The Colombian Blend
I am sorry that it has been such a long time since the last feature but here it is.
My friend Ian and I had a discussion over the phone last evening about the sad state of Travel Guide book writing in general and the fraud perpetrated by Lonely Planet’s author in particular. The topic came up when we were talking about another writer who has written quite a few Living and Working Guides. We were just wondering on what basis has he been writing the guide books. Has he really lived in all those 25 countries he wrote about or was he just being a fact gatherer?
The issue with Lonely Planet Colombian Guide is quite different. The author Thomas Kohnstamm in his book “Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?” claims that he plagiarised and made up portions of his guide books. He also claims to have traded in drugs to make up for the meagre salary his publishers were paying him.
For his book on Colombia, Kohnstamm did not even visit the country, but wrote the book from San Francisco, getting substanstial information from his then girlfriend, a Colombian. His main argument justifying his actions was that Lonely Planet does not pay its authors well.
Sadly, it is true. Lonely Planet authors are just writers for hire who can be replaced or sent to another country according to the wishes of the editorial board. Unlike other publishers, Lonely Planet does not pay its authors royalties but a lump sum amount. Not many people know how Lonely Planet calculates the expenses that its authors would incur but I can say by talking to its authors that the amount is measly. An author needs to be extremely frugal with his travel expenses in order to make money from a job.
Sadly, many publishers believe that guidebook writing is a fairly easy profession in which an author can be replaced by another without loss of quality in the final product. A recent New York Times story suggested that travel guide book writers were becoming fact gatherers who could be paid less and whose typescript could be rewritten by editors back home.
I do not think this is true. Best books are written by authors with a passion and a deep love for their subject. And to write a great travel book, you need to actually visit the places you write about and even great imagination cannot supplant what you will learn only by visiting.
