Categories
Blogging

Why I have no desire to be a freelance writer

My background is as an internet guy. Since I saw my first website back in 1993 (it was a page from the Library of Congress showcasing items from the Vatican Museum) I’ve been doing something, one way or another, online. When I started to travel, my first and only idea was to make a website to share my adventures.

When I started I knew nothing of the travel media industry. I didn’t know how travel writing worked and I would have never pursued writing for another publication because I’m pretty sure that no one would have hired me. To be fair, I wouldn’t have hired myself.

As my writing and photography has improved (I hope) and as my stature in the industry has improved, the option of actually writing for publications has been put on the table.

The problem is, now that I potentially have the ability to write for other publications, the business case for doing so has disappeared. In fact, the more I’ve learned about the business, the less appealing it has become.

Here is a few of the reasons why I have no desire to pursue freelance opportunities:

  1. You just don’t make much money. I was talking to Spud Hilton, travel editor at the San Francisco Chronicle last year and I asked him how much you could make by having an article appear in the Chronicle. I assumed (and I had no basis for my assumption) that it would be around $1,500. It turns out the actual rate is $500. You would need to sell 100 articles at that rate to bring in just $50,000….before taxes. Even if you were to triple the rate, you are still looking at doing a lot of work for not much money. I wont even bother to talk about the abysmal rates you get for publishing online.
  2. Many publications wont cover costs. Many large magazines and newspapers don’t accept stories from sponsored trips. They also don’t cover the costs of your trip. That means that the $500 you get has to cover the costs of taking the trip, which is not a sustainable business model. I know that many writers will try to spin multiple stories out of one trip, but it doesn’t change the fact that the economics still suck. I’m amazed that this isn’t a bigger issue in travel writing circles. There is something fundamentally wrong with a business where revenues can’t cover costs.
  3. It doesn’t advance my core business. Being in print doesn’t help you online. I’ve been mentioned in some popular magazines. I’ve had friends who have been in print. If you can’t click, it almost certainly isn’t going to result in people visiting your site. From the standpoint of a blogger, there is far more value in being in the NewYorkTime.com than there is in being in the New York Times. Moreover, people seldom pay attention to who wrote an article. I usually get offers to meet with readers in every major city I’ve visit. I don’t know of any print writers who have that level of interaction with readers.
  4. It is a hassle. I can write anything I want on my site without anyone’s approval. The moment you have to start pitching someone else, there is an enormous amount of overhead associated with getting a single article published. Unless you have previous relationship with an editor, you will have to deal with a lot of pitching and rejections.
  5. There is a limit to what you can make. Take the most you can get for an article and multiply it by the number of articles you can write in a year. That is limit of what you will make. This is assuming you get a great rate for every article and can pump out many of them. If you own a publication, there is no real limit to how much you can grow. I don’t know why I couldn’t grow my site to 10x what it is currently. It will take work, but it is possible.
  6. There isn’t much of a future. If you read my previous post on the advertising revenue for travel magazines, I don’t think there is going to be a big future in writing for print. The market for online writing is horrible. I’m not sure there is a point to investing effort into something which there isn’t going to be a big future.

I know there are plenty of people who make a living doing freelance writing, but it just isn’t something that appeals to me.

I have had my writing appear on other websites, but it is always without payment and it is intended to serve as a promotional vehicle for my primary website. I also never have to deal with the issues I listed above: sponsored trips, dealing with editors, and traffic generation.

I’ve been on many a press trip where the first question asked of me by writers is “who do you write for?” When I tell them I write for myself, I usually get a look of pity. The reality is, owning my own publication (aka a blog) has far more upside and potential than writing for others ever will.

Categories
Blogging

First Thoughts on TBEX 2012

I’ve just completed the annual TBEX conference, held this year in Keystone, Colorado. Here are a few of my thoughts on this year’s event:

  • This was by far the best TBEX ever. It was not only well run, the parties were top notch, the networking was great as was the attendance.
  • This was probably the best conference I’ve ever attended. This is no exaggeration. I’ve attended dozens of conferences in and outside the travel industry. In terms of a straight return on investment, it was easily the most productive conference I’ve ever attended. It was also one of the most fun.
  • The industry is warming up to bloggers. I don’t think anyone should get too excited, but things are starting to change. There were many great companies represented, but there were even more who weren’t there.
  • Big companies still haven’t figured it out. There were several big companies who spent a great deal of money sponsoring the show. Having talked directly to them, I still get the impression they still really don’t know what they are doing with bloggers yet. They know they should be doing something with bloggers and sponsoring shows is something they are used to doing. I still haven’t seen any projects with bloggers by big companies in the travel space that I’ve been impressed with.
  • Medium size companies do get it. Almost all of the medium size companies I met with did seem to have a much better strategy of how to work with bloggers. That includes some of my sponsors, some companies I didn’t meet with (but I got reports from other bloggers), and some companies I met with for the first time. I was very impressed with the direction some of them were heading. I am eagerly awaiting to see what projects get hatched by bloggers over the next few months.
  • There are a lot of bloggers. Nothing new here, but I was amazed at the number of people I met who had sites I had never heard of. I like to think I keep abreast of these things, but I clearly do not.
  • The closing keynote made no sense for a blogger conference. Having a guy who doesn’t blog tell bloggers how he makes money not blogging really wasn’t a good fit. I don’t disagree with some of his general points of working hard and having an expertise, but writing guidebooks and doing freelancing really isn’t the business plan for most bloggers.
  • I can’t really comment on the sessions. I only attended one session other than my own. My entire time was spent in meetings, which was a testament to quality of the networking opportunities.
  • There is enormous potential to grow. Prediction: TBEX is going to become HUGE. This is going to go well beyond blogging. I think this is poised to become the new media show for the whole travel industry. There is no reason why companies and destinations couldn’t attend for their own sake to learn about new media, beyond just going to meet with bloggers. If TBEX keeps its strategy of keeping costs low for content creators (which they intend to do) this is going to become more and more attractive for industry people. I think word of mouth is going to make TBEX very popular next year. I think there will be double the companies/destinations present and over 1,000 attendees.
  • TBEX is a must attend show for new media people in travel. If you are in the travel industry in any sort of marketing, public relations or content creation capacity, you need to come to TBEX. If there was only one conference I could attend each year, it would be TBEX.

I haven’t heard any serious complaints about TBEX this year. Even skeptics came away saying it was a great conference. I know I’m gushing, but this weekend was probably the most productive I’ve had in 6 years of running my blog.

Grade: A

Categories
Blogging

Dumbest Press Release Of the Year Nominee

This was at the bottom of a press release I received today (I was looking for the unsubscribe link which wasn’t there). Emphasis mine:

this email and any attachment hereof may contain proprietary information which is privileged, confidential or subject to copyright belonging to xxxxxxxxx. this email is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. if you are not the intended recipient of this email, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, or action taken in relation to the contents of and attachments to this email is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. if you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and permanently delete the original as well as any copy of this e-mail and any printout thereof. thank you for your cooperation.

So, if I can’t take any action regarding this press release, what exactly was the point of sending it?

Why in the world would a public relations company want to prevent people from distributing and disseminating information about their client?

Categories
Blogging Travel

Everything you need to know about Klout and the Travel Industry

This was taken from a recent article in Wired. It is from Klout product director Chris Makarsky:

It became clear that if I wanted more Klout, I’d need to game the system harder. I could glom on to influential Twitterati and connive to get retweeted by them. I could dramatically accelerate the frequency of my tweets, posting late into the night. And I could commit myself to never taking a break: Makarsky made it clear that a two-week vacation from social media might cause my score to nose-dive.

So, going on vacation will cause your Klout score to drop?

Allow me get to all Aristotelian on this:

1) People who travel will, all things being equal, have lower Klout scores than people who do not travel.
2) People with higher Klout scores are more “influential”.

Ergo

3) People who do not travel will be more influential about travel than people who travel.

QED

If you got a bloody nose thinking about this, I apologize.

Categories
Blogging

Your Site’s Social Media Profile

With the additions to Google+ and Pinterest to the world of social media, there are now officially too many things to worry about. Maybe if you are a company with a staff of people who can monitor everything everyday you can handle it, but for one person it has reached a point where it is impossible.

We are also now at a point where it is becoming obvious that not every site is going to attract the same audience. I’m seeing this more and more as sites in different niches are getting an overwhelming amount of engagement on some networks but not others.

For the purposes of illustration I’ll look at several posts from popular blogs in different niches. The goal here isn’t to look at the absolute number of likes, tweets or shares, but rather the relative number between the various services.

The selection of the posts I”m using is pretty arbitrary, but I think it illustrates the point I’m trying to make.

Here are some examples:


Brian Solis: Engagement ain’t nothing but a number – why 1% isn’t good enough

Facebook Likes: 129
Facebook Shares: NA
Tweets: 586
LinkedIn Shares: 202
Google +1’s: 55
Comments: 15

Brian’s site is business marketing site that focuses on social media. Twitter is popular as is LinkedIn. Facebook comes in third even though Facebook is the largest social network.

Gary Arndt: The Top 10 Reasons to Travel Condensed Down Into 1

Facebook Likes: 918
Facebook Shares: 2,891
Tweets: 363
LinkedIn Shares: 25
Google +1’s: 20
Comments: 53

This was a recent post on my site. I’m getting far more engagement on Facebook than Brian, but much less on Twitter or Google+. My LinkedIn engagement is so abysmally low I don’t even track it anymore.

Chris Brogan: Earning Attention

Facebook Likes: 80
Facebook Shares: NA
Tweets: 705
LinkedIn Shares: 415
Google +1’s: 77
Comments: 162

An even larger percentage of engagement is coming from Twitter and LinkedIn with a very high number from Google+. The is one of the few places I’ve seen where Google+ numbers almost equal Facebook numbers.

Wired: What your Klout score really means

Facebook Likes: 901
Facebook Shares: NA
Tweets: 956
LinkedIn Shares: 219
Google +1’s: 165
Comments: 15

A consumer orientated publication with a very tech/business orientated article. Still a lot of Facebook but high numbers in Twitter and LinkedIn.


The point of this is that sites, or even individual articles, will have very different social media profiles depending on what type of site you run.

To make some very broad sweeping generalizations, the more consumer orientated the site, the better you will do on Facebook. The more business orientated the site, the better you will do on LinkedIn. The more technical orientated the audience, the better you will do on Google+.

There isn’t a one size fits all for social media. I think if you are a consumer site, worrying about LinkedIn is a waste of time. Likewise, if you are a B2B site, I wouldn’t worry so much about your Facebook interactions.

Put your efforts where you will get the biggest bang for your buck.