third is spent staying organized, keeping track of hundreds of word documents, digital images, slides, hotel brochures, bus schedules, maps . . . basically, this is the part that sucks.



When you're researching, do you tell people who you are or do you travel incognito?



I stay incognito when I'm in a rush or when I'm traveling in an area so new to tourism that it doesn't matter that I'm a guidebook writer. This accounts for much of my time on the road. When things slow down however, and I have time for the extended tour (or when my neglected ego needs a boost in some beachside backpacker bar), I'll show people the book I'm working on and explain my mission. Doing so not only qualms hotel owners' fears when this strange gringo storms in and begins taking photos and writing in a suspicious little notebook, it also leads to all kinds of contacts and recommendations which, when my goal is to learn as much about an area in as little time as possible, are indispensable.



Does revealing my identity occasionally lead to preferential treatment? Sometimes, yes, but since I don't write reviews, per se, I don't see a conflict. Businesses that deserve to be in the book get in there; those that deserve a few extra glowing adjectives, they get those too. If a restaurant smells like socks and has a boring menu and horrible service, they simply don't go in the book, whether they gave me a free dogmeat enchilada or not. My co-authors and I have a longterm reputation we're trying to build, and we won't do that by misleading our readers.



Does it get lonely?



There is an anonymous quote in my Outward Bound readings book: The difference between loneliness and solitude is your perception of who you are alone with and who made the choice. But yeah, sometimes, when I'm curled up and shaking in the bottom of a hammock, sweating blood out of my scalp with no one to take care of me, it can be lonely. Usually however, traveling solo is pretty cool. Adam Katz describes it well here.



Can you make a living writing guidebooks?



A handful of guidebook writers have figured out a way to do this (including Andrew Hempstead and Tom Brosnahan, link to their sites below), but not me. I'm trying to work on other types of writing and, in general, guidebook writing is too much work for too little pay. My book advances are enough to cover the expenses of my research trips, but not much more (there is no expense account, only a lump sum to do the work). In between editions, I rarely see a royalty check since all my sales are going towards making up my advances (so far anyway, I'm still kind of a rookie). I try to use my newfound expertise and book credits to sell magazine articles, but this is difficult, even for a published author, and I have never had a steady stream of income from freelancing. To make ends meet, I often take seasonal jobs like leading wilderness or service trips or fighting fires.



How can I become a travel writer?



You've got to be a writer. That means you've got to write. Lots. The traveling part will happen itself as you live your life. Travel can be driving from your house to the grocery, or it can be sailing around the world. It's the writing that's important, so crack open a fresh journal and answer the call of those cool, white pages.



For the nitty gritty on the business of guidebook writing and more FAQs, check out the articles on these pages: Andrew Hempstead and Tom Brosnahan, or go to my links page. You'll find more travel writer tips and profiles at Rolf Potts' Vagabonding.



Advice from a Travel Writer