Barbara Hudgins – Crafting Travel Guidebooks

On December 4th, 2008 Irene Watson and Victor R. Volkman spoke with veteran travel writer Barbara Hudgins. Barbara Hudgins is best known as the original author and self-publisher of New Jersey Day Trips. This guidebook sold over 110,000 copies in several editions before she sold the rights to Rutgers University Press. She also co-authored the 10th edition put out by that press. Her most recent book is Crafting the Travel Guidebook. Barbara helped us answer key questions in travel writing including: howw should a travel writer get started, how do you get credentials, and/or a platform, what goes into travel writing and construction, and how do you go from written the manuscript to publication.

Barbara’s travel column, which covers both local and foreign trips, has appeared in several newspapers in northern New Jersey.. National magazines such as Signature, Woman’s World and Foreword have published her free-lance pieces on a variety of subjects.She has lived in New York, New Mexico, Hawaii and Virginia, but has made her home in New Jersey for the past 30 years. She holds a Master’s degree in Library Science and has worked at the New York Public Library, Hunter College and the University of Hawaii. A former English major in college, she began writing music, movie and theater reviews before gravitating to travel writing.

It was only after she had worked with a traditional publisher and gone through all the phases of working with an editor and a co-author that the concept for Crafting the Travel Guidebook was formed. Although there are several books about travel writing on the market, they all concentrate on selling to magazine, newspaper and internet editors. Why not, she thought, create something geared to travel book publishing? Barbara’s experience as an author for a traditional publisher, as a self-publisher and as a freelance writer positions her as a unique expert in all of these fields.