Before I became a travel author I used to work in advertising. As jobs go it wasn’t too bad. I could wear jeans to work. And I got to flick through cards sent by modelling agencies when we were casting for TV commercials. Sometimes, if I was good, I was allowed to go along when they were filmed.
It meant that when I finally got published I appeared suddenly from left-field. I wasn’t a journo who wrote regularly for the travel sections of newspapers and magazines. Nor did I have friends in the publishing industry. I was just a schmuck who got lucky. I think it pissed off a lot of travel writers who felt that I hadn’t paid my dues writing 1,500 word articles about the Holiday Inn at Tamworth. I shouldn’t mention any names but a Mr Bruce Elder of the Sydney Morning Herald springs immediately to mind.
Not being part of the ‘travel writing club’ meant that I’ve never been on a ‘junket’ – the all-expenses paid trips put on by tour companies and tourist boards in return for a favourable article in a paper or magazine. I wasn’t part of the system, you see. I wasn’t a member of any travel writing associations. I wasn’t on any tourist board’s mailing list. I just used the advance from one book to finance the trip that would become the basis for the next one.
Now, seven years after my first book was published, I’m suddenly being invited to things. In the space of a week I’ve been invited to play in the PGA National UK Media Open on a golf course in Ireland, enjoy a six-day familiarisation tour of Gujurat in India and fly to Mississippi to do a piece about a seafood festival on the Gulf Coast for The Observer. Either they’ve got me mixed up with Tim Moore or they asked him first and he was too busy.
I’m not really sure what I should do. I liked the fact that paying out of my own pocket meant that I could say what I really thought about a place. But the blagger in me is tempted by the prospect of a few days away at someone else’s expense.
What do you guys think I should do?
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Go … write another book about how it is. Perhaps it’s time to test the theory that you can only write about the trips that you pay for …
you never, ever say no to free stuff!!
Ok yes, you shouldn’t say no to free stuff, but what I like about you Peter is that you know you have balls and your not afraid to use them (the Robert Mugabe rally springs to mind in SFTBH). You should ‘do’ and most importantly write what you feel you need to. However i’m guessing because they have asked you (that is if they haven’t really mistook you for Tim Moore) they know how you write and maybe they are expecting you to write how you do (make sense…?)
Remeber there are plenty more golf clubs in the world….but then again…free seafood…god it really is a tricky one!!
The free trip to India and the seafood festival sound great – go for them,
the write whatever you want to write about them. The golf tournament’s a tricky one though – can you actually play golf?
Nup. Never played a round. That’s why I thought it could be fun – in a Happy Gilmour kind of way!
Perhaps the golf tournament should be approached in a Hunter S Thompson mode?
Shame on you all. Don’t do it Pete!!! The reason we read your books is because you approach places and people from a different direction. They’ll fly you in and drive you around. How are you going to find a different perspective?????? You may as well be Bill Bryson!!!
Do it Peter. Take the free stuff. Please, please do it. Do it for me and do it for all of us sad sap copywriters who never got that lucky break – but haven’t given up hope. Don’t let us lose hope Peter. Some days, you’re all we’ve got.
I’ve always said to myself that i wouldnt sell out. Whatever i end up doing I will always remember my roots. The people who have knocked you in the past will be something that you probably never wanted to turn into yourself. If you get free stuff in return for a blown up and not true article, could you be proud of that?
I say take the free stuff and write the truth, write the way you always do and if they dont ask you again then at least you havent mislead anyone and you are being a true journo.
Thats my opinion, abit deep i know.