Each month I’m scrolling through the New Release Travel Guides on Amazon to see which Traditionally published and Indie published travel guides have hit the marketplace. As well as letting you know what’s just been published, I’ll also provide my commentary about branding and design, so that you can see what elements you can incorporate into your own brand and design when you start thinking about writing and marketing your own travel guide.

Traditional Press New Release

Lonely Planet Japan: Released August 1, 2017

Is it any wonder that Lonely Planet have released a new travel guide book on Japan – the Olympics host nation for 2020? Great for people planning a trip now, but they’ll need to update it when the Olympics gets closer.

INDIE OBSERVATIONS

• Lonely Planet’s covers are iconic in their simplicity, and it works for them, but I wouldn’t recommend this approach for Indie Authors. If you’re planning on creating a travel writing brand you need to get your author name on the front.
• Take a look at their Amazon Book Description – they have it beautifully laid out to make it easy to read. It includes a summary of the contents and organization of the content, as well as a brand summary.
• Lonely Planet are leaders in the travel publication market place, so if you’re going to look at one traditional publisher to see how they do things – LP are somebody to watch and emulate their best practices.

Fodor’s Los Angeles Travel Guide: Released August 15, 2017

Whereas LP have recently been releasing Country Travel guides recently, Fodor’s have focused on City and Local Area guides. One of their recent releases is for my previous adopted hometown of Los Angeles.INDIE OBSERVATIONS

• Fodor’s Travel use the distinctive orange brand coloring for the books, and it’s consistent across their entire range.
• Their description starts out with “Written by locals, Fodor’s travel guides have been offering expert advice for all tastes and budgets for more than 80 years” – so you immediately get a sense of the style and tone of their guides. At the end of the description they also mention related guides. But they don’t really make full use of the word count available to them in their descriptions.

Indie Press New Release

Ireland Travel Guide by Thomas Leon: Released August 8, 2017

INDIE OBSERVATIONS

• This is the 6th is a series of travel guides from author Thomas Leon.
• He’s developed a strong brand identify for his guides with the large title on a blue background and the Travel Guide banner underneath (although I think his author name could be bigger or stand out more).

• He’s broken his chapters into: Practical Information, Top Attractions, Hidden Gems, and Accommodation.
• My one criticism is there’s no way to find out more about Thomas the author. He has an Amazon Author page but no link to a website or social media on it, and if he has a blog he hasn’t integrated it into his Author page. I did a quick search to see if I could find an author website – but no luck. Shame … I would have liked to feature him in my Author Interview series to find our more about his self-publishing process.