Reselling Travel Articles: Make More, Work Less Series #2

Dear Reader,

Yesterday, I sent you an article from reader and stock photographer, Kathy Burns-Millyard. Kathy takes one batch of photos and sells them all over the web in different stock photo agencies to double (and sometimes triple) her income.

Today, continuing our “Make More, Work Less” series, Roy Stevenson shares how he follows the same approach with his travel writing…

Scroll down to find out how you can make more and work less by selling the same article to multiple publications…

— Lori

Lori Allen
Director, Great Escape Publishing

Reselling Travel Articles

By Roy Stevenson

When I first started my freelance writing career in September 2007, my ambition was simply to write as many new articles as I could sell. But after writing several dozen stories, I discovered it’s far more lucrative to resell the same article over and over again.

It’s not unusual to average $600 to $1,500 a story by reselling travel articles. I’ve made nearly $2,000 for one story this way. It’s like free money.

For example, a resort travel piece I wrote recently appeared in a northwest regional lifestyle magazine for $500. After it was published, I sold it to another regional lifestyle magazine for $550 (including photos), and I’ve since sold this same piece to two yachting magazines, bringing my total earnings for this piece to $1,300.  In addition, the editor of one of the yachting magazines liked my work so much that I’ve written three more travel stories for him and have several more in the works.

I’ve learned a lot about reselling travel articles, and you should be thinking about doing this, too. Reselling travel articles saves so much time and increases your income dramatically. It only takes a few hours to dig up new magazines with resale potential.

Here are four tips you can use to become more productive and build your bylines much faster:

** 1. Dream up articles that will sell repeatedly. This is THE key. So think about resale when travel ideas pop into your head. After the story has appeared in one regional magazine, pitch it to another.

** 2. Submit your stories to publications whose circulations don’t overlap. Try regional magazines in your area first. They tend to prefer articles from locals. Then, don’t hesitate to pitch your article to magazines and newspapers in other states and countries.  The beauty of reselling travel articles simultaneously in other countries is that it multiplies your income. I regularly sell my military museum travel articles to magazines in the U.S. and U.K. What countries should you pitch to? Any English-speaking country will do: England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

** 3. Select topics that sell across genres. I select my running article topics with the objective of tweaking them a little, and selling them on to triathlon, fitness, multi-sports and health magazines.

** 4. Finally, if you’re sure your story will sell well, pitch slightly different topics or variations of your original story to all appropriate magazines you can track down. This way, you won’t have to be concerned about the same story appearing simultaneously in several magazines and offending editors with whom you’re trying to establish a rapport. I’ll often get several ideas when researching one story and pitch them to different magazines.

[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.]