Europe a la Carte to publish free pdf guides on GuideGecko.com
Written by Karen Bryan
I read about GuideGecko.com in the same Guardian article that mentioned Gekko.com. It’s weird that two similar sounding travel sites were in the same piece.
GeckoGuides approached me to ask it I’d like to publish some guides on their site. I was swithered about this, as I wasn’t sure if this was a sensible strategy. I didn’t see it as realistic to charge for guides which were avaiable free on the Europe a la Carte site. Although I’m happy to offer my guides as free pdf downloads, I can’t guarantee that offering free guides will give Europe a la Carte much exposure as there doesn’t seem to be any way to hyperlink back to Europe a la Carte from GekkoGuides, there’s just a profile with text. I wondered if GuideGecko have more to gain from customer satisfaction by offering access to free guides than I do as the author?
Anyway I’ve decided to give it a go and have uploaded my Guide to the Zadar Region as a free pdf guide on Gecko.com.
If you write about travel would you consider publishing your guides, either free of charge or as a way to earn revenue, on GuideGeck.com? As a consumer are you suspicious about the quality of free guides or do you refuse to pay for travel information with so much available free on the internet?
Hi Karen
I also took at the Gecko site – although I haven’t got any guides that would be updloading at present, I concluded that it might be a useful way to distribute a guide and charge for it, if one was prepared to put some time and effort into something that provided good value for the reader.
I thought of doing something on my home town of Bristol which is a great place to visit but only warrents a few pages in most guidebooks, even in the Lonely Planet guide to South West England.
Anyway, for now it’s on the endless of things to do when I’ve got the time.
Hi Karen,
Just a short update: As you suggested, you can now place links within your profile on GuideGecko (actually, all links will become hyperlinks automatically – and it already works in your profile).
Also wanted to let you know of our new writing contest, which gives you the opportunity to showcase your own titles on the Frankfurt Book Fair (main prize is a personal trip to the fair).
So, in case you are considering to upload more guides, now is the best time!
Cheers,
Daniel
Daniel – thanks for the update, it’s good that the links are now clickable.