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Topic: travel guidebook fee
| Author | Message |
| new-globetrotter | Posted – 3/13/2008 12:46:27 PM | show profile | email poster Hi- I was hoping others might be able to share their experience in negotiating guidebook fees. I'm being offered US$14,000 to write 80,000 words for a guidebook on Med Europe. The publishers say that I should expect to spend around six weeks researching and that I can't accept any freebies like hotel rooms - so I've got to pay for everything myself when I'm travelling. They've not told me anything else about the fee though (oh, except that I don't get royalties) - it's take it or leave it. I'm new to guidebook writing so I don't know if this is reasonable. Anyone got any advice? Does anyone know how guidebook publishers work out their fees? And should I try and negotiate? Thanks for your help, guys. |
| Village Gal | Posted – 3/13/2008 1:31:13 PM | show profile does not sound good to me. figure out your expenses. deduct from $14,000 and what do you have left? how long will it take you to write this? this sort of work is very labor intensive. |
| Dagger | Posted – 3/13/2008 11:03:26 PM | show profile depends... Big question #1: what is your goal in writing this book? If this is about making a bunch of money, it's probably not a great deal unless you are a fantastic Euro-bargain hunter or have friends with empty flats you could base-camp from in Barcelona and Naples. On the other hand, if this book would represent a great leap forward with your travel-writing clips, and might lead to bigger and better things, do it. Big question #2: what's your opportunity cost? are there other/better projects you could be doing? are you having to take 3 wks of vacation from your reg job? All that costs money....don't discount it. |
| new-globetrotter | Posted – 3/14/2008 11:33:45 AM | show profile Hi- Thanks for your help. I'm new to this so I haven't worked out how long it will take to research but I'm guessing about five or six weeks. I need to sit down and work that out and see what the return is. I would like to get into guidebook writing so I guess this is more about that than making a heap of cash. I don't want to lose out financially of course! Does anyone know if I can expect the money to go up the more experienced I get at guidebooks? It doesn't seem a load of money at this point. Thanks again. |
| krisiszhanra | Posted – 3/28/2008 8:31:04 PM | show profile Believe it or not, this is actually a pretty good sum for a guidebook. Guidebooks are traditionally one of the lowest-paying fields in travel writing. Updates will be a third of that, and while not as intense an amount of work, still takes months of checking and re-writing. Think long and hard about it, but if you want to be known as an "expert" of something, then it does help get your name out there and catapult you onward, if you work it. |
| ISR | Posted – 3/30/2008 8:35:54 PM | show profile It's completely not worth it. Your airfare, food, and lodging are going to cost at least half the fee. Some guidebooks let writers take on freebies, and hope they'll be honest. But even if you're just visiting a hotel, you need to stay somewhere. 80,000 words is a lot of writing, plus service info---now that's a lot of work. I'd stay away. (I used to be a guidebook editor.) |
