Birds of a Feather welcomes Gigi Griffis to the Nest

Gigi Griffis is a digital nomad who sold all her belongings in 2012 and hit the road with her pint-sized pooch called Luna.

She writes a travel blog aptly titled “The Ramble” and loves inspiring stories, new places, exceptional food, and living in the moment. Gigi is also a prolific travel guide writer, and her Unconventional Travel Guide books all fall within the niche of sharing insider tips. Her “100 Locals..” and “10 Locals…” series contain insights from local residents who know the local area like the back of their hands, many of them are tour guides, travel bloggers, artists and business owners.

Gigi has carved a specific travel niche out for herself, and as evidenced by the number of travel guides she has released to date, it’s a niche that has lots of mileage.

I know you’re going to enjoy hearing about Gigi’s writing and self-publishing journey.

Author Interview: Gigi Griffis

How would you describe the type of books/genre you write?

My books are travel guides, but with a twist. Instead of the typical hotel, restaurant, and attraction listings, the guides are collections of interviews with real people who live in the city you want to visit. I ask them about their favorite local foods and restaurants, the best off-the-beaten-track hiking trails, and how we travelers can better fit into their local culture.

What motivated you to start writing?

I’ve been writing since I can remember. My earliest memories are around the age of seven, I started my first blog at 14, and I self-published a memoir when I was in my early 20s. It wasn’t that something from the outside world motivated me to start writing; writing, in and of itself, was the goal. I loved stories and words and books and so I have always been writing.

As for what inspired the book series, it was actually a single blog post. I was brainstorming ideas for my blog when I realized that my all-time best travel experiences have pretty much all been because of a local recommended something to me (or personally took me somewhere). The broken-down fortress on a mountaintop in Croatia? I only knew about it because a local took me there. The best schnitzel I’ve ever had? It was in this tiny, nondescript bar that I would never have walked into if my friend Heinrich hadn’t insisted.

And so I asked myself: how can I bring those amazing local-guided experiences to my readers, to people who might not have a local friend to physically guide them? The answer, I thought, was interviewing locals on my blog. So I set up the first interview–with a colleague of mine in Verona, Italy–and was immediately blown away. Her interview made me want to head back to Verona immediately and try all the things I’d missed on previous trips.

I knew right then that this was more than a blog series. I needed to write a book (and then more books).

Tell us the journey you went on to get your books published (e.g. direct on your website, self-published, assisted-publishing, traditional publisher)

Once I knew I was going to write a local interview-filled travel guide, I decided pretty quickly that the best way to move forward was to self-publish. Traditional publishers tend to have very long publishing timelines, and I knew that I could get the book written, edited, designed, and published much much quicker than they could.

I also had already been blogging and writing for years and had a good sized readership, have a marketing background (I worked as a full-time content strategist and copywriter for an ad agency before going freelance), and had gotten a good-sized traffic spike on the first Ask a Local blog post, so I was hopeful that I’d be able to market and sell the book myself.

And so I dove in, first gathering up interviews with 100 people who lived all over Italy, then writing and/or translating them as necessary (some were in Italian). Once the first draft was done, I went through and edited it several times before bringing in other editors (who each took a section) for the final clean-up. I had a designer design the cover and interior pages and another designer set up the interior pages in a Word template with the right dimensions for the book. I formatted the book within the template. Then I went through CreateSpace’s simple publishing process to publish in print and hired someone to format the book for Kindle and Nook, as well.

What publishing elements do you most enjoy and most like to avoid, and why? (e.g. design, marketing, formatting etc.)

I love the actual writing and I love getting people’s insider tips on the cities and countries I love. I’ve found so many of my own favorite experiences–a great Thai restaurant in New York, excellent pizza in Verona, lesser-known hiking trails in Switzerland–in the process of writing the guides (which is how I know they’re working), so that’s definitely my favorite part of doing them.

I also like doing the covers. I recently went to a simpler design so that I can design my own covers and I really like going through all my photos, finding just the right one, and matching up the colors.

As for what I don’t like doing: editing and formatting top the list. Formatting is so incredibly boring, but I’ve also been on a shoestring budget, so I’ve kept doing it myself even though I hate it. Editing also gets boring after the second or third read-through.

With the hindsight of being a published author, anything you would have done differently?

Actually, no! I had actually already self-published a memoir years before, so I think I made the majority of my newbie mistakes then and this time I had a pretty solid plan for the process and the marketing.

What tips or advice would you give an aspiring indie author who is looking to self-publish?

Even if you’re on a shoestring budget, you need a professional editor and cover designer. The cover is obviously the first thing people see, so it needs to look professional and polished. And it’s just not really possible for writers to catch all our own typos. If you’re worried about cost, try reaching out to students or new grads or design/editing groups on Facebook and offering a trade.

You can edit someone else’s book in exchange for them editing yours, for example. Or you can offer your expertise in exchange for a cover design. Paying editors and designers is simpler, but if you are working with a 0 budget, do whatever you have to to make sure you have professionals do those two things.

My other big tip is don’t be a perfectionist. At some point, you have to let your book go out into the world, no matter how much you want to read it through one more time. Give yourself a deadline. Get okay with the idea that your book might go out with that sentence not quite right. It’s okay.

What marketing or promotional tools or techniques do you use to reach your readers?

I’ve been blogging since before blogging was a thing (1999, baby!), and that’s still my preferred way to reach people. Once I knew I was writing the book, I started talking about it on my blog, created a page for it on the site, etc. I’m also pretty active on Facebook and did a little promotion here and there on Twitter (though Twitter has always been less effective for me, so I use it much less than anything else).

That said, the biggest, most effective things I did were interviews and guest posts on other people’s blogs. My audience already knows me and my work – they’re easy to reach. Letting new people know about the creative new thing I’m putting out into the world was the harder task and the one I focused my energy on.

The other big thing I did to boost my marketing was to get a handful of Amazon reviews up very quickly upon publishing. I did this by reaching out to Amazon’s top reviewers and asking if they’d like a free book in exchange for their honest opinions. Several – to my surprise – said yes. I also reached out to locals and traveler groups and other writers, asking for reviews in exchange for a free copy of the guide. Having four- and five-star reviews piling up the week of launch pushed the book up in Amazon’s algorithm, which meant more visibility and more sales.

What impact do you want your books to have on your readers?

Well, most of them are quiet on the subject, but the handful who have reached out to me have said their trips were richer for the guide. People are particularly fond of the food sections, which not only tell you what restaurants are best but also what specific dishes and specialties to seek out–something that I felt was missing from other guidebooks. I’ve also had a lot of positive feedback about the off-the-beaten-track recommendations.

What is your latest book about?

I just published a guide that tackles Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Fort Collins, Colorado (and some other surrounding towns) and on October 10th, my guide for Northern Arizona and the Grand Canyon comes out. Both are the same format–detailed interviews with real locals who tell you their personal favorite things to do, see, eat, and explore.

What’s next on your writing journey?

I’ve decided to test the idea of doing mini guides at a lower price point, so I’m doing a three-interview mini guide to Vancouver, Canada, at the moment. It’ll come out this winter (before Christmas, which is my biggest sales time of the year) and we’ll see how that goes.

I’m also toying with the idea of doing a budget book for Europe, full of real budgets from real people living in popular European destinations. The most popular thing on my own blog is the Ask a Local series (which the guides are based on) and the second most popular thing is my budget posts, so perhaps that would make a good book as well.

I’m also very quietly working on my first novel, an alternate history set in central Europe.

See how #travelblogger @gigigriffis writes and publishes her #travelguides Click To Tweet

Author Bio:

Gigi Griffis is a world-traveling entrepreneur and writer with a special love for inspiring stories, new places, exceptional food, and living in the moment. These days, she’s still on the road, currently hanging out in Vancouver, Canada, planning for her winter in Italy, and working on her 11th travel guide.

• Website: gigigriffis.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/gigi.griffis
• Facebook:facebook.com/gigigriffis
• Twitter: @gigigriffis

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