Insight Guides Case Study for Travel Guide Covers
Posted in Book Design How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

Travel Guide Cover Design Case Study: Insight Guides

This case study looks at how Insight Guides have updated their travel guide covers. This review also includes design prompts for designing your own cover.

Should you use a Fiverr Designer for your Book Cover?
Posted in Book Design How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

Should you use a Fiverr Designer for your Book Cover?

Indie Author Dale L. Roberts conducted a cover design experiment on Fiverr which ended in success. Is it an option for you?

Frommer's Travel Guide Cover Case Study
Posted in Book Design How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

Travel Guide Cover Design Case Study: Frommer’s

This case study looks at how Frommer’s designs their destination guide covers. This review also includes design prompts for designing your own cover.

Play your book for less - countdown deal
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

Buy Book One for 99c

Book One in my How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide series has been reduced from $5.99 to .99c…

One Travel Writer's Journey for a Professional Line Edit
Posted in Book Production How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

One Travel Writer’s Journey for a Professional Line Edit (Part 3)

Travel Writer Sally Jane Smith shares her journey of working with an editor. She shares the lessons she learned during the line editing process

Marco Polo Cover design case study
Posted in Book Design How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

Travel Guide Cover Design Case Study: Marco Polo

This case study looks at how Marco Polo guides designs their destination guide covers. This review also includes design prompts for designing your own cover.

DK eyewitness travel Cover design case study
Posted in Book Design How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

Travel Guide Cover Design Case Study: DK Eyewitness Travel

This case study looks at how DK guides have updated their travel guide covers. This review also includes design prompts for designing your own cover, including the use of contrasting colors.

One Travel Writer's Journey for a Professional Line Edit
Posted in Book Production How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

One Travel Writer’s Journey for a Professional Line Edit (Part 2)

Travel Writer Sally Jane Smith shares her journey of finding an editor. She shares the lessons she learned during the process of writing and editing her first book.

How I got my books to #1 and #2 on Amazon
Posted in Book Marketing & Promotion How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

How I got my Books to #1 and #2 on Amazon

I put together this metadata case study to use the Amazon KDP strategies I’ve been learning about to see whether I tweaking my categories and keywords can improve my category ranking.

One Travel Writer's Journey for a Professional Line Edit
Posted in Book Production How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

One Travel Writer’s Journey for a Professional Line Edit (Part 1)

Travel Writer Sally Jane Smith shares her journey of whether or not she needs a professional line edit. She shares the lessons she learned during the process of writing and editing her first book.

Build your Travel Blog Community with Blog Commenting
Posted in Travel Blog Advice

Build your Travel Blog Community with Blog Commenting

How to build a reputation for your content by attracting blog comments on your travel articles, and where to find groups to help you get them.

Researching How to Market your Book
Posted in Book Marketing & Promotion How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

Researching How to Market your Book

There’s no way I could write a book to provide advice on marketing your travel related book, unless I’d tried them as part of my own book marketing activities. Includes a list of Amazon’s top 100 books in this category.

What stories are in your Travel Guide?
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Writing Tips

What Stories are in your Travel Guide?

Travel guides are based on facts and information, but in order to hook your reader you need to add personal stories and anecdotes for them to be able to relate to you. This is your competitive advantage, so it’s important to use this approach.

Rough Guides Cover design case study
Posted in Book Design How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

Travel Guide Cover Design Case Study: Rough Guides

This case study looks at how Rough guides have updated their travel guide covers. This review also includes design prompts for designing your own cover, including the use of contrasting colors.

Google Play Books Beginners Guide to Ebook Retailers
Posted in Book Production How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Self-Publishing Advice

A Beginners Guide to Google Play Books Publishing

Learn what software and steps it takes to create and distribute your ebook directly via Google Play Books to earn more royalties than going via a distributor.

Tips for Writing your Nonfiction Book Description
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Podcast: How Travel Writers Self-Publish

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#29: Tips for Writing your Nonfiction Book Description

Do you need some straight-talking tips to improve the quality of your book description? This 10 minute podcast offers tips specifically for nonfiction writers to entice readers to buy more books.

Develop your travel writing style: Vocabulary and Sentence Structure
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Writing Tips

Develop your Travel Writing Style: Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

How to use vocabulary and sentence structure to develop a travel writing style that suits your target audience.

Case Study of Travel Research Rachel Malek
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Podcast: How Travel Writers Self-Publish Self-Publishing Advice

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#28: Rachel Malek talks about her travel research process

Do you know what travel information is important to your audience. In this podcast episode we look at a case study of a millennials travel research.

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#27: Do you know your ebook distribution options?
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Podcast: How Travel Writers Self-Publish Self-Publishing Advice

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#27: Do you know your ebook distribution options?

In this 10-minute podcast episode we look at the two different ebook distribution options available to you, if you want to avoid just go exclusive with Amazon.

Develop your travel writing Style: Tone and Author Avatars
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Writing Tips

Develop your Travel Writing Style: Tone and Author Avatars

How to use Author Avatars to define your writing tone, to improve the quality of your travel guide content.

Kobo Writing Life Beginners Guide to Ebook Retailers
Posted in Book Production How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Self-Publishing Advice

A Beginners Guide to Kobo Writing Life

Learn what software and steps it takes to create and distribute your ebook directly via Kobo Writing Life to earn more royalties than going via a distributor.

Develop your travel writing Style: Point of View
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Writing Tips

Develop Your Travel Writing Style: Point of View

Confused about which point of views you can mix together when writing a travel guide? Use this guide and writing exercise to improve your travel writing.

Podcast Should you go Exclusive with Amazon KDP?
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Podcast: How Travel Writers Self-Publish Self-Publishing Advice

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#26: Should you go Exclusive with Amazon KDP?

In this 10-minute podcast we look at 3 different publishing strategies to consider and the benefits and drawbacks of Amazon KDP exclusivity:

Barnes & Noble Press Beginners Guide to Ebook Retailers
Posted in Book Production How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Self-Publishing Advice

A Beginners Guide to Barnes & Noble Press

Learn what software and steps it takes to create and distribute your ebook directly via Barnes & Noble Press to earn more royalties than going via a distributor.

Setting your travel guide’s objective.
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

Case Study: Establishing your Travel Guide Objective

The more specifically you define your book’s objective, the easier it will be to reach your target audience. Here’s a travel guide case study for my book.

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast #25
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Podcast: How Travel Writers Self-Publish Self-Publishing Advice

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#25: Using your Five Senses to improve your travel writing

In Episode #25 of our How Travel Writers Self-Publish we discover how to use your five sense to improve your travel writing. This 10-minute episode will catapult your writing.

My 90 day experiment for nonfiction ebooks with KDP Select
Posted in Book Production How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

My 90 Day Experiment for nonfiction ebooks with KDP Select

I’m conducting an experiment by enrolling all my travel guides and nonfiction books into KDP select for 90 days to see how much royalty I receive from Amazon for page reads.

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast How Travel Writers work with a writing coach Gillian Culff
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Podcast: How Travel Writers Self-Publish Writing Tips

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#24: Travel Writing Tips and Advice from Writing Coach Gillian Culff

In this 20-minute show travel writer Jay Artale chats with editor and writing coach Gillian Culff. Discover how to establish a productive working relationship with a writing coach and use Gillian’s tips to improve your travel writing.

Apple Books Beginners Guide to Ebook Retailers
Posted in Book Production How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Self-Publishing Advice

A Beginners Guide to Apple Books Publishing

Learn what software and steps it takes to create and distribute your ebook directly via Apple Books. You can create gorgeous interactive books, but is it worth the effort?

Competitive Analysis Prompts to research your book idea
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

Competitive Analysis Prompts to research your book idea

Here’s a list of prompts you can use to assess each element of your competitive research. This will help you evaluate the viability of your book idea.

How to research your ebook competition on Amazon
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

Research your eBook Competition on Amazon

Step-by-step instructions for using Amazon to manually research and assess the competition for your guide book. This is a budget conscious way to complete a competitive analysis.

Beginner's Guide to Self-publishing direct with ebook Retailers
Posted in Book Production How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Self-Publishing Advice

Beginners Guide to self-publishing direct with ebook Retailers

Introducing my five part series: Beginner’s Guide to ebook Self-Publishing Retailers to help you decide whether to go direct with a retailer or via a distributor.

Creating your ebook file for Amazon KDP How to Write and Selfpublish a Travel Guide
Posted in Book Design Book Production How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Self-Publishing Advice

Creating your flowable ebook file for Amazon KDP

There are multiple options for creating a flowable ebook file to upload to Amazon KDP. Choose one of these paid or free tools or software to take your book from final draft to published.

3 ways to approach your ebook formatting self publishing your travel guide memoir
Posted in Book Design Book Production How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Self-Publishing Advice

3 Ways to Approach your eBook Formatting

Do you want to take a simple or complex approach for formatting your ebook? There’s many paths you can take, and there’s no right answers. Just what’s right for YOU!

Beginner's guide to the pros and cons of fixed vs. flowable ebook formats
Posted in Book Production How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Self-Publishing Advice

A Beginners guide to the pros and cons of flowable vs. fixed ebook file formats

The impact of flowable vs. fixed layout text layouts in your ebook. The pros and cons of choosing the optimal ebook file format for your content. Fixed vs. Flowable.

Types of Travel Guide #6 Expat Travel Guide
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

Type of Travel Guide #6: Expat Travel Guide

Have you relocated to a new destination as an expat? Then you should consider sharing your first hand knowledge with other expats in the form of a How To Expat Travel Guide.

Should I publish and ebook or paperback?
Posted in Book Production How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

Don’t know if you want to publish an ebook or paperback?

We look at three different format strategy approaches based on your experience and budget available. Should you just publish an ebook, or a paperback as well?

Podcast How to Self-Publish a Travel Book Show with host Jay Artale- Ep14 How to create a nonfiction title
Posted in Book Marketing & Promotion How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Podcast: How Travel Writers Self-Publish

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#14: How to create your non-fiction title

In this 10 minute show travel writer Jay Artale covers how to create an effective nonfiction title to entice your readers to buy your book.

Posted in Book Design How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

Travel Guide Cover Design Case Study: Moon Guides

This case study looks at how Moon Travel guides have updated their old style design to create a cover that is more indicative of a Lonely Planet travel guide cover. Includes design prompts for designing your own cover.

Amazon KDP Beginners Guide to Ebook Retailers
Posted in Book Production How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Self-Publishing Advice

A Beginners Guide to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing

This article is part of my Beginner’s Guide to Self-publishing direct with ebook Retailers series and takes a closer look at publishing with Amazon KDP.

John Meyer Fictional Travel Memoir podcast
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Podcast: How Travel Writers Self-Publish Self-Publishing Advice

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep12: Publishing a Fictional Travel Memoir

This week our podcast features fictional travel memoir author John Meyer. He talks about his writing process and what book marketing techniques have worked in this travel niche.

Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Podcast: How Travel Writers Self-Publish

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#11: How and Why to Define your Book’s Content Scope

In this 10 minute show travel writer Jay Artale covers how to approach your book’s content scope and why it’s an important step in your book writing process.

How to use image grids in your ebook
Posted in Book Design How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

How to create image grids for your ebooks

If you’re including images in your ebooks you don’t have to settle for single inline images. How about including some full page image grids to wow your reader?

Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Podcast: How Travel Writers Self-Publish

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#9: How to Identify your Target Audience to focus your writing

In our latest How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast we cover How to Identify your Target Audience to focus your writing.

Podcast How to Self-Publish a Travel Book Show with host Jay Artale-Episode 7
Posted in Podcast: How Travel Writers Self-Publish Travel Blog Advice

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#7: How to reach more readers with your travel blog content

In our latest How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast we cover how to reach more readers with your travel blog content.

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#6: How to Brainstorm a viable Travel Guide idea
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Podcast: How Travel Writers Self-Publish

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#6: How to Brainstorm a viable Travel Guide idea

Listen to this 20 minute podcast to learn how defining your theme and angle helps to differentiate yourself against other books in your travel niche. Also pick up brainstorming tips for generating book ideas.

Page numbering tips for Nonfiction authors
Posted in Book Design How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Self-Publishing Advice

Page Numbering Tips for Nonfiction authors

Do you want a professionally numbered nonfiction but, but aren’t sure which pages get numbered, and which don’t? Here’s how to handle blank pages, and front and back matter.

Podcast How to Self-Publish a Travel Book Show with host Jay Artale What Travel Guide Category should you write in?
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Podcast: How Travel Writers Self-Publish

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#5: What Travel Guide Category should you write in?

An introduction to the major travel guide categories: Destination, Side Trip, Special Interest, Event Specific, Journey, Culinary, and Advice Travel Guides, and a look at the key considerations when writing each category.

Which amazon KDP royalty rate should I choose?
Posted in Book Design Book Production How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide

Which Amazon KDP ebook royalty rate should I choose?

Take the guesswork out of whether you should include images in your Amazon KDP ebook. Here’s a way to calculate the financial implications of choosing the 70% vs 35% royalty rate.

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#4: How to become a local travel guide author
Posted in How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Podcast: How Travel Writers Self-Publish

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#4: How to become a local travel guide author

In our How Travel Writers Self-Publish podcast we cover how to research and get inspired to become a local travel guide author.