Travelblather

So... here I am sat in the pub (I am drinking coffee OK?!) I'm on the verge of relaunching Travelblather in a shiny new Wordpress skin and very excited about it. But before I do, I am rethinking the categories that I use for organising the posts on here. And I'm struggling to decide... Clearly once I make a decision I really need to stick with what I go with.

And then it occurred to me (duh!)  Why not ask the people who read Travelblather what they think? Typepad (the platform I use right now) offers some very broad categories and I've just been using them. Not much use really - you will see if you check out the 'Category cloud' down the left side of the blog that Travel gets a lot of use (no surprise) followed by Web/Tech, Journalism and Marketing. All rather meaningless.

I need to restrict myself to say 4 or 5 categories that are as distinct from each other as possible and as interesting as possible. Here are a few ideas:

• Travelwriting
• Social Media
• Marketing (or Strategy?)
• Innovation (or Ideas?)
• Monetization
• Guidebooks (Guidebook writing?)
• Opinion (or are all my posts opinionated?)
• Sponsors (do I add a category for sponsored posts? ie posts that are paid for/facilitated?) I still don't know if I want to go down this route at all... but if I do, by separating them like this it would at least make the distinction really clear. Just like a print ad in a magazine really(?)

What categories would be useful for you? What do you come to Travelblather for? What kind of stuff makes you want to read and comment? If you fancied a trawl back through the 160 or so posts on here, what categories would be handy?

I know the answer will differ for different people. I would be SO interested to know. And, by commenting you absolutely will shape the future direction too.

I have also been trying to come up with a strapline that summarises what this blog is all about too - so that new arrivals get the idea straight away (along with a page devoted to my most popular/most heartfelt posts)

• Travelblather - travel content that's connected
• Travelblather - travelwriting 2.0? (Whatever that means)
• Travelblather - working out the future of travelwriting
• Travelblather - banter between travelwriters, prs and travel cos
• Travelblather - the future of travelwriting is online
• Travelblather - apparently... it's Travel 2.0
• Travelblather - YOUR SUGGESTION HERE

(OK. I am no longer drinking coffee... I am now drinking beer.) Maybe if people do come up with some (doubtless) better ideas than mine I can select the top three and let people vote on it?

If you follow my twitter feed, you'll know that I'm one of the columnists for new travel tech media website Tnooz. Agreeing to do this gig took some thinking. I get no remuneration for doing it (yet). And you know how much I HATE free. Shouldn't I stick with what I'm doing on Travelblather instead? Writing for Tnooz though gets me a far bigger audience - which is nice - and a degree of credibility that I didn't have before.

My first post on Tnooz evoked quite a lot of comments - it's titled The Internet Is Ruining Travel Journalism. One of the comments was from Christine Gilbert - who writes an interesting blog called Almost Fearless. (In July 2008 she quit her high-powered job, sold her stuff and dedicated herself to travelling and blogging about her experiences.)

Her comment on my post (slightly abridged - underlining mine):

.... your personal site, (ie this one, Travelblather) could be making you $1000/mo. You’re a great writer, you have the credentials and you write interesting posts. So why aren’t you one of the most popular travel writing blogs out there? Well it’s on typepad, you don’t update often enough and you need a new design. If you networked a bit with other bloggers, then you’d start building a loyal and rabid following. Heck, when you do post everyone comes running… but you don’t take it seriously as a way to make money.

That’s the problem with all travel journalists who complain about the internet– they don’t actually take it seriously. Meanwhile, people with no journalism background are building sites and doing well, because they think about it completely differently.

Some challenges, some nice compliments and some pertinent advice. I do actually take what I write here really seriously. That's partly why I don't post that often. I only want to say stuff, when I feel it's worth saying. I take time to write posts. Partly I think because I am a journo at heart, I craft stuff and tinker with it more than perhaps I need to. Do I think about this blog differently from someone like Christine? That's a really interesting question for consideration sometime... Does having a more focussed financial imperative mean the content suffers? I honestly don't know. (Interestingly Christine doesn't run ads on her blog - instead she chooses to let people make a donation via Paypal should they want to.)

Sure I'd really like this blog to earn me that $1000 a month. I do wonder if Christine really is earning $1000 a month in donations - but she has over 3000 readers subscribed to her RSS feed and 30,000 followers on Twitter... so maybe she does.

I have no idea how to monetize this blog... I use Google adwords and that gets me about $2 a month.

Other bloggers in this space are clearly thinking along similar lines.

Christine seems to suggest in her comment that it's about posting more, using a better platform (ie Wordpress) and networking. Is that really all it takes? (Actually, that could be a lot of work - networking could be a full time job I guess.)

So... can anyone help me? If someone can help me migrate this blog to Wordpress (keeping the current URL structure so I don't lose links) and show me how to set up proper advertising deals or find other ways to earn income I will share revenue from the site 50:50 for the first 6 months. Assuming Christine's numbers are correct that would equate to around $3000.(Heck if they really do help me I'll share income for the first couple of years. Seriously.)

Assuming anyone is prepared to share their secrets of monetization... I'll of course post about it here. (Unless they are so fantastic I become RICH.... Cue manic laughter, fade to black etc.)

It's been years since I spent serious time just being a tourist - particularly a backpacker. But I find myself now in Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo where I recently stayed in a really well set up hostel called Singgahsana Lodge in Kuching. It felt pretty weird mixing with a bunch of significantly younger backpackers. 

The vibe wasn't that different, the clothes pretty much the same, but one thing had changed immensely.

The moment we walked into reception I could here the tones of a rather poshing sounding girl chatting on her mobile. I couldn't help ear-wigging the conversation. I sounded like she was talking to her mum about how much someone or other was winding her up and what to do about it. Over in the corner a couple of people were using their laptops and netbooks to surf the net wirelessly. There were mobile phones everywhere and I counted 5 PCS for internet access.

12 years back when I was backpacking properly, I still used Post Restante. There was an incredible sense of excitement about pitching up in say Bangkok and finding my way to the central post office. Asking if there was anything for 'Head'. The guy behind the counter would rummage through umpteen boxes and, just sometimes, crumpled and grubby, there'd be an envelope for me from home. Often I'd not read the letter it contained straight away, but would take it somewhere like a cafe or bar and pore over the pages... fantastically self indulgent... a momentary reminder that whilst the place I was visiting might feel like home now I'd been there so long, I was actually a foreignor still very much in a strange land. I had roots elsewhere.

But I'd go pick up mail maybe once a fortnight. And that was it... no more contact with the world outside my immediate environment. And I loved it that way - the sense of almost losing yourself in another place, another culture - the possibilities for being someone else, living a different existence for just a short while were immensely exciting.

Today I visited a cultural village where they put on a show of traditional tribal dances. I was again struck by the technology. One guy was playing golf on his iPhone. Another bloke was videoing the whole show - watching the real world through barrier of the LCD screen of his camera.

Technology is of course so empowering and enabling, but I'm becoming slightly smug about the fact that my mobile phone provider hasn't enabled roaming (despite my request to them to do so). I think I'm going to just call the voicemail and change the message to say I'm not in the country, don't leave me a message.

Travel for me is much about making connections with people - other travellers, locals, people in the travel industry. It's about lots of other things too - but ultimately it's people, what they do differently, what they think differently from me. And wondering what it would be like if I could be them for a day and live in their world for just a while. A sense of detachment, or otherness - I know I'm beginning to sound a bit overblown here... but what the heck... you could almost call it existential.

These days every hotel or guesthouse - no matter how far flung - is wired for email... so tempting to 'just check' and see if anything new has dropped into the in-tray.

But it's so distracting, so unnecessary. I have limited time here in a fascinating place...

Is technology killing the reality of travelling? Does a more connected world mean fewer real connections? I think so. Do you?

(Of course the ultimate irony is that to post this I've used the very technology I'm criticising)

As I've gained more readers on Travelblather I've noticed increasing numbers of people who work in the Travel PR industry following my tweets on twitter  signing up to get my blog posts delivered by email or by RSS feed.

There's clearly a huge appetite amongst the PR community to engage with and understand the blogosphere. (Which I think is a good thing.) I imagine that for PR agencies, blogs are a bit of a new frontier - a wild west where all the work they do to try and gain their clients positive coverage can be competely unravelled by a vitriolic blogger on a mission. And, conversely, positive coverage could be exponentially valuable, given the way that for now at least people are increasingly turning to blogs for up-to-date, accurate and trustworthy information.

I have really mixed feelings about the role of PR generally. I see it as often quite insidious - attempting to undermine the objectivity of the journalist by pushing a particular angle or product or company at them. Of course, journalists are supposed to be pretty hard-skinned individuals, well able to make judgements of their own regardless of the attempts to influence them that will come from all over the place. But as the old saying goes "The mouth that shouts loudest gets fed first". And with remuneration for freelancers sprialling downwards no one wants to bite any hand that feeds them. (Oops... metaphorical overload there... sorry.)

Anyway... like it or not, PR is here to stay and it's massively influential in travel writing.

Recently I was offered a press trip to Sydney in Australia. The request from the PR company was that I blog about the experience. This for me was a watershed moment. I was invited solely because of this blog and the assumed value that the PR company placed on coverage here. That in itself is quite remarkable... particularly given the distance and expense involved. (This isn't the first instance actually - my previous post about new Aer Lingus low cost flights from Gatwick was completely driven by the fact that I went on a short press trip to Faro on the airline's inaugural flight on this route. But that was a far shorter trip and I was one of 80+ people on it.)

So... should I take the PR up on the Sydney offer?

A number of interesting issues:

Impartiality? The great thing about blogging is you have no editor or ad team breathing down your neck expecting you to write things up a certain way. Will I be under some obligation to give the experience a positive write up - even if it's not that great?

I think that actually this one is quite easy to resolve - despite the very heated discussions about this issue on Alex's Musings on Travel Ecommerce blog a few months ago. I make clear that I'm posting because of the press trip (as I did with the Aer Lingus post) AND I make clear to the PR that's inviting me that I can post whatever I want to. Just as a restaurant reviewer or car reviewer would do when presented with a new dish or the latest convertible.

I actually think that I'd post quite a lot about a trip to Sydney... (Let's face it... there will be lots of down time on planes... might as well do something!) Some posts would be descriptions of the trip and the services experienced - just like a normal travel feature in print (and presumably the sort of coverage a PR person would hope for). But other posts would be more like opinion pieces - behind the scenes stuff which I think people reading the blog would find really interesting. The life of the travel writer on the road - what it's really like.(Not all sunsets and pina coladas by the way...)

Pay? All very nice to get offered the trip - but in the real world of freelancing that's probably 5 days of my time with no remuneration. That won't pay the mortgage. Right now I'm on a short term contract so I am earning a vaguely OK amount of pay. I could take a few days' holiday and just go for the hell of it. But it's hardly a good practice to get into. I have ads running here on the blog, but they sure don't provide anything like the income needed to pay for five hours of my time - let alone five days!

What's the solution? Well one idea could be 'sponsored posts' - not disimilar in concept to promotional features in magazines and newspapers. I make clear that the post has been paid for - AND crucially, the tour operator/airline/tourist board that wants the coverage and is sending me on the trip pays me.

SO... PRs - would your clients be interested in something like that? Not only sending me on the trip, but also paying me for my time in return for a certain amount of coverage? AND would it make a difference to you if the posts relating to the trip were marked as 'sponsored'? (VERY interesting point this one.)

AND... READERS - how would you feel about the occasional post on Travelblather that is more promotional in nature? Does it completely negate the value of the blog or is it no big deal?

The idea raises all sorts of issues and making it work in practice would not be easy.

I had an interesting evening at the British Guild of Travel Writers monthly get together last night. I was speaking with Alastair McKenzie and Simon Ward Wanderlust's web editor about all things web 2.0.

We were preaching to a quite sceptical audience. And I can see why. There remains little money to be made for pro travel writers in writing for web... and next to nothing from blogging or tweeting.

So why bother?

Well, one thing we all agreed on was that it's getting ever harder to make a proper living writing about travel and the net is very much to blame. Falling ad revenues for print media are directly related to reduced reader numbers - because people are reading stuff on-line for free and not bothering to buy magazines and newspapers in the ways they would have done before the net existed. The future looks pretty bleak for old school freelance travel writers.

Some key points I tried to make about why being part of the on-line world matters (and I hope I succeeded)

• Blogging allows you to publish whatever you want (within legal bounds) - and that's immensely satisfying - indeed liberating. No need to worry about the whims of an editor.
• Being active online - blogging, tweeting and more - also establishes your profile. People use Google to research all kinds of stuff these days. If they're looking for a travel writer chances are that's the phrase they will Google and if you aren't there, they won't find you.
• Most editors are now experimenting with social media - and if you're present in the online environment you stand out immediately as plugged in, in touch... ahead of the game... smart.
• Most writers love to get feedback - and in print it's a real rarity. Editors don't have time to let you know they liked something, reader letters to the publication often don't get forwarded on to the writer. On-line it's a whole different world - people can react, respond, comment right there. It's fascinating... and for me anyway, it's why I write at all - having a sense of an audience of people who (at least to some degree) value my opinion.
• Developing a readership - as I seem to be doing - means that suddenly your voice matters. Today I got offered a Press Trip to Sydney (yep, Australia) as a blogger - on the understanding I'd blog about the experience. That's a seriously big deal. More on this and what it means in another post

None of these will make anyone any better off as a writer and if I were freelance right now I wouldn't spend more than an hour or so a day doing it... but that hour will be time well spent.

Of that I have no doubt. (And actually it might be quite fun too.)