Cornwall has long been a favoured destination and bolt hole from the rigours of London life. At some point, I must have decided to tackle the South West Coast Path and it was while putting together itineraries in the pre-internet 1990’s that I stumbled across what I considered to be a gaping hole in the travel guide market.
I can trace the “Archimedes” moment to an exact location – Coverack on the Lizard peninsula. Having just completed a testing hike from Penzance and safely ensconced in the Coverack Youth Hostel, I went to find somewhere to eat. Coverack, not the biggest of places, was not looking promising, but there was a pub on the clifftop. Unfortunately, the food as quoted in my later guide was “the worst pub fayre and should be avoided at all costs.” The whole experience was rather tiring and demoralizing, only made worse, on walking further around the cliff, to find a perfectly magical fish restaurant and a lovely boutique style pizza house, both with wonderful views over the boat-filled harbour. If only I had known……… but this was the 1990’s, there was no internet but also, surprisingly, there was no in depth guide to Cornwall either. Further investigation confirmed that the British regional guide book market had expired sometime in the 1970,s when the Shell Guides and King’s England Guides ceased publishing. The rush to foreign travel led the guide book market to provide practical guides to virtually every country in the world from Afghanistan to Zambia, but not a single practical guide to the English regions, even Cornwall with 5 million visitors a year was guideless.
My mind started to work overtime. I had always wanted to write a guide book, so why not? There seemed to be a massive hole in the market that nobody had seen. I started to sketch out a synopsis. I knew from past experience that it would be no use approaching a publisher without at least the first chapter drafted. So, a carefully planned research visit to Cornwall resulted in a well-crafted first chapter and I dispatched it to various well-known guide book publishers. Silence. Not an unusual experience for a freelance writer, but I refused to accept that the research and pitch was not sound, nor that the text was not industry quality. Then, I received a surprising message from one of the most popular and prestigious guide book publishers, “could I meet their Travel Editor, when could I come to London to meet him”. I had never known an invitation like this. A date was set and then a sequence of extraordinary circumstances conspired to thwart it – first a rare hurricane in South East England cut all communication with London and then an internal reorganization at the publishers saw the travel editor moving to New York to take over the US operation. His successor had other things on his plate. So having been uplifted and then dropped like a stone, I suddenly had to decide what to do. There was no interest from the established guide book publishers, so I either go it alone or give up. I looked again at the market, the costs involved and the self-publishing option and decided to carry on. I was convinced the market for such a book was enormous and I didn’t want to make a fortune, I just wanted to write a book and see it published and successful.
So, three years arduous research later, a 165,000 word guide with photographs and maps was ready for printing. Troubador Publishing had agreed a contract for printing and marketing and the first print run of 1500 books was ready to go. Within 18 months, they were sold and the book was the best-selling guide book to Cornwall on Amazon. A second, updated edition and 2000 more copies followed, but by now the market was being flooded by rival guides, Rough Guide, Lonely Planet, Insight, Time Out – the big boys had woken up. Even then, I was outselling The Rough Guide on Amazon until inexplicably the reduced price on my book was removed and the Rough Guide maintained its reduction making it some £3 cheaper. Given the price difference and with all the kudos and back story of Rough Guides, it was no longer a fair competition. Rough Guides are owned by Penguin and their books make up a sizeable proportion of Amazon’s catalogue. How embarrassing it must have been for them to be outsold by an independent, self-publisher. Despite the increased competition, a second print run of 2,000 was commissioned and they too have now sold out. However, I have no appetite for another edition, the market is now flooded – a recent visit to Stanford’s travel bookshop in London saw 12 different guide books to Cornwall.
So what lessons have I learnt about the guide book market?
- It is a market like any other and can be as ruthless as any other
- If you see a gap in the market, go for it, but don’t be surprised if others follow behind with bigger budgets and more influence
- Arduous on-the-ground research’ flogging around the back lanes of Cornwall, is the best way to produce the material, but don’t be surprised that others use the internet and other third party sources of information to produce material. When you see a guide book with clear errors, this is why they happen.
- Guide book publishers often sell their information and, some, more than they will admit, charge for entries in their guides. Independent assessment is compromised.
- While you can make a mark as an independent guide book publisher, you cannot compete with the marketing power of the big publishers long-term
Do I regret the effort involved? Not at all, I have produced my book and it was a best seller. I have made a healthy profit on the £55,000 worth of stock I sold and I have experienced the cut-throat world of travel publishing at first hand. Since publishing my first edition, there has been a renaissance in travel guides to the English regions and, while I take no credit, I can say that I was there at the beginning.
