Interview with Chuck Thompson
Writer Chuck Thompson marked his problems with the travel industry in his recent book, Smile If you lie . I read the book, while Europe to travel and loved his sharp comments and funny anecdotes. Some people have the same opinion. Others did not. Fascinated by his opinion, I recently spoke with him about it in detail:
Nomadic Matt: why you remained As someone so critical of the travel writing industry, so long
Chuck Thompson: I have the travel writing industry critical, but it is a mistake to assume that this means, with all that I am unhappy. Most of the time I enjoy the work; most of the time I enjoy the journey. I have just returned from India-how post many other orders received for a month to India?
That is, I do not write exclusively travel stuff. I just did a story about New York sports teams for a new magazine called Luxury Manhattan. I'm doing an essay on bans for a city magazine in Portland to smoke. I consider myself a "writer" as much as I a "travel writer" so often do the work of a question of opportunity.
Could you imagine doing something else?
I can do a thousand other things. What, is not it a tragedy that we are only one life to live? I do not want to hard many people on a job bitch would love to have, but I do not know, do not sit around a single freelance writer who does not think of ways and get out of the business. Part of it is because there is very little financial security for authors. The pay is lousy, the work is unreliable for most of us. There is no 401k of, or health insurance for most authors. Magazines ask ourselves a lot more work to do for the same wage today we got twenty years ago.
There has always been more aspiring writers, as publication outlets. This makes it a buyer's market, which means writers generally on the short side of the ledger are filed. How to overcome it? Will Bill Bryson. Or be content you probably live a scratch-and-mouth existence as a writer. Like the music, drama, painting, etc., real money is only a small percentage at the top of the game.
Did you think about writing this book for a while or has the idea, just come one day? Was there anything in the book that you wanted to close, but so far not able to get in?
The idea of the course of time developed. I sat for a few years on it only one way of thinking about angles, even to bring before ideas on paper. Finally, I wrote the first proposal for the book. It took about a year and a half after that to sell it, another year to write it. During all this time the book was constantly tweaked. The rough draft of the book came to about 0 pages in. The last book is about 325. So, yes, there were a number of anecdotes or observations which I had originally hoped to get in. But some just do not fit the chapter topics, or were unnecessary, or just simply have not seem so interesting, when I had written. a Shanghai Bob or another story - -. I saved a couple of them that somewhere might show up on the street
If you discussed the magazine Travelocity, you said that only about 5 million people read travel magazines. Why do you think that number is so little?
For the most part, travel magazines to be marketed to elite travelers. So if you each year to 100 million unduplicated American travelers figure and then find out you are trying to reach the top ten or fifteen percent to sell, then five million subscribers is probably what you are having filed. Another way to say this is that travel magazines do not want the ground to read eighty or ninety percent of the traveling public their magazines because these people can not afford, Rolex and Cartier watches and Escalades and business class tickets for Tokyo Starwood Suites in London, and these are the advertisers that keep most magazines in the business. A readership with a household income of less than $ 100,000 USD drags a magazine capacity, high-end advertisers sell down.
Why can a magazine that is not a glorified press release for sale? I would be interesting in buying a magazine that dealt with independent travel and lifted the crazy places in the world.
This is quite easy to answer. Publications do not write about crazy and independent (ie, "cheap") to travel, because the companies that cheaper travel (local restaurants, inexpensive transport, family hotels, etc.) supporting not have the money to advertise. Travel publications and travel sections of newspapers largely exist the megaphone of their advertisers to be. So if Four Seasons $ 250,000 worth of ads in a specific publication buys what hotel you think the publication is to write? A mother-and-pop Pension can never afford to advertise in a Western newspaper or magazine. But the Raffles Hotel in Singapore can. Therefore, you should get "Tips" advises you to the Raffles in Singapore to go, and not a funky one bedroom cottage that. Just on the coast of Malaysia Readers are important, but ultimately magazines are kept in business by advertising money.
What do you think mags about the rise of online travel as World Hum, Matador or Gadling? Is the future of Independent Travel Magazine online mags
of travel and sites are great ?; I check out from time to time and have a few bookmarked. But the Internet is pressure in the same manner television replaced radio and to replace the films. In my view, the end of the pressure is greatly exaggerated. I prefer still to read on the paper through a monitor.
You are quite pessimistic on the whole industry. Is there any hope for the travel writing job or we are doomed?
The travel writing industry is, as long as the travel industry stays afloat be fine. Well, if peak oil and resource wars and all that really get off the ground, or if the American economy goes down and the dollar continues to be international toilet paper, the travel industry is a very hard hit. And most travel writers for another job search. It all depends on how optimistic are you about the oil prices and the overall economy.
What do you think about the Thomas Kohnstamm affair? He is another writer who laid bare the industry in some way, and got a lot of flack. Was he books or told to sell it?
I have not read his book, but heard about it from everything that I have, not on what he says, surprised me not at all.
But let me speak an assumption that is at the root of your question. The proposal that you make when you ask if anyone "to sell only books" is that somehow the work is easily damaged, because it has a price tag attached to it. I have never understood why this argument is gaining so much traction among book reviewers and readers. The profit motive is driving any kind of work and services and products in this country. Each one of us does what we do for money. Teachers, lawyers, the man who bags your groceries, cops, plumbers, taxi drivers, everyone. None of these people would show up for work 50 weeks per year, if they were not paid, they still should.
Is the fact that you paid for your work mean that I can not rely on the integrity of your work? On the contrary, implies a certain degree of reliability of a professional to be typical. People who have paid a much greater incentive to do a good job, because does a good job, they will get paid more and maybe even pay even more for the next job. Let's say you are want to build an addition to your home. Who do you think will do a better job: an amateur who agrees to the contract for free or a professional contractor who you bid $ 60,000 and wants no job "he is the only way to earn some money to"? The amateur might be cheaper, but I guarantee you the contractor will do a better job.
I meant "was he sensationalizing what happens in the industry?" There are many cut corners and internet research of writers made? Or stand on most travel writers People who do everything by the book?
Once again, I have not read the book. But cutting corners travel writer and research stories on the Internet, rather than locally? Absolute. Ask ten travel writer if she had ever written about a place they have never set foot in, and if they are honest, at least seven or eight of them will tell you, yes. Does this mean that they do not "stand up" people? I dont know. The problem is that publications that pay shitty writing fees and zero cost of money and then ask a writer in Seattle, to write a 500-word piece about Orlando. So the writer reports on and vomits some information because he or she wants the money and that is what has become as much of the profession these days. That is, I think, most of the information in magazines and guidebooks is fact checked to some degree, and that there is usually reliable. But not perfect.
Want to encourage people to travel writer your opinion of the industry be given?
I never someone encourage a travel writer to be. I think it's a pretty thin target. I received a form of this question of writers quite often coming and here is what I always tell them: It's not really a "travel writer" to travel and write. It is easier and better to focus definitely on "Write", as opposed to "travel literature". You can all sorts of things-politics, sport, the environment, immigration, cinema, gardening, architecture, gastronomy, art writing history-and even travel. If some "travel literature" creeps in this process, in order.
What people are really asking when they ask this question is, "How can I get to pay someone else for my trip" You are more attracted to travel and perhaps the writing (or the idea of writing), as to the actual "travel writing", many of which glorified PR copy writing and not much fun puke out.
many of my readers are wannabe travel writer. What dangers and errors you would tell them to pay attention
I am convinced, in the Hemingway Quote :? ". There is no such thing as great writing, only great rewriting" I've been an editor with four magazines, and you would be surprised how much sloppy copy comes in. It is quite obvious that most authors are satisfied with their first or second draft, their first or second approach to a story. First and second efforts stink almost always. Somewhere on the tenth or fifteenth tries begin to come together things. I never turn that I do not read into anything and edited twenty or thirty times, minimum. When I was in one piece, I turn usually can most of them recite from memory, only because I have read it so many times.
Bill Bryson is funny and obviously a gifted humorist, but me his secret weapon is all the hard research, which he does. The guy is digging some really good information about places, and not overused sources such as brochures and history texts and newspapers - he goes and interviews people and really worked digging work of a historian. Most authors do not take the time to do that.
You can visit his personal website about Chuck Thompson, Chuck Thompson Books. Or you can buy on Amazon.
0 Response to "Interview with Chuck Thompson"
Posting Komentar