This week we’re joined by destination travel guide author Mike Miller, who specializes in writing about the great State of Florida. He and I followed the same path to publishing our first book—we both started off blogging about a destination we were knowledgeable and passionate about, and then leveraged that content to self-publish our travel guides.
Writing a full-length travel guide can be overwhelming, but when you break your book down into blog-post sized chunks of content, suddenly a book seems achievable. This approach is an effective way to streamline your content creation, but it’s also a great way to test-drive your content to make sure your have a built in audience for your books.
If you’re thinking about blogging your destination travel guide, here’s some tips and inspiration. ~~ Jay
Author Interview: Mike Miller
How would you describe the type of books/genre you write?
My books are usually in the travel genre. I focus on off the beaten path Florida destinations, driving routes, restaurants, and historical sites.
What motivated you to start writing?
I have always loved writing, even as a boy. My career as a professional engineer involved a lot of writing, although much of it was technical. In my more recent life I decided to use my writing as a way to enhance my retirement income.
Tell us the journey you went on to get your books published (e.g. direct on your website, self-published, assisted-publishing, traditional publisher)
All but a few of my 25 books began their lives as content I created for my websites, primarily Florida Backroads Travel I then converted the content into books in three formats: Kindle, paperback, and PDF.
What publishing elements do you most enjoy and most like to avoid, and why? (e.g. design, marketing, formatting etc.)
I enjoy the formatting challenges and like to design my own covers. I equally enjoy the marketing and have given numerous lectures on my subjects and attended several book signing events. We all know writing the book is the easiest part of the process. Selling it is more difficult for most of us.
With the hindsight of being a published author, anything you would have done differently?
I’m happy with the way things have gone.
What tips or advice would you give an aspiring indie author who is looking to self-publish?
Do some keyword research on Google and Amazon to make sure there is a market for the book you plan to write. If your subject is non-fiction, I strongly recommend having your own website focusing on your subject. That will not only showcase your writing but earn you a living from it. When you are your own web publisher, everything you write will be sure to be published.
What marketing or promotional tools or techniques do you use to reach your readers?
My website receives 10,000 visitors per day, and my ezine email list has 10,000 subscribers. I rotate displaying ads for my book on both the website and ezine, with a link to my author page on Amazon.
What impact do you want your books to have on your readers?
I want my readers to enjoy the few pristing areas of fast growing overdeveloped Florida that still exist.
What’s your book’s elevator pitch or key selling points?
My books focus on the culture and history of Florida and provide maps and driving routes to make travel in the state interesting and convenient for my readers.
What’s next on your writing journey?
I have slowly been putting together a memoir of my life. It’s a back burner project because I create new content daily for my website.
About Mike Miller
Mike Miller has lived in Florida since 1960. He graduated with a degree in civil engineering from the University of Florida and has lived and worked in most areas of the state. His civil engineering projects include Walt Disney World, EPCOT, Universal Studios and hundreds of other developments all over the state.
During that time, Mike developed an understanding and love of Old Florida that is reflected in his books and on the pages of his website, www.florida-backroads-travel.com.
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