I recently sat down for an email interview with travel writer Wendy VanHatten. It was part of a blog book tour to celebrate the launch of her book, Travel Writing as a Freelancer.

Linda: You must love traveling. When/how did you first get the idea to turn your passion into an income stream?

Wendy: I started traveling at age 5 and haven’t stopped. When we were young, my parents “required” us to keep notebooks of our travels. When my corporate America job in health care was eliminated, a friend suggested I get back into writing. I looked around and decide to try travel writing. After taking some travel writing courses and workshops I knew it was a good fit. You need to work and work to make money at it and that’s ok. I have branched out into speaking, writing books and ebooks, teaching writing, editing other writers’ works, photography, and now an online travel business. It all fits together!

Linda: How does travel writing compare to other styles of writing?

Wendy: Travel writing is similar yet different. You still need to “sell” something, but some times you are only selling a “picture” in the reader’s mind. You write to entice readers to go to a place. You write to give armchair travelers a complete picture of that place. You write about a place because you love it. That doesn’t mean, however, you can write a “what I did on my vacation” story. People really don’t want to read that! That is the hard part of editing a new writer’s works.

Linda: What are one or two techniques that travel writers use to connect with their readers?

Wendy: I think being able to describe for your reader a vivid picture is one of the hardest, especially for new writers. You need to learn the technique of talking about the most beautiful beach you have ever seen in a way that your reader can SEE it. In other words, you need to learn to “show”…not just “tell” your reader about that beach. Another technique is to develop your own style. I use humor. Depending upon the publication, find a style or a niche that works for you and perfect it. Most of my articles have a piece of humor in them. It may be subtle, but it’s there.

Linda: I prefer to be an armchair traveler (I loved “Under the Tuscan Sun” and “Eat, Pray, Love”). Can you offer an opinion of why travel books are so compelling?

Wendy: I think everyone wants to travel…some in person, some as an armchair traveler. It’s the curiosity in us. I truly have never had anyone tell me they are trying to cut traveling out of their lives. We all want to know what the rest of the world looks like, how other people dress, what they ate for breakfast, or how hot it is in the desert. Usually travel books and articles have wonderful photos. I believe we all love seeing great photos of some far away place or some place we may have been. Isn’t it fun to see a castle in Germany or the top of a ski slope in Colorado and say “I’ve been there”?

I read through a review copy of Wendy’s book and a lot of the content is relevant no matter what kind of writing you’re doing. It includes some gems about success as a freelancer (self-discipline is key, I hear you there, Wendy!), writing query letters and telling a good story.

Plus, there is an incredibly useful explanation of the different kinds of “rights” that you may be asked to sell when you have an article published in a magazine.

As an armchair traveler, I found that I got the same vicarious thrill from reading about travel writing that I do from reading about travel. I wasn’t expecting that!

You can follow along with Wendy’s travels at http://travelsandescapes.blogspot.ca/.

Linda: Is there a way to ask your prospective clients directly what it would take for them to become a customer or client?

Alicia: Sure – that’s where your email list of potential clients and customers comes into play. I think there’s still lots of solo business owners who don’t quite grasp that building that email list is critical in creating an online business that produces income consistently.

I survey my email list, usually once a year, where I give them actually topics, programs, and the like to choose from (and they can add their own ideas as well), and I use that information to inform my offerings for the next several months or so.

I also ask periodically on discussion lists and forums that are made up of the solo business owners I work with. Plus, I ask “what’s your biggest challenge with building your business online” to everyone who signs up for my Creating Client Abundance ezine.

Linda: How do you make sure you’re creating the specific information products that your market REALLY wants and will buy?

Alicia: I’m really glad you asked this question, Linda, because this will be a huge shift for some folks listening to this – especially for those who aren’t make the number of sales they’d like to.

What I see happen a lot is that many solo business owners create products/programs/services that they think their prospects need – offerings that seem the most logical to them that will help their prospects do, be or have better – but then they can't seem to sell many – or any of what they put out there.

There are three important factors to creating a profitable product for your niche:

1. Always know your niche before you begin to sell them anything.

Get inside their heads, feel what they are feeling, enter the conversation on your niche’s mind, and intimately understand the problems that your niche is experiencing. The more you are able to do that, the more effectively you’ll be able to create what it is that they want.

2. It's not what you want to sell that matters. It's what your niche wants to buy that matters.

It’s actually irrelevant what it is that YOU want to sell to them – at least in the beginning of your relationship with your potential client or customer.

You may have already learned this lesson. I know I have, where I got so excited about creating something that I thought would be great for my niche, and I went ahead and put it together, and then watched in dismay as hardly anyone bought it.

On the flipside, when I created 21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System™, I was asking my niche all along what its biggest challenges were, and asking them what they wanted, and then I continually asked them what they wanted to so I could be certain I provided it for them – and my results this time were hugely different. Over 40% of my list bought the first edition of 21 Steps (which is an incredible conversion rate, by the way!).

3. Give them what they want now so you can give them what YOU want later.

To give you an example, I’m in the process of writing a book, which answers many of the challenges my niche is struggling with, and much more, but I didn’t specifically ask them if they wanted a print book to help them solve their problems.

Yet writing and publishing a print book is something that I’ve really wanted to do, and I feel confident that this particular product will sell because of three things:

(i) It solves the problems my niche has told me it wants solved. So, over time, I’ve already done my research to know this.

(ii) It’s a first-level funnel offering (< $50). It’s much less risky to create and offer something that you haven’t specifically asked your niche if it wants it if it’s a low-ticket item. I’d never put together a more complex product like a multi-media package or live event before making sure it’s something that a significant number of my list would be interested in enough to invest in it.

(iii) Because there’s a certain percentage of my list who’ve bought something from me before, so from that I can take an educated guess a certain percentage of those people will also buy the book.

If you will only ask your market, it wants to help you create the products it wants to buy!

Thanks, Alicia, for all of these great gems!

[Update, May 9, 2008 – My apologies to Joan for calling her "June" – again!]

I first introduced you to Joan Vinall-Cox in the post, "Want to write more? Get out more!" I got out last month, to a PWAC Toronto seminar, and that's where I met Joan.

She's a writing coach, editor and Web 2.0 consultant, and has a special touch for demystifying the world of Web 2.0.

I was delighted that we could set up a time to chat, and Joan graciously agreed to let me record our conversation as my latest http://del.icio.us as the best place to dip your feet into the Web 2.0 pool.

Joan is available for speaking and consultations, and you can reach her via her online portfolio at http://joanvinallcox.wordpress.com/my-e-portfolio/.