How content creators can work with traditional publishers

Here are Adrian Phillips and Abigail King to talk you through how content creators can work with traditional publishers.

Adrian Phillips is the Managing Director of Bradt Guides – the world’s largest independent guidebook publisher – which is celebrating its 50^th anniversary in 2024. He is also a writer and broadcaster, with work regularly featured in The Telegraph, The Times, National Geographic Traveller, the BBC, and ITV.

Abigail King is the Head of Digital Content & Strategy at Bradt. She is also an award-winning writer and broadcaster who has worked with the BBC, UNESCO, NASA and more.

She’s the founder of Inside the Travel Lab, described by National Geographic Traveler as “Essential Reading” and Lonely Planet as “one of the best travel blogs in the world.”

Right, now you know who we are, let’s get started.

The Traditional Way:

Guidebooks

Of course, the first thing to mention involves the time-honoured tradition of writing a guidebook yourself. Guidebook writers need to be highly organised, detail focused and know their area extremely well.

The plus, apart from holding a physical book that you wrote in your hands? You’ll be seen as an expert in the destination, being known as a published author opens a lot of doors.

Don’t be surprised to find that you’re suddenly taken a lot more seriously by tourist boards, readers, and brands. And maybe even by your own mum.

At Bradt, we look for writers with a deep passion for, and knowledge of, a destination. You don’t need to write an entirely new book – we’re often on the hunt for writers to update existing editions – but it’s not a commitment to undertake lightly. Guidebook writing is a rewarding job but it’s an exhausting one too! 

In our talk, we’ll cover more about what writing a guidebook involves, how to pitch and how we find our authors. And we’ll share some successful pitching templates using real life examples.

Literature

Useful as guidebooks are, they aren’t the only books in town.

Travel narrative or literature titles involve telling stories. Notably, your story. But what makes your story interesting? What makes your perspective stand out?

It’s a hard question to answer but it helps to look for a theme. Minarets in the Mountains, for example, by Tharik Hussain challenges people to notice that Muslims live in Europe, and that they have done for centuries. Taking the Risk by Hilary Bradt talks about her life and career as a pioneering woman in travel publishing and adventure. Mary Novakovich’s My Family and Other Enemies describes a very personal journey back to her homeland in Croatia to learn about the impact of war and conflict on her family.

To publish anything, publishers need to feel that both you and they can earn money from the process at the end of the day.

That decision rests on the strength of your pitch but if you can’t find a traditional publisher right away, that doesn’t mean that’s the end of your publishing dreams.

In addition to, say, self-publishing on your blog or on Amazon, you can work with a traditional publisher in a slightly different way.

For example, Bradt’s Journey Books contract-publishing imprint offers people all the editorial expertise and sales infrastructure to make a success of self-publishing their book. It can help to have a recognised publisher’s name on the cover, to be listed on their website and to be managed by their distributor. If you can reach a market direct, it’s an avenue that’s very well worth considering.

New Ways:

While most print books are also released as eBooks, that’s just the start of how you can work with traditional publishers online.

What many people forget is that most publishers have digital networks of their own, with substantial email newsletter lists, social media accounts and thriving websites with a high domain authority and valuable link juice.

With that in mind, you can find a lot of value, both paid and unpaid, through working with the digital teams in publishing. It can also be a way to help secure places on press trips or through other partnerships with third party brands.

Plus, you don’t need to have published a book to work in the following ways.

Some of them are probably familiar to you already. It’s just a question of remembering to approach and interact with publishers when you think about working with brands.

Content Creators: Social Media Takeovers and Partnerships

Here, you publish a series of posts on the publisher’s social media networks, like Instagram, Facebook or Twitter/X. It’s a way of introducing yourself to another, highly relevant audience with the idea that they will click on your handle and head over to your account and hit follow.

Feature Articles

Do you have good writing skills and a great grasp of SEO? Publishers want to hear from you! Most have a blog on their website and are thirsty for content. If you can write a successful pitch, then you can boost your expertise and authority through brand recognition and link juice.

Video and Podcasts

Just because traditional publishers started with the written word, doesn’t mean they stayed there. At Bradt, for example, we publish audio files and videos within our private Travel Club area and that’s a great place for new content creators to get started.

Brand Ambassadors

Finally, at a deeper level, some publishers run Brand Ambassadorships. They work with a small, handpicked selection of content creators over a period of time, such as a year or more. It’s a publicity and support scheme that works both ways, with content creators promoting the publisher and the publisher in turn promoting the work of the content creator.

These partnerships are fantastic ways of building trust and authority with both your readers and brands.

And we are introducing our programme at Bradt later this year. Head to our talk or sign up here to be the first to hear the details.

Conclusion

So, with all that said and done, we’re still only just getting started. There are many ways to work with traditional publishers to boost your profile and career in travel content creation.

Head to our talk at TBEX Europe and look out for our takeaways at the end of the session. We’ll give you pitching templates, real-life examples and more, plus you can be one of the first to hear about our new brand ambassador programme by signing up here. TBEX Europe 2024