Selling Great Trips/Europe
CLICK HERE for the story so far.
New York City, Fall 1976. All that remained to get my plan for Great Trips/Europe underway was to create a few dozen different "brochure-guides" as a starter. Samples of these would be sent to newspapers and magazines in the hopes of getting some free publicity, and small ads placed in various magazines. The offer was for a free sample, which came with a pitch for an annual subscription of six bimonthly "portfolios" of six trips each, for a total of 36 trips a year, all for a mere $19.95. How I expected to make any money doing this escapes me today.
But first I had to establish a business. I did this in New York City's Municipal Building, registering the name "Great Trips" as my own. Then I had to open a "resale" account with the state office of revenue in order to collect sales taxes. A checking account with Citibank was next, followed by getting a Post Office Box number in order to avoid the anticipated flood of mail coming to my apartment (or any disgruntled customers from finding out where I lived).
I did manage to get a few hundred subscriptions, which obligated me to keep producing. Fortunately I was still half-owner of a fairly prosperous commercial photography business in New York, so I could write off the losses.
My small ads were placed in the rear pages of various magazines, mostly as classifieds but some as displays. In total, some 40 different publications were tried at least briefly. I used a code in the return address that let me know which of the publications were producing results. Not surprisingly, the travel-oriented ones such as Travel and International Travel News did best, although I also got good results from Harper's, Smithsonian, and Natural History.
Some more specialized magazines, such as Trains, Transitions, and The Happy Wanderer also brought in business. 
I tried to cover all bases by placing ads in anything that sounded remotely plausible. In the end, this proved to be very expensive. Between February 1977 and February 1982, a period of five years, I had placed some 300 ads, mostly classifieds.
But, all in all, the best results came from the free publicity given me by dozens of newspapers, including the New York Times.
It soon became apparent that selling individual "brochure-guides" for a dollar apiece (less in quantity) was a better way to go. These would be described in an 8½"x11" eight-page catalog, which was sent free along with a sample guide to anyone interested. The cover of one of these is shown below.
Although they never made a profit, the whole experience was a lot of fun, and opened the way for what was to come next. And the research, writing, and photos were put to good, profitable use later on.
CLICK HERE to continue the story. This time it's off to Portugal and Spain.
LATER, I'll tell you how this got me into the book business, how I sold off the zillions of leftover guides, and how the whole idea could work today using Internet technology.
Interested in photography? Check out my "Assisting Avedon" blog.
SO, just what Little Adventure am I up to now in 2013? Why, just the most challenging one of them all! CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT.
This all makes fascinating reading. I'm very grateful to LFF for showing me the link. This is one of the only knock-by-knock accounts of working in photography that I've seen.
Thanks and good luck.
Posted by: Christopher Broadbent | January 04, 2009 at 09:26 AM