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Issue #298: Nine Self-Promotion Activities To Do When You Can’t Travel
March 30, 2020
Greetings Fellow Travel Writers!

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Editorial: Nine Self-Promotion Activities To Do When You Can’t Travel

The coronavirus continues to spread around the world. With regional, national and international travel grinding to a halt, I hope you’re looking for constructive things to do at home.

Self-promotion, or “marketing yourself” is something you need to be doing continuously. It’s one of the things writers often put on the back burner.

If you procrastinate marketing yourself, or have ever thought, “I’ll do it when I get some time,” now is the time. You can’t travel so you should have plenty of time.

Here are nine marketing tasks you can do. They’re broken down into bite sized pieces so they’re all easily actionable. Each task will advance your name, help you promote yourself, and further establish your brand. Try doing one or two each day, or more if you’re really motivated.

Use these tips and you’ll rise above the thousands of others, writhing around in that huge travel writer’s mosh pit:
1. Post your latest travel story on TravMedia.com.

2. Post your latest travel story on your Facebook page.

3. Create a Facebook site for your writing self (versus your personal page).

4. Write some updated copy for your writer’s website (You do have a writer’s website, don’t you?).

5. Send out a query letter to a regional, national, or international magazine.

6. Pitch or write a guest post and send it out to a high-profile writing website.

7. Leave well-written, intelligent replies on other people’s travel blogs or websites demonstrating your expertise and sparkling personality.

8. If you’ve authored a travel book, send it for review to someone who has an appropriate website or blog.

9. Connect with other travel writers via social media.

Use your extra time and do some self-promotion starting today. Then continue to do a few tasks every day until it becomes routine. You'll be surprised by how well established your "brand" will be when you're finally able to travel again.


This Week's Featured Post

Your Query Letter Guide: Seven Valuable Tips for Travel Writers

When it comes to writing successful query letters, I hear the same questions from new writers.

You'll hear conflicting advice about queries because experts all have their own techniques. This article will set the record straight in terms of how I do things, what has been successful for me, and the advice I give to my coaching clients.

With the digital age and the speed at which things happen these days, the game has changed dramatically. Freelance travel writers who want to succeed need to change with it. After all, if your query letters don’t sell your stories, you’ll never get to write them.

Here's my guide to query letters. It answers the questions about query letters that I receive most often. These are the techniques I’ve used — with great success — to sell more than 1,000 articles to 200+ publications and get paid for them.

If you need clarification around the rather murky waters of query letters, you'll find it here . . .

READ THE ARTICLE


GROUP COACHING MASTERMIND

There's been a lot of interest in group coaching and many of you asked when we’re going to offer it. We're working on it.

We’re planning to make it affordable, fun, helpful and productive for you. And we'll be releasing the final details soon. Stay tuned!

Our BRAND NEW group coaching program will be limited to the first 25 registrants.

Only people on the interest list will receive early signup privileges and discounts.

Click here to get on the Group Coaching Interest List


Upcoming Posts

April 6: Six Ways to Earn More in Travel Writing by Investing in Yourself
April 13: Five Surprisingly Simple Readability Statistics to Improve Your Travel Writing and Blogging
April 20: Selling Your Luxury Travel Stories


PitchTravelWrite.com Success Stories

If you read our first travel writing success story, you’ll recall that we gained considerable momentum with Roy Stevenson as our coach. We made a strategic decision to extend our coaching contract with Roy – and we’re glad we did!

As a result, we’ve moved up the travel writing totem pole and started getting better paid assignments with print magazines. We leveraged those assignments for two memorable complimentary trips this past year.

Our success story continues.

Here’s our travel writing success story for the past 12 months:

Read the article: The Continuing Success Story of Pam & Gary Baker - Part 2


Pitch Travel Write: Most Requested Links about Creating Magazine Lists


Travel writers are always asking me to help them prepare magazine distribution lists so they can send out their queries. I’m not surprised that so many travel writers contact me with this request. I get it. Searching for target magazines is perceived as an onerous clerical task and can take many hours. Yet, it’s an indispensable step in getting your articles published.

After all, if you can’t find magazines to pitch, you’re not going to get your stories published.

But I wouldn’t be doing you any favors by doing this research for you. If someone else does your work for you, you’re not going to learn how to do your own magazine searches. And, this is such a crucial skill for freelance writing success.

You need to put in the time on the Internet, researching Writer’s Market, and checking out the magazine racks at your local bookstore.

There are some things you can do to enhance your magazine researching skills. The following articles cover the nuts-and-bolts of creating distribution lists.

This article shows you—step-by-step—how to create your magazine distribution lists, and where to look for them.
How to Build Magazine Distribution Lists

Here’s a summary of how to select magazines where you can pitch your stories:
Where to Pitch Travel Stories

You can use magazine vendor websites to find magazines. Here’s how:
Finding Travel Magazine Sales Leads on Vendor Websites

Here are six reference books that I use to find new magazine leads:
Finding Magazine Leads: The Best Print References on the Market Today


Inspirational Travel Quote



RESOURCES FOR TRAVEL WRITERS

Featured Book of the Month: THE ART & CRAFT OF TRAVEL WRITING




“The Art & Craft of Travel Writing: How to Develop Your Craft, Hone Your Skills, Avoid Mistakes, Work Smarter, and Be More Successful”.


What’s in our 21-chapter, 152-page book?

The Art & Craft of Travel Writing has five sections:
1. The Craft of Travel Writing
2. Things That Go Wrong in Travel Writing
3. Keys to Success in Travel Writing
4. Working Smarter
5. Goal Setting for Your Travel Writing



Here are some of the chapters . . .
- Creating a Sense of Place and Ambiance
- Turning Your Destination into a Compelling Read
- How to Write Like a Seasoned Professional
- Five Travel Writing Blunders and How to Avoid Them
- Why Some Travel Writers Have More Success
- How to Plug into the Travel Writing Community
- Seven Ways to Take Control of Your Writing Time
- Set Up Systems to Create More Writing Time

This book will help you hone your travel writing skills and get more stories published. We’ll show you how to allocate your writing time for maximum efficiency, and exactly what you need to do to break into the competitive travel writing market.

LEARN MORE AND BUY THE BOOK




At Your Service

Coaching and Consulting
The Marketing Master Class for Travel Writers Travel Writing & Photography Retreat New Orleans 2020 Online Courses
Vietnam 1-1 Retreat & Consulting
Expat Consulting

email: pitchtravelwrite@gmail.com

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PitchTravelWrite.com, is our information-packed website for travel writers. This e-zine, a series of travel writing books and reference guides, coaching programs, and our workshops all work together to give you guidance in this field.

Our aim is to provide you with practical, nitty gritty information to help you gain entry the travel writing realm and all the enjoyment that comes with it, too. 




We're thrilled to announce that www.PitchTravelWrite.com is on The Write Life’s 2020 list of 100 BEST WEBSITES FOR WRITERS! 

You can see the entire list by visiting their website - click on the graphic to view the list now.




Friend me on Facebook

My Facebook page is about freelance travel writing. I frequently post about:
• travel writing & blogging conferences,
• links to other well produced travel websites and blogs,
• links to my travel articles,
• travel writing themes,
• links to reputable travel writer’s groups, associations, and newsletters,
• magazine covers stories and back stories,
• links to resources pages,
• links to travel writing archives,
• links to coaching and mentoring resources,
• and plenty of other useful information to get you up to speed.

Link to Roy's Personal Facebook page




That's all for now. Until next week - just keep pitching! Roy

Roy Stevenson
Pitch Travel Write
www.pitchtravelwrite.com






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