Travels both intrepid and trepidatious, around the world and around the block

Writers' Guidelines
& Manuscript Submission

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The Intrepid Traveler is actively looking for new books and new authors. You can help both us and your chances of acceptance by taking a few moments to read these guidelines about what we are looking for and how to submit to us.

Submissions

We prefer to deal with authors who have complete or nearly complete manuscripts. If you do not have a manuscript yet, please understand that we do not offer large advances to enable you to fulfill your travel dreams while we keep our fingers crossed hoping that someday, maybe you'll turn in a manuscript worthy of being published.

That's not to say that we won’t consider your to-be-written project. Just send us a proposal. If you don’t know how to prepare a professional looking book proposal, we recommend "How To Write A Book Proposal" by Michael Larsen (Writers Digest Books, 2004).

And if your manuscript is complete, save yourself some postage and send a proposal anyway. If we want to see the whole thing, we'll let you know.

A good proposal will include (among other things):

• A synopsis.
• Why this book will sell and who will buy it.
• A list of competing titles already on the market.
• A complete table of contents.
• A sample chapter or two.
• Information about you and your qualifications to write the book.

We are a small company and so are our advances, which are paid in installments, with the largest payment coming only when a suitable manuscript is delivered.

Again, if you are looking for a huge advance to finance that jungle expedition or South Seas idyll, keep looking.

Mail proposals to:

The Intrepid Traveler
P.O. Box 531
Branford, CT 06405

We cannot return materials that are not accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed return envelope (SASE).

Or email:

We can also accept proposals by email, preferably as attached Word or PDF documents. Send them to admin -AT- intrepidtraveler.com

What we offer

There are a number of reasons to submit to us:

• You'll get a quick response. No waiting for months for your submission to work its way up the slush pile.
• You will receive a fair royalty based on net sales of your books and paid monthly.
• We are fun to work with. Don't take our word for it. Track down our authors (many of them have web sites) and ask them.
• In addition to giving our authors a very generous allotment of free copies of their book, we allow our authors to purchase additional copies at a substantial discount. (75% at time of printing, 60% between printings, assuming we have sufficient stock.) We believe that it would cost you more, on a per copy basis, to self-publish a book of equal quality. If you have a web site or want to go out and hand sell your book, this can be an attractive option. The only thing you can't do is compete with us in the book trade and in the library market because, if you did, our distributor would get very upset. Please understand: this is optional, not mandatory. Some of our authors exercise this option, others don't. It's up to you. We will not publish your book simply because you offer to buy 10,000 copies. We are not a vanity press.

What we're looking for

First, we suggest you familiarize yourself with the books we have already published. That will give you an idea of the quality and depth of our books. Many of our books have prompted reviewers to say they're the "definitive book on the subject." It's a standard of which we are proud.

If your topic fits in with or complements something we have already published, that's fine. If your topic is something we haven't done already, so much the better.

Guidebooks

We like offbeat, well-written, in-depth guidebooks on topics that haven't been done to death. Even when we cover a popular topic, we look for a new angle. For example, we publish four books (soon to be more) dealing with Walt Disney World. None of them are "me-too" versions of existing books, which is why they have done so well in the marketplace.

Although we are open to just about anything, we must consider the sales potential of any topic. Thus, we are unlikely to publish a guidebook to someplace that gets few visitors. We might, but it's unlikely.

So if you have a fresh take on a popular destination, you're ahead of the game.

We are especially interested in looking at niche guidebooks to major American cities and major European cities, countries, or regions.

Travel Industry

We welcome books about the travel industry, what it is, how it works, its history, how to break into it, and so forth. If you are a seasoned travel industry professional (anything from a flight attendant to a CEO) with a story to tell, we'd like to see your manuscript.

Travel How-To

This is an amorphous category with which we have had some success. Past titles we have published in this category include "Home-Based Travel Agent," "Take Your RV to Europe," "Air Courier Bargains" and "Fly Cheap." We'd be interested in seeing others.

Travel Narrative

Sometimes called "travel essay," this is a very special category that requires very special talents, a sparkling prose style preeminent among them. Having a firm grasp on the local culture and history ain't bad either. Having a "purpose" or a "hook" for the book is also a good idea.

Just because you've taken a long and interesting journey doesn't mean you have a book. We see far too many manuscripts that are simply plodding diaries ("The next day we went to…") with pedestrian observations ("The pyramids were even bigger than I had imagined…"). And if your manuscript contains a list of what you packed, we are probably not going to like it.

Still, we'd love to find a travel narrative we'd be proud to publish. We'd especially like to see a travel narrative manuscript that's genuinely funny.

You don't have to have a completed manuscript (although it helps) to submit in this category, but the journey and the research should be completed. This gets back to what we said earlier about not funding travel.

What we're NOT looking for

We are not interested in seeing anything that has already been published -- whether by another publisher or self-published using services such as iUniverse.

What have we missed?

If your book doesn't fall into any of the above categories, don't despair. If it's travel and you feel strongly about it, who knows? We might, too.

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