From the Editor’s Mouth: Larry Habegger of Travelers’ Tales

A decade has gone by since we first interviewed Larry Habegger, executive editor of the coveted Travelers’ Tales publishing company and one of the brains behind the acclaimed The Best Travel Writing series, launched in 2004 to celebrate the world’s best travel writing from Nobel Prize winners to emerging new writers. Founded in 1993, Travelers’ Tales has become a mecca of anthologies and a place to find innovative, compelling travel writing–from the seasoned and novice alike. Aside from editing, Larry’s work has appeared in a number of renowned newspapers and magazines. He often teaches at writing conferences and hosts writing workshops. Check out his website here!

What path led you to the position you have now? What’s your background?

I was writing fiction in college, began writing about travel soon after graduating, and turned primarily to travel writing a few years out of college. I co-wrote a series of mystery serials for the San Francisco Examiner with James O’Reilly in the 1980s, and at the same time James and I had a freelance writing business together working for magazines and newspapers, eventually starting the syndicated column World Travel Watch (which sailed into the sunset in 2016 after 30+ years).

In the early 1990s we started the publishing company Travelers’ Tales with James’s brother Tim, who was a successful computer book publisher. James and I have been running the company ever since.

You’re the executive editor of Travelers’ Tales, one of the premier travel writing presses out there. After reading so many travel stories and writing so many of your own over the years, what still captures your eye when you’re reading submissions?

A story has to move me. There has to be something in the narrative to engage me emotionally or I won’t be that interested in it. It’s a cliché to say you have to make me laugh or make me cry, and if you can do both in the same story you’ve really accomplished something, but that’s essentially true. Engage me emotionally and I’ll read every word, start to finish. Leave me distant, and it would have to be a very good account of history or place to keep me reading.

What qualities do you look for and admire in someone you hire to write, edit, or update a book?

Writers must first be good writers, they must know their subjects, and if I’m going to consider them for writing or editing a book they have to be personable and flexible. Life is too short to work with someone you don’t like or respect, especially on a creative project that requires collaboration. They also need to be responsible and reliable, so I know they’re going to do what we’ve agreed they will do.

What mistakes do writers make in how they approach you and what do the good ones do right?

The main mistake is not knowing well enough what we publish and submitting material that isn’t suitable. The good ones follow our guidelines and correspond with us in a friendly fashion.

Based on what you know in your position, what honest and unvarnished advice would you give to an aspiring book writer who wanted to become a successful travel writer? (Besides, “Don’t do it.”)

Know that you will not make a living from writing travel books. Being “successful” can be measured in many ways, so the first step is knowing what you want and hope to accomplish and what you consider success.

The next thing is to write about what you love because that’s the truest way to get the best out of yourself. And then do as much networking as possible, online and offline, getting to know as many people as you can in the industry and building relationships. People in a position to hire prefer to work with people they like (assuming everything else is equal), so be sincere and get to know people.

What’s the future of travel publishing?

Literary travel publishing is a shrinking niche in mainstream publishing, but there will always be readers interested in the wide world and its people and cultures. Successful future books will feature writers with fresh and unique voices, and stories that provide unusual perspectives on places, showing us things we didn’t know or imagine and delving deeply into personal connections with those places and the journey the author is on.

While the travel niche is shrinking in print, this is a great period for indie niche publishing. You don’t need an agent or a publisher to bring your book into the world. You can do it yourself. You’ll need some resources if you want it printed, but there are many ways to self-pub at low cost. The main thing is to know your audience and how to reach it, and to be willing to evangelize for yourself and your work. You (probably) won’t get rich, but you’ll get your book in front of people, and your ideas out in the world.

What are independent book publishers like you doing to adapt to current times? What are the upsides and downsides of the digital age?

As much as possible we’re offering our books in all formats: hardcover, paperback, e-book, audiobook. Doing this allows us to provide our titles to our audience in the way they want it. That said, not all titles justify going to the expense of producing an audiobook; we have to make case-by-case judgments on whether the benefits (sales, awareness, cross-promotion between formats) outweigh the costs.

We also need to be active on social media and on the social review sites such as Goodreads. We reach our core audience that way and there’s no question it’s the most effective way to find new readers apart from word-of-mouth evangelists (whom we love, of course!).

The only “digital age” downside I can think of is how much more competition exists for a person’s attention than there used to be. Everything is different now than it was when we started publishing books in 1993. Entertainment is easy to get everywhere, and what once was the sole domain of the newspaper or paperback book is now a video-on-demand/audio-on-demand/social communications-on-demand environment. How many book readers do you see on the subway today? We’re all looking at, or listening to, our phones.

The upside of this age is the egalitarian nature of the publishing world. As I said above, everyone can be a publisher and it doesn’t take much money. That doesn’t make it easy for traditional publishers, but it’s our job to be a trusted source of storytellers, to build our audience around that, and to deliver the best vicarious adventures a reader can get. Those who know us usually love us, and that’s the standard we need to maintain.

Larry Habegger is a writer and editor who has been covering the world since his international travels began in the 1970s. As a freelance writer for four decades and syndicated columnist from 1985 to 2016, his work has appeared in major newspapers and magazines, including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Travel + Leisure, and Outside.

He coauthored serialized mysteries with James O’Reilly for the San Francisco Examiner in the early 1980s, and in 1993 he cofounded the award-winning Travelers’ Tales publishing company with James and Tim O’Reilly. He is currently Travelers’ Tales’ executive editor, helps oversee the company’s publishing program, and has worked on all of its 160-plus books. He is also a cofounder of The Prose Doctors—an editors consortium—and managing editor for special projects at Attention Span Media.