Travelers Tales wins Lowell Thomas Awards Again
Most people don't know about my "other" publishing company, which I started in 1994 with my brother James and his writing partner Larry Habegger, Travelers Tales. Our first book, Travelers Tales Thailand, won the Society of American Travel Writers prestigious Lowell Thomas Award for best travel book of the year. We've won it numerous times since. James just sent me a note to let me know we've done it again:
We won both Gold and Bronze for best travel book this year.
Gold: 100 Places Every Woman Should Go
Bronze: Best Travel Writing 2007
The Travelers Tales series is based on the insight that the best way to prepare for a trip isn't to pore over laundry lists of places to go and things to see, but to read stories by people who've been there. The books are anthologies of true travelers tales about places, or about themes (womens' travel, food, adventure, spirituality.)
A couple of my own travel stories have appeared in Travelers Tales (and are available online): Walking the Kerry Way, and Illumined in St. Chappelle.
To make this story remotely relevant to the normal themes of this blog, let me point out how much of traditional publishing is in fact based on "user generated content." Publishers don't create content so much as they search out, curate, and promote it. Travelers Tales has been in the business for years of assembling the best stories on a place or a topic, searching through both published and unpublished material. Bringing Web 2.0 to publishing means finding new methods of curation, but it doesn't mean that curation and editorial selection go away as key competencies.
tags: awards, best, publishing, travel, women, writing
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Comments: 6
[10.08.07 03:40 PM]
Great work.. any idea to come up with a book about "100 Places Every Man Should Go"
Thanks
[10.08.07 04:15 PM]
Isn't that the way travel books used to be? Mark Twain's "The Innocents Abroad" being a literary example.
[10.08.07 04:27 PM]
Raymond --
O'Reilly never published travel books. However, we originally distributed books for Travelers Tales. Then they switched their distribution to PGW.
Alex --
Yes, there have always been books that fall into the category of "travel literature." But what we've tried to do is to build a series of books that could be conceived as travel literature guidebooks. Marrying guidance with stories.
After reading a TT book, we hope you'll be inspired to push the boundaries of your trip, experiencing new things and people in a way that you wouldn't if you just read the normal guidebooks.
[10.09.07 11:34 PM]
Hi Tim, nice work. Have you checked out GlobeShooter yet? Maybe you could take 'Travelers Tales' to video. GlobeShooter is a Hollywood online video 'production' company that uses Web 2.0 thinking to improve and democratize the medium of UGC filmmaking. Maybe you can take this great product to new levels?
[10.16.07 08:16 PM]
Congrats on the Gold and Bronze! I enjoyed 2007 Best Travel Writing, especially Theroux's piece on being a sex slave and Ceglowski's "Argentina on Two Steaks a Day."
Please don't hate me for keeping Travelers' Tales from scoring a clean sweep, because I wrote the silver medalist book Is There a Hole in the Boat? Tales of Travel in Panama without a Car.
Speaking of your books, I frequently use O'Reilly books in my software work. In fact, I had to write my name in huge letters across the cover of my Lex & Yacc book to keep my fellow programmers from swiping it.
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Raymond Brigleb [10.08.07 03:10 PM]
Congratulations, Tim! For some reason, I thought O'Reilly actually still published travel books. Didn't you, at some point?