Page 28 - Publishers_Weekly

T ravel Books

nascent publishing effort. Four years
Meet a Guidebook Author later, Steves self-published the handbook
Europe Through the Back Door, now in its
Carolyn McCarthy, author of more than 40 Lonely Planet 37th edition.
guidebooks Today, the erstwhile backpacker bibles
What can a guidebook offer that a web search are all grown up and clustered at the top
can’t? of the guidebook heap. During the first
The internet can be an immense resource, but it lacks three quarters of 2017, the brands that
an intelligent filter. Having a guidebook is the differ- evolved from this bootstraps network
ence between bringing your whole wardrobe on a trip were first and second in the world travel
and packing the bare essentials. It’s not reading com- guide rankings compiled by Stephen
ments from people like your cousin Mildred who Mesquita for the NPD BookScan Travel
leaves the country every six years and just found the Publishing Year Book. Lonely Planet is
cutest café in Paris. It’s getting the perspective of the now part of the NC2 Media portfolio,
person who has been to 40 cafés in Paris, talked to and Rick Steves and Moon are both pub-
locals and travelers, and curated that information. lished by Perseus imprint Avalon Travel.
(DK, Fodor’s, and Frommer’s rounded
What’s a typical day of guidebook research like? out the top five.)
If I’m in a city, I’ll go to hotels in the morning, when I In October 2017 APA, which pub-
can see guests checking out and eavesdrop on their lishes the glossy Insight guides, acquired
complaints; restaurants at lunch and dinner; and other Rough Guides, another foundational
stuff between. Sometimes a tip leads me on a wild backpacker line, underlining how valu-
goose chase, which takes up valuable research time but able this market segment is. Fodor’s, too,
can deliver big dividends in terms of new discoveries plans to launch a new line in 2019 that
or conversations with insightful people. It’s both about observing closely and editorial director Doug Stallings says
quietly and engaging with people who have intimate knowledge of a place. will focus less on hotels and resorts than
the publisher’s established products do,
What impact have developments like Airbnb and Google Maps had on and more on what he calls “authentic
the role of the guidebook writer? experiences” and “emerging destina-
I think guidebooks can coexist with the sharing economy and companies like tions”—buzzy terms that indicate
Airbnb. Airbnb serves travelers looking for engagement more along the lines exactly where the action is in the world
of a home stay. Travelers sometimes prefer the privacy, predictability, or servic- of guidebook publishing at the outset of
es at a hotel. As for map apps, who doesn’t benefit from not getting lost? 2018.
They’ll probably lead to guides with fewer maps, which leaves room to add
other kinds of content to the books. Are You Experienced?
“We had a passion for flat-out experi-
How do you reconcile the desire to share good information with the de- ences,” Steves says, when asked to
sire to keep a place secret and not, for lack of a better phrase, ruin it? account for the takeover that he helped
In some cases, I keep the secret. Not every place can withstand heavy visita- set in motion. “That has morphed from
tion. Yet, it’s interesting—in recent years I’ve seen a lot of remote areas sitting hippie-backpacker travel into staying at
on the verge of the kind of development, like mining or dams, that’s com- more palatable hotels, getting cash from
pletely invasive. If tourism is introduced responsibly, it can give places a much ATMs, and taking an Uber to the air-
more sustainable option than going industrial or having locals move to the port. But the core is experiential, and
city for work. what the public wants is experiences.”
Rick Steves’ Europe, a one-man opera-
What does it take to be a guidebook author today? tion in 1976, now has a staff of more than
Since your time and resources are always limited, it’s really a job for the jack- 100 that each year produces more than
of-all-trades. One should be adventurous, curious, hard-working, flexible, 50 guidebook editions, plus various
good-humored, persistent, and detail-oriented. Often it’s about preparing for public television and radio shows and a
plan B, C, or Z. You also should be able to drive a stick shift, manage sketchy syndicated column, and takes 20,000
roads, read style manuals, and be game to talk your way out of, or into, any- clients on tours. Though Steves’s per-
thing. —Alia Akkam sonal travel horizons have expanded
beyond the continent, his guides are still

26 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ JANU AR Y 22, 2018