Some 6,000 travel books are in print today; about 1,500 new titles are published each year (about twice the number of cook-books). Some of the biggest, best-selling, brand-name series titles, such as Frommer, Fodor's, Fielding and Birnbaum, sell 50,000 to 1,00,000 copies a year, and industry wide sales amount to $100 million a year.
Guidebooks have an enormous impact on travelers and the travel industry. They can literally put a destination, or a hotel, or an attraction on the map. Many travelers regard their guidebooks as bibles and follow the suggested itineraries religiously.
The swelling demand for guidebooks is being met by an even greater outpouring of books; competition is intense. Moreover, since travel books are incredibly costly to research and produce, publishers are hesitant to take on new authors.
Nonetheless, there are opportunities. Some brand-name publishing companies hire writers to produce whole books or a few chapters or to research some special interest. "Our writers are usually professionals with some association with the destination," related Arthur Frommer, whose Europe On $5 A Day spawned a revolution in mass travel when it was first published in the 1950s. "We get letters from people everywhere. We ask them to audition: 'Imagine you are writing a guide; give us 10 sample pages of a hotel chapter.' Many times, people are hired that way. One of our writers had never written before, but she wanted to do Washing-ton, D.C. For her audition, she compared the quality of government cafeterias. It was so colorful and fun to read, we hired her to do Ireland, New Zealand, and Washington, D.C.-she has made a career for herself."
It takes an author, or a battery of writers, an average of one to two years to research and write a guidebook. Frommer spent five years researching his newest, The New World of Travel, which is already expected to set off a second revolution in "intellectual, experiential" travel.
Margaret Zellers has authored Fielding's Caribbean guide since 1979, updating the book annually. Unlike most authors, she owns the book and holds the copyright. She is also scrupulous about paying her own way and not accepting any hospitality so that she can be free to set her own schedule and report her observations even if it means warning readers against overcharging or surly immigration officials. Her book sells 50,000 to 100,000 copies a year. "Readers write to me."
"When I first started in this business, it was wonderful," she related. '1 wouldn't start today, though. The competition is vicious. Travel writers are running all over each other. It's a game of sharks. It's a lot of hard work-I travel three-fourths of the year [and pay my own way]. But it's been my life, and I love it."
Among the leading publishing houses are Prentice-Hall, which publishes 10 major travel imprints including Frommer, Insight, Real Guides and Mobil; Houghton Mifflin (Birnbaum); Fodor's; Moon Publications; Lonely Planet; Passport Press; John Muir Publications; and John Wiley & Sons.
Travel Photography
The professional travel photographer faces even greater frustrations than the travel writer. Low pay, intense competition from everyone with a 35-mm camera who thinks they can take a snap-shot (including travel writers), and, as some have found out, lack of creative outlets are all part of the job.
Lisle Dennis has been a professional travel photographer for 20 years. "You don't get into it for the money," she said with exasperation. Getting in 20 years ago was relatively easy-there were lots of press trips and invitations even without confirmed assignments from publications. "It's the end of the flying carpet era on the public relations side," she said. "Things have really tightened up." Now, you need a letter confirming an assignment or an outlet for the photography before a sponsoring group will provide free travel. Then, as now, budding photographers would need to join the Society of American Travel Writers in order to network with magazine editors, but membership requires that a professional already be established in the field. Even getting a plum assignment from a top publication like National Geographic or Travel & Leisure is no guarantee of future assignments.
To understand the problem, it is important to examine the markets for travel photography. Scores of consumer magazines feature travel articles. The trouble is, the articles may use only a single shot for illustration, and they rarely make assignments; many prefer to obtain photographs free from the tourist offices or to buy them from the stock houses.
Other markets for travel photography include the airlines' own in-flight magazines, as well as newspapers, books, calendars, and even greeting cards. Other clients for travel photography include airlines, hotel companies, tour companies, and tourist offices.
Advertising is a major market, but Dennis was very critical of the quality and creativity there, which she attributed to the low budgets applied by travel companies. Per Diem rates are meager compared with those for other types of photography-perhaps $1,000 versus $2,500 for non-travel assignments.
About the only way that a professional travel photographer can make a living is to shoot for stock houses (agencies that are libraries for millions of slides from hundreds of photographers), which sell the rights to use the photographs to magazines, text-books, calendar companies, advertising agencies, and so forth, splitting the fee 50:50 with the photographer. Some stock houses are Gamma/Liaison, Black Star, Freelance Photographers Guild, and Photo Researchers, all of New York (consult the Yellow Pages for others).
It is difficult to make a living as a full-time travel photographer; yet you cannot be a part-timer, either. Hustling assignments and shooting stock that is current and in demand take a lot of time. "If you don't devote full time, you won't sell," said Dennis. "You may hit a local publication once or twice, or sell a few shots for postcards or calendars, but that's it."
A very different type of travel photography is shooting the "news" of the industry. Bill Conciliar has made a career out of being the "official" photographer at most industry functions, and he has traveled the world shooting.
