I spent last week pondering a book contract for a Hawaii travel guide. You’re saying to yourself, “What’s to ponder?!?! Off you go, missy!

November’s a comin’ and it’s already so dark in the evenings that you’re squinting at your book while drinking your 4pm coffee because you refuse to admit you have to turn the lights on, aren’t you?” Well, um, yes. Yes I am, but I want to explain something to you. This deal is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Don’t get me wrong. The offer is honest, the company legit, prestigious, even, the work desirable. All these things are true. The “not all it’s cracked up to be part” is around finances and little else. See, a travel writer’s life is a less than opulent one. It’s the reason so many of us have day jobs, can I get a witness?

Here’s the deal with this gig, and no, I’m not going to share the numbers with you. I get a flat fee with 20% paid upon presentation of the outline. I get the rest upon completion of the manuscript. I can use that initial 20% to offset my initial expense outlay because this company doesn’t cover my travel expenses. Let me repeat this: The company does not cover my travel expenses.

A smart, well organized traveler with good contacts and plenty of chutzpah can find ways to offset that. Lots of tourism offices have programs that will help legitimate journalists and writers by hooking them up with accommodations, access to attractions, etc… I’ve taken advantage of this before - the very nice folks in tourism for the Dolomites picked up the tab for our accommodation for two years running when we attended the snowshoe races, for example. And yeah, it’s awesome to score a couple of nights in a charming pension, but let me tell you something: that job ran in the red. We didn’t make enough money to cover the cost of gas to get down there. We had a fantastic time, it was worth every nickel we paid out of our own pockets, but we could not have paid the rent on it.

[I should probably write a sidebar about how to avoid writing advertorials and under what circumstances it’s okay or not okay to accept comps, but I’ll save that for another time. I will say that on my blog I always disclose when I’ve received a comp.]

Longer term trips require a bit more thinking, then, as you can imagine. I would like to travel with Mr. Nerd’s Eye View, who is the under-appreciated silent partner in these odd little adventures, with his patient driving, excellent eye with the camera, and oddly specific memory for details from conversations. “Honey,” I can shout from my desk as I’m typing up our latest adventures, “What did the aquarium guy say about the breeding habits of the Pacific Octopus?” He always knows. You hear my voice in the storytelling, but he’s the logistics guy, the guy who makes the computer work, who always has an extra battery for the camera in his pocket and an steady hand in low light. Tackling a guidebook without his assistance seems unthinkable, and tackling one in Hawaii without him might be unforgivable.

Consider, please: Plane tickets, meals and accommodations for two, adventures here and there, rental cars, inter-island transit, etc. amen. Consider also that the time spent zooming about the islands on a mad information gathering expedition is time spent not writing about extensible software solutions or the value of a new operating system for your PC. Yes, the zooming is certainly a delightful way to spend the time, but the hourly rate for creating copy that discusses file management software is, oh, a tiny bit higher than that for copy that describes the sparkling sands and gorgeous surfers of Diamond Head. And make no mistake, it will be a Lot of Work. It will not be a vacation. There will be places to go, things to do, agendas to follow, details to track, and little time for getting our Aloha on.

We are inclined to fantasize, around my house, about “getting paid to look at stuff and write things down” and indeed, this project is a giant step in that direction. But we are also inclined to a certain level of nesting, as contrary as that may seem from an inveterate traveler. I am oh so fond of watching the stormy skies roll in from the west while lolling on my couch and no, this is not incompatible with my craving for the exotic, can I not do both? We are also, unfortunately, a bit more grown up than we used to be, with a mortgage and a health insurance policy to pay for. I’m not mentioning all this to either diss the gig or the lifestyle, only to shed a little light on the financial realties, to show the full picture in 3-D. The glasses are not rose colored.

Currently, I am negotiating dates and dollars with the publisher, spamming the oh so patient guy at the tourism office with credentials, creating lists with possible destinations, and budgeting for both travel and writing time. It’s times like this that I hate being a big picture person. I would prefer to focus on the project at hand, skipping around the house while imagining my visit to the Kamaka ukulele factory with press credentials in hand. “Can I play that original pineapple? Can I, huh?” I would like little better than to park myself on a bench outside the (hopefully rebuilt) Hasegawa General Store, uke in hand, playing and singing, you guessed it, the Hasegawa General Store song Do I want to go back to my little grass shack? Do I ever!

Instead of fantasizing, I’m eying the savings account, calculating what time off for travel will cost me, front loading my day job projects and looking for more, doing math and more math,and let me tell you, I do not enjoy math. I do enjoy traveling though, and I love to write, and because of that, I am hoping to find a sensible way to make this project work and to still come out ahead.

And dammit, yes, that noise you hear is the heat in my Seattle house going on.

Related links

The Seattle Traveler lists a travel writing contest - submissions are due November 15th, so there's still time to polish your story.

Helen Leggatt released a PDF book - no, it's FREE - on how to be a travel writer, download it here.

There's a swell thread that includes loads of links to travel writing by women on Metafilter, here. And there's another list of travel writing favorite on BuzzSugar, here.

Pico Iyer (who I just LOVE) has written the Nine Commandments of Travel Writing here.

Reposted from my own site, Nerd's Eye View. Oh, and yeah, I took the contract. See you in the islands!