As a freelance travel writer, you can travel the world and simply click pictures and write about your travels. It is among the most exciting career options today; one that has a big future, with people yearning for newer, possibly even more exotic locations.
Your duties as a freelance travel writer will revolve around travel and chronicling your travels. Newspapers and, increasingly, online forums such as blogs and online magazines offer the ideal working ground for travel writers. Some of the duties that you shall have to fulfil, as a travel writer, include:
Freelance Travel writers must possess all the necessary skills that writers boast off, but the crucial difference is that they are also in-tune with one sport or many and continue to feel strongly about. Travel writers thus require certain additional skills over the ones who develop copy, or pen novels. There are many skills that you will be needed to master, if you wish to become a sport writer. Some include:
Many websites, forums, and instructional videos offer resources so that you can hone and perfect the inner travel writer in you. Some of the websites where you can pick up skills needed, include Woman on the road, London School of Journalism, Travel Writers Exchange, Writers and The Writer Workshop among others, which offer both free and paid-for resources, and in some cases certifications for travel writing.
Travel writing is a lucrative profession, where people like you who love to travel and record your travels can easily combine hobby into profession, come up with quality copies, and earn some money from the comfort of your couch. With experience, the ‘some’ money in question, rapidly evolves into handsome money.
More often than not, talent is not a determinant of success in any sphere. It is possibly truer for writers, with the freelance market insisting that talent combined with the relevant experience attracts generous prospective employers.
Hence, to be successful initially, you could:
So how much do freelance travel writers earn.
Most of the revenue generated by you depends solely on your ability to market your services and your credibility with previous employees.
Usually freelance portals offer various kinds of payment models. In the fixed-price model, the price is usually pre-determined. The hourly model is the most popular and employers usually pay a predetermined sum per hour. Finally, in the project-budget based model, you often need to auction for such projects. Usually a fixed price model may range from $20- $200 and upwards, while you have to pitch for hourly projects, and budget payments, which usually range from $5- $35 an hour, with average payments at $20 per hour.
Finding work as a travel writer is quite easy. However, it may require efforts on your part. Quite a lot of effort in fact, network with other writers and editors to build a responsive network. In the past decade, many portals exist where you can apply for jobs all over the world and offer proposals for international projects.
The most advisable course of action is to take the extra pain, go the extra mile, at the start of your career, at the least. It is important to remember that you are entering a market, as a freshman and thus, you must be willing to put extra efforts. Odesk, Elance, Guru and Peopleperhour offer many jobs to freelance travel writers globally.
Freelancing has opened up the way we view work: and the trend only continues to rise. All you writing enthusiasts, you wordsmiths who wish to carve a niche in this booming field, do not just think about pressing those keys, like ‘Nike’, which rhymes with Spiky, has always said: ‘just do it’.
You can learn travel writing and pick up the skills needed from many websites. Websites like Woman on the road, London School of Journalism, Travel Writers Exchange, Writers and The Writer Workshop offer both free and paid-for resources, and in some cases certifications for travel writing, where you can learn without having to move from your seat.
For more information on Freelance Travel Writer please visit www.careerlancer.net
