Great Escape Radio: Travel Writing | Photography | Publishing | Writing

GEP Podcast #14 “Opening up Great Escape Publishing’s Importing Fortunes program is like opening up the entire world of products that a person could sell to anybody and everybody.” – Jeff Carley For more on how you can get started with import/export today, visit: www.greatescapepublishing.com/start/importingfortunes. GEP Radio Podcast #14: Finding success with import/export In last week’s episode, you were introduced to the idea of import/export as a way to earn spare income for a travel fund or to create an income replacement all together. On this week’s episode, you’ll hear from reader and import/export success story, Jeff Carley, who makes $12,000 monthly and nets around $9,000 a month selling products in four online stores. He’ll explain how he found Great Escape Publishing, how he went about picking products and setting his stores up, and how he’s achieving great success working just 3-4 hours a week. Jeff says, “I spent six years looking for a way to make money online from home before I found the GEP pr

GEP Podcast #13  “Great Escape Publishing is really about confidence, prestige, power, conquering the world and being the best person you can be.” – Lori Allen For more on how you can get started with import/export today, visit: www.greatescapepublishing.com/start/importingfortunes. Great Escape Radio Episode #13: Introduction to Import/Export  While the majority of Great Escape Publishing’s programs are focused around travel writing and photography… there are several other get-paid-to-travel opportunities they highlight as well. And in this episode you’ll learn all about import/export. If you’re after spare income for a travel fund or you need an income replacement all together so you can live anywhere and come and go as you please, import/export may be the perfect opportunity for you. But what is import/export? Picture this scenario: Surely you’ve been somewhere and forgotten something. Maybe you’re about to fly somewhere and realize you’ve forgotten your iPhone charger. You pop into an airport store and pa

GEP Podcast #12 “Talking behind the scenes isn’t the secret to success – doing something is.” -- Lori Allen For more on how you can get started with photography today, visit: http://www.greatescapepublishing.com/start/photography. Great Escape Radio Episode #12: The Secret to Photography Success In this episode, Lori Allen gives her thoughts on fabulous photographer and Great Escape Publishing workshop instructor, Bonnie Caton. “It would be hard to find a better photography teacher than Bonnie,” says Lori. “She has only been doing photography for about five years or so, but she’s always been a good at teaching – and just keeps getting better.” Attendees at the Great Escape photography workshops love Bonnie because she understands what it is like to be a beginner, to feel intimidated by a camera and what to photograph. As Lori points out, “Everything she learned has come from the Great Escape Publishing instructors and programs. Bonnie is still growing and is excellent at taking others along with her – down th

Podcast #11 “I knew I wanted to do something creative.” –Cheryl Bigman For more on how you can get started with photography today, visit: http://www.greatescapepublishing.com/start/photography. Great Escape Radio Episode #11: Reinvent yourself with photography Cheryl Bigman was going through a transition when she found Great Escape Publishing. She was going through a divorce, her daughter was growing up and she was ready to reinvent herself. And as long as she was reinventing herself, she wanted a career change too. She was tired of standard desk jobs – she wanted to do something creative. Then she saw an ad for the Great Escape Publishing Photography Workshop in Paris and decided to check it out. At the Great Escape Publishing Photography Workshops, attendees get the chance to learn how to take great photos, they practice every day to learn what they’re doing right or wrong and there is always someone to help you with your camera and give you feed back. Cheryl signed up for the workshop, hopped on a plane to

GEP Podcast #10 "The world is out there waiting for you…just go grab it." - Theresa St. John For more about how you can get started with travel writing today, visit: www.greatescapepublishing.com/travelwriting.   Great Escape Radio Podcast #10: Travel writing and photography can change your life Today on Great Escape Radio, Lori Allen introduces us to Theresa St. John…a true success story in both travel writing and photography. Like many people, Theresa made it to her 50s without really knowing her true talent. Her sisters had each found their niche, but she just couldn't quite figure out hers. Then she attended the 2013 Great Escape Publishing Ultimate Travel Writing Workshop in Boston, Massachusetts.   During the workshop, the instructors gave the attendees instructions on ways to find stories and sell them to editors. As part of the class, everyone was sent out into the city to look for a story. Theresa headed out into the Boston neighborhoods in search of a good story idea. She's a big fan of coffee, so s

GEP Podcast #9 “When life threw me a curve ball, it was photography to the rescue.” –Kristin Bentz For more on how you can get started with photography today, visit: http://www.greatescapepublishing.com/start/photography. Great Escape Radio Episode #9: Photography to the Rescue Today on Great Escape Radio Lori Allen introduces us to Kristen Bentz – a high-energy, creative and dynamic cruise line travel consultant turned photographer. Kristen attended a Great Escape Publishing photography workshop in 2012. Like most of the other amateur photographers at the event, she enjoyed taking vacation photos but knew very little about photography – or even her own camera. She wanted to learn how to take better photos and how to sell them. “Kristen was super-charged after the photography workshop,” says Lori. “Things snowballed really quickly for her.“ Here’s Kristen’s story… “Not long after attending the photography workshop in 2012, life threw me a curve ball. In order to care for someone very special to me, I had to q

GEP Podcast #8 "All success is built on failure. So go fail - screw it up!" -Wayne Hoover For more on how you can get started with photography today, visit: http://www.greatescapepublishing.com/start/photography. Great Escape Radio Episode 8: So Many Roads to Photography Success Great Escape Publishing member, Wayne Hoover didn't set out to become a photographer. In fact, he originally wanted to try travel writing, but a GEP one-day photography workshop set a new career in motion for him. And in the last year, he’s had so much success with his photography business that he returned to a recent Great Escape Publishing photo workshop to present his story on their success panel. As Wayne says… "Remember when you were in kindergarten and they gave you crayons and told you to start coloring. Color anything you want, they said…there's no right or wrong. You were thrilled. But then as you got older they gave you an algebra book, told you to grow up and get prepared to climb the ladder of success. But then when you ge

GEP Podcast #7 “If you have a dream, you can spend a lifetime studying, planning, and getting ready for it. What you should be doing is getting started.” -- Drew Houston For more about how you can get started with photography today, visit: www.greatescapepublishing.com/start/photography. Great Escape Radio Episode #7: Stock Photography Bonnie Caton joins Great Escape Radio in this episode to talk about breaking into stock photography. Bonnie sells many of her photos through online stock photo agencies like Shutterstock and iStock. She also owns a photography business in Portland where she focuses on professional headshots. One of the things she enjoys about selling photos through stock agencies is that it provides a monthly income with very little effort. It’s also an excellent way to subsidize travel. Here are some basic tips for getting started in stock photography: Look into stock agencies and choose a few you want to work with. Sign up as a member at each. Start uploading your photos to those agencies. (

GEP Podcast #6 “There’s winning and there’s learning, but there is no losing.” For more about how you can get started with photography today, visit: www.greatescapepublishing.com/start/photography. Great Escape Radio Episode 6: Introduction to travel photography When you’re first getting started with photography, it’s important to remember this theme: “There’s winning and there’s learning, but there is no losing.” At Great Escape Publishing’s photography workshops, Director Lori Allen notes that beginner photographers often become discouraged when presented with the fabulous photos taken by the professional instructors. But they shouldn’t. The only way to become a great photographer is to take pictures. You don’t lose when you take a bad photo – you learn. And while the journey from beginner to expert photographer may be a long one –that’s part of what makes it fun. And Great Escape Publishing likes to focus on the fun in their workshops and programs. In fact, most of their pro instructors didn’t start as car

GEP Podcast #5 "There are no shortcuts to any place worth going." -- Beverly Sills Great Escape Radio Episode 5: The Pros, Cons and Etiquette of Free Travel Perks One of the things that attracts people to travel writing is the idea of traveling for free or for less than what an ordinary tourist would pay. But before you accept a free hotel stay, free tickets to a museum, free tour, or even a free trip, it is important to know the rules and etiquette that go along with these perks. Destinations roll out the red carpet for travel writers. Why? They need to sell the traveling public on their destination or brand. A destination can buy ad space in a big travel magazine for a price of anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000. Or, they can have a travel writer come to the destination, experience it first-hand, and then write an article for publication in that travel magazine, online and possibly several other places. Bringing the writer in often costs much less than that ad space. And let’s face it, we all trust articles ov

GEP Podcast #4 "If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have the time to do it over?" -- John Wooden   Great Escape Radio Episode 4: Insight into Query Letters What is a query letter?  It is the e-mail you send to pitch your story ideas to an editor – and, it is one of the most important parts of travel writing.    When you pitch your ideas, there’s a big pool of freelancers out there who you are competing with, but there are very few of them who do query letters correctly.  People who follow the advice of Great Escape Publishing’s programs land in that very small percentage of people who do it right. Kyle Wagner started as a food critic and later moved into travel writing.  Eventually she became the travel editor for the Denver Post where she spent over 10 years.  Today she is freelancing and loving life.  Here are Kyle’s dos and don’ts about query letters from an editor’s point of view: Editors get a lot of queries so the subject line is important.  You want to grab the editor’s attention righ

“It’s the job of editors to edit but it isn’t the job of editors to find the nice tight little story you were supposed to fashion in the midst of the encyclopedia you produced.”   If you love the thought of being a travel writer but feel intimidated about coming up with ideas for travel articles, author of The Ultimate Travel Writer’s Program and International Living Executive Editor, Jennifer Stevens has some sage advice to help you along the way to your life as a travel writer. When Great Escape Publishing first started talking about travel writing 15 or 16 years ago, there were only a few big travel magazines.  Those magazines had plenty of writers on staff that they would send on assignments to find stories.   Today however, those big travel magazines have significantly reduced staffs and are using freelancers to find write the travel stories they need.  Of course big magazines like Conde Nast, Travel & Leisure, and National Geographic get thousands of people trying to sell them articles.  (As a trave

“If you hear someone say ‘I would never go there’ and you think ‘challenge accepted’, you might already be a travel writer.” Great Escape Publishing produces a number of programs to help people get paid to travel, including travel writing, photography, leading tours for fun and profit, language programs, and creating an import/export business.  But it all started with travel writing...   Over the last 16 years their flagship travel writing course, The Ultimate Travel Writer’s Program has evolved to keep up with current trends, and continues to give ordinary people the opportunity to create a new life filled with unique travel experiences and perks. So who is a travel writer?  Jennifer Stevens, the architect behind the Great Escape’s travel writing program and Executive Editor for International Living magazine, offers this, “If you hear someone say ‘I would never go there’ and you think ‘challenge accepted’, you might already be a travel writer.” Travel writing isn’t for everyone, but it is for those who are n

For more about how you can get started with travel writing today, visit: www.greatescapepublishing.com/travelwriting.   Great Escape Publishing’s philosophy is simple: to show you how to enjoy a life of travel, adventure, creativity, and freedom – and earn a good living. Whether it’s diving on the Great Barrier Reef, shopping in an open-air market in Ecuador, or exploring the culture and romance of Paris, you can earn paychecks and perks for sharing your experiences. And they want to show you how. Starting as a group of “untourists” making their way around the world in search of more unconventional ways to travel… today, members are import/exporters, travel writers, bloggers and photographers. They don’t have degrees in business and journalism, and haven’t spent years in photo school.  They’re just everyday folks who like to travel, and pay for it by following their passions: importing one-of-a-kind treasures, selling stories and photos to magazines, newspapers and websites across the globe. If you’re ready