Lonely Planet Guide Books
Writers for guide books spend weeks to, more often, months in a location tasting and testing every aspect of a city, a country, a region of the world.
Lonely Planet is one of the most popular guide book publishers. It posts information on its Web site, LonelyPlanet.com, for writers looking to take an assignment. Here are the basic requirements:
- Specialized knowledge of a city, country or region
- Experienced traveler
- Professional writing experience
- Ability to write vibrantly, with authority and attitude
- Excellent research and organizational skills
- ‘Tools of the trade’: e.g. computer hardware and software
- Ability to work independently
- Great resilience and tenacity
- Good boots!
It’s a bonus if writers also meet these goals:
- Travel writing experience
- Written or spoken foreign language skills (this is essential for some destinations)
- Specific areas of expertise, such as art, music, wildlife, other cultures, food, languages, outdoor activities and other travel-related pursuits
“All authors who work on our books are freelancers, hired on a contract-by-contract basis. We do not employ staff writers,” says LonelyPlanet.com.
Rough Guides Travel Books
The Work For Us Rough Guides Web page says:
“We keep a file of all potential contributors, which we dip into as and when the need arises. Please send us some samples of your writing along with 1,000 words or so on a place you know well, in what you consider to be Rough Guide style. It would also be useful to know of any specific areas you feel most inclined to write about.”
The Web site also provides contact information for its London and New York offices.
Let’s Go Guide Books
Let’s Go is a student-written guide book sold in 29 countries on five continents. Its pool of writers is comprised entirely of Harvard University students. The books are published by St. Martin’s Press in New York.
Bradt Travel Guides
United Kingdom-based Bradt Travel Guides accepts proposals from interested writers. There is information on “How to be a Bradt author” at Bradt.com. These are the summarized basics:
“Please send us in the first instance your CV, to include any writing and travel experience, together with a brief summary of your proposal(s). Do research first, though. Check our website or catalogue to ensure that we don’t already cover your preferred destination. Look at the competition – if there are already several guides, how could you do better? And if this is a ‘first’, why should it be published?
Should we be interested, we will ask you to supply an unedited sample of writing of around 500 words on a destination of your choice.”
Bradt also offers this key bit of advice to aspiring travel guide writers: “Forget the glamour. It's poorly paid, time-consuming and very hard work – but it still suits some people.”
For those who take on the adventures of travel guide writing and persevere through the low-paying stages, the experience can lead to greater paying writing opportunities in journalism, and to making a living as a freelance writer and as a travel book author.
