Pre-Trip Research 101: Finding the Best Places to Publish Your Articles

Start thinking about article ideas with a specific publication in mind. Sure, once you get to the destination you’ll be writing about you may find that you need to tweak the idea a bit, given what you find on the ground. But you have to start somewhere.

1) The very first thing I did was make a list of publications where I know I have a foot in the door. I have an “in” — as do all our written course graduates and workshop attendees — with the editor at International Living and also with the editor at The Traveler. In fact, I already have their writer’s guidelines because they’re published in our course books. We also have an in with Escape Artist, so I’ll keep that in mind when I write my real estate articles.

2) Next I went one-by-one through the listing of publications in the back of the second edition of The Ultimate Travel Writer’s Course. (If you have the first edition, one with a yellow cover, you can purchase an upgrade by calling 561-278-5557.) I added to my list every publication I thought might consider publishing a Belize piece. I noticed that some of these publications don’t pay much, but they will publish something that has already appeared elsewhere. This will come in handy later when I want to resell my articles. (See Chapter 11 of our Business of Writing Guide to find out more about selling rights and reselling articles.

3) Then I broadened my publications search. First I considered my local publications. But Belize is a hard sell for Delaware since we’re so far from a major airport. I probably won’t waste my time here.

Instead I checked out publications in larger cities — those with airports. The Baltimore Sun offers free access to their archives online. I found that they’ve featured travel articles on Belize in years past. but nothing recent. I emailed the editor for their writer’s guidelines, and I added this to my list of places I might possibly publish something. I printed out a few articles they’ve run recently so I could read through them and get a better sense for the style and content.

The Washington Post lists their writer’s guidelines in Writer’s Digest’s Writer’s Market, and their website also offers free access to their archives. I did a search there and learned that they ran an article on Belize this past March and sent one of their staff writers on a jaunt around Central America just this month. I decided that the likelihood of them publishing a piece on Belize from me would be slim. I figured my time would be better spent elsewhere.

That got me thinking that I should also check publications in areas with direct flights to Belize. Continental Airlines and American Airlines are the only two carriers that fly to Belize City, so I figured I’d start with their hubs: Cleveland, Newark, Houston, Chicago, Dallas, and Miami. I found a listing of each city’s print publications here.

My list was starting to get a little long (a good problem to have) so rather than research each of these right off the bat, I started with the publications that offer free access to their archived issues. (At least this way I can get a feel for the publication without spending a lot of money. And I can always go back to the other publications later if I find I need to.)

Finally, I turned to the airlines’ publications. Continental Airlines and American Airlines both have in-flight magazines.

4) Next I looked up each of my target publications in Writer’s Market and created a chart much like the chart we recommend our readers use for tracking query letters (see Chapter 9 of our Business of Writing Guide). I included details specific to each publication, like: do they have a regular travel section, do they accept freelance articles, how many words do they want, are their travel stories typically written in first person, do I notice any trends in style or format? If I didn’t find the answers in Writer’s Market, I searched the publication’s website and archives.

(The airlines magazines’ guidelines aren’t listed in my Writer’s Market, but I lifted a copy of Continental Magazine on my flight back. Inside I found the name of the magazine’s publisher and went to their website in search of guidelines. I finally found them here.)

American Way Magazine, American Airlines, in-flight magazine, isn’t accepting unsolicited articles, so I’ve scratched that off my list.

All this might sound like a lot of work, but I did it in just two evenings, and I picked up a lot of good article clips as I read through the publications I was researching — articles that were written well and that I might use as models for my own.

I felt like this was enough to get me started, but I realize I left out a lot of online publications as well as international newspapers and glossies.

My goal is to leave no stone un-turned. So now that I’m back home, I’ll be sure to research them. (See Chapter 1 of our Business of Writing Guide for a listing of the international publications freelance travel writer Steenie Harvey recommends.)

[Editor’s Note: Learn more about opportunities to profit from your travels (and even from your own home) in our free online newsletter The Right Way to Travel.]