WRITING TRAVEL EBOOKS

Why Travel Books make ideal e-books:

My introduction into travel eBooks came around purely by chance. I have always had a very keen interest in Ancient Egypt and as a photographer I love nothing more than photographing the ancient monuments. This website had already been up and running for sometime and in 2000 I decided to create Ancient Nile, a multimedia website concentrating mainly on articles, interactive games, facts and figures.

However, after only a few months I realised that a great number of my visitors were actually looking for Egyptian travel information and due to the large volume of emails I received, asking a wide variety of questions, I concluded the best and most efficient way of getting the information to the customer was to create Egyptian Travel eBooks.

As with all writing I firmly believe you write best about what you know and as I had travelled to Egypt many times I felt confident enough to tackle the first of my projects; Nile Cruise.

It took roughly four months to get it ready for public viewing and then another nail-biting month before I sold my first copy. From then on there was no looking back and the great comments I received from my customers only encouraged me to make a start on my second eBook; 'Photographing in Egypt'. This was followed six months later by my third ebook; ‘Around Luxor’. I have now started work on my fourth ebook, which I hope to complete by December 2004.

The reasons behind my decision to create and offer eBooks were numerous.

• Firstly, the ability to sell them via my own website means I had complete management over marketing, presentation and price.
• People can download them worldwide 24/7 with a simple click of a mouse.
• With eBooks I have full control over the content; wording, images, multimedia, links, and design.
• I also have the ability to revise them as and when required.
• Ebooks are a great way of keeping in contact with readers and their needs. In fact some of the readers who have used the links in the eBooks, (to offer feedback or make enquiries) actually initiated some of my revisions. And the communication works both ways, as I am able to contact the readers and offer them a free copy of the updated ebook, which in turn helps to build and maintain good customer relations.

Having worked in a library for many years I am a great lover of the written word and whilst I understand there will always be the need and desire for the physical book, I also realise the great potential and advantages that eBooks have over hard copies; such as shelf-life, low costs, availability, flexibility, multimedia and interactive functionality. Not to mention being the ideal platform for specialist subjects such as my own, which a mainstream publisher may not consider worth his time, but for which there is still a demand.

Without the individual’s power to create eBooks, I strongly believe that many unusual works would never see the light of day. This would, in my opinion, be a great shame as many offer the reader information they would be hard pressed to find anywhere else.

What I consider makes a good travel ebook:

From my own experience what most people want from a travel book is good, up-to-date information, with plenty of illustrations, honest opinions, local insights, hints and tips. (Including possible scams and things to avoid.) Also they want general topics covering such things as; safety issues, medical information, money matters, cultural differences, available accommodation and main tourist attractions. (Plus a little light-hearted humour never goes a miss.)

E-Books offer me the flexibility I require to make sure the information I am providing is relevant to the present situation. For example, when the unrest started in Egypt in 2011, emails shifted from general tourist questions, to matters of safety and I was able to adjust the content of my ebook accordingly in order to cater for this growing need for uptodate information.

As far as I 'm concerned, it is no good just reaming off endless facts and figures to my readers, I want to make my travel eBooks interesting and unique, adding little anecdotes and personal experiences that not only inform the reader, but help them to prepare for their trip. Also I constantly try and provide them with information and illustrations they would be unlikely to find elsewhere. Likewise the ability to offer interactive content and multimedia to my eBooks is a great bonus. The more uniqueness I can offer my readers, the happier I am.

The possibilities are endless....

I find writing eBooks thoroughly rewarding, not only because I am writing about two of my favourite topics, Photography and Egypt, but I’m also having great fun along the way. All my travel eBooks are illustrated throughout from my own photographic collection and I plan to add more multimedia to any future publications, including original music which we also produce and sell via our Ancient Nile website. I have to admit once you've got the bug for ebook writing it's hard to stop, and personally I plan to write not only more travel and photography eBooks, but also Ancient Egyptian Novels!

I hope this short introduction into ebook writing has inspired you to give it a go, and if it has, don't forget to email and let us know how you get on. Good luck!