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| Introducing our gorgeous Penang writer and her hometown |
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September 21st, 2008 |
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Penang oh Penang… The so-called heaven of Chinese delicacies… Of course what I mean here is the delicious Penang street food. “When one talks about Penang, we think of FOOD FOOD FOOD nothing but the food. Yes, that’s one of the main reason why people come to Penang. We have undeniably the best food around in my opinion, every corner, every hawker’s char koay teow I eat, I taste no difference because to me, they all taste the same, which is delicious! But Penang is more than what meets the eye. Since I’ve started reading up about history, culture and more things about Penang, I feel even prouder to be a Penangnite. It has everything you can ever dream of (I don’t mean to brag). Good cheap food, nice people, beaches, hills, rich heritage and culture. Anything you wish to have under the sun!” Said our Penang writer, Sharon Ong talking about her hometown.
We’re glad that a passionate writer, Sharon Ong from Penang is now joining a4trip to introduce her lovely hometown to us. “When I was first invited to become a member for a4trip, I was very very thrilled indeed! I was super excited that I was jumping around telling my family and couldn’t stop being all happy and excited. You guys do the thing I’ve always dream of and love doing. Two words. Travel and Write.”
A fun loving girl who love travel, love eating, love trying something new, love socializing, love writing and many many more. With her outgoing personality and her love to her hometown, I’m sure she is the best candidate for our Penang travel guide.
“I guess what I like best about my hometown is not only the availability of food in every corner at any time but also the kind of life I can choose to lead here. I could have chosen to work in other cities but I chose to come back to penang, because one, my family is in Penang and two, despite being the industrial base and gearing for more development on the island, Penang still gives one a choice to lead a rather laid back life, unlike other cities where everyday is rush hour day. I love the fact that everything is so close to each other, my working place is 8 mins drive from my house, biggest shopping mall is 15 mins from where I live… every place is within reach! And there’s no toll involved! How superb is that :D I love Penang, I definitely *HEART* it. Best state in Malaysia with everything under the sun, hands down!”
When she was asked about what she like about her hometown, excitedly she said she loves all the food around Penang and every places she wish to go is within reach. Every Penangnite is proud of their varieties food. For all the food lovers out there who crave for varieties of good food, Penang is the best place!
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| A story from Aida, writer of Manila Travel Guide |
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June 27th, 2008 |
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 On May 28, I got an email in my VirtualTourist mailbox which I initially mistook for a spam. Curiosity got the better of me when 3 words on the subject caught my eyes: travel, guide, writer.
Intrigued, I read it and found out that the sender was asking if I’ll be interested to join their team as travel guide writer for Manila. A series of email exchanges followed over the next 2 weeks until I was asked to write a short paragraph about myself and a 1-page essay on Introduction to Manila’s History and Current Affair. The latter clinched it!
On the morning of June 16, I was pleasantly surprised to find 3 new email in my Yahoo inbox with the subject: Welcome Aida. Yes! I am now a part of the growing team of a4trip.
Modesty aside, I’m not after the money or the royalty fees. It’s the opportunity to share my city as well as my travel experiences that motivated me to be part of a4trip. And of course, the prestige! I’ll say, a4trip is my claim to fame ;)
I find a4friends much like my other Internet-based community — people are friendly, cheerful, and accommodating. At this point, I wish that I could also develop a “flesh & blood” friendship with the other members, instead of just virtual acquaintance.
As for the website itself, I have some suggestions:
- come up with a gallery of a4friends members grouped into writers, mappers, editors, translators, etc. with picture and brief description. This way, we can connect the name with the person virtually since not all of us can meet each other in person.
- separate blogs from information i.e. a page for a4trip guide announcements, a page for animal conservation, a page for miscellaneous/stories, etc.
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| Clarence meets friends here! |
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June 27th, 2008 |
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Two months ago, I received an email invitation from Nicholas to be a travel guide writer for Melaka. My first question that pop through my mind was “Is this for real?” and the 2nd was “How this dude found me?”
Anyway, the email sounded decent and I don’t see any words such as “FREE” or “INVEST” or “MAKE TONNES ON $$” which 98% = “SCAM” . So, my first impression was probably some young group of poeple like myself trying to source talents from the internet for some project. The project turned out to be A4trip guidebook and I was rather impress with the a4trip’s official blog, a4trip is because I was actually looking for opportunities use the internet to earn some income. But, to do so, I need some experience and I think a4trip can be one of the best platform around to explore this field. With the flexibility they provide by doing it on a part time basis and the support from the team, I feel it’s suitable for many working adults who would like to contribute in writing a guidebook of their hometown, to participate in animal conservation project and generating some side income from their work.
But I believed many writers will have a feeling that can the guide book sells or doubt the a4trip team’s credibility. Of course even I feel the same thing at the beginning. But after meeting with Pin, ChinSeng and YC, I got pretty excited. Its the people behind it that actually inspires me to work together with a4trip. We shared stories ,experience , knowledge and make FRIENDS!
Why royalty income and not a one shot pay? Haha, this is a very interesting question. If you just get a one shot pay , wouldn’t it be no different than getting another part-time job? Try imagine going to 1.com office everyday just to complete the guidebook and leaving your present job and hometown. Because you have been paid to do so!
But with royalty income , things are more towards a win-win partnership. a4trip doesnt need to ‘employ’ any writers and writers don’t have any strict job like commitments. Writers are free to work according to agreed time lines and work pace. The beauty of royalty income is that it’s a one time work where writers generate incomes through sales of the guidebook. What if the guidebook that you write sells 500 copies worldwide for the first month? Thats 500 x USD 0.30. That’s USD 150! How about next month? If it has great responds thanks to the marketing team and sells for 1000 copies for the subsequent months? Thats USD 300/month by just writing a guidebook only once. But we need to give our best effort and be confident of our abiities if we wanted to achieve success.
I’m currently doing some background research on Melaka despite a tight schedule. Yes, the writing process can be a little troublesome when you don’t know where to start! Haha. But, you can see my writing progress in my blog. Thanks!
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| News Today – Fabien WANTED! |
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June 25th, 2008 |
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Fabien, our mapper for Malacca Travel Guide, doesn’t like to take photo of himself. He told us he was begging his friends for hours to send his picture taken by their camera for a4friends. Finally he found one for us, together with his sharing below!
Recently I’ve started working as a Marketing Executive. Still pondering about my future due to the petrol price hike :D I joined a4trip through my friend, Clarence the writer for Malacca Travel Guide English Version. He said my so called “skills” in photoshop would be useful for doing the map. Thus, he introduced me to the a4trip as a mapper.
Faith? If my friend have faith in a4trip, I’ll place my trust in them as well because I know my friend’s choice will not be wrong. v(*,*)v
Getting royalty would be rather profit-ful if the guide getting recognitions and sales in the future. This is long term planning. One-shot pay will not be very beneficial to a4trip. a4trip requires development, and by paying one-shot will burn holes in their pocket and hampers it from development.The amount of one-shot pay maybe little due to the a4trip’s current state.
a4friends? A bunch of crazy internet bloggers and etc… Just kidding. Appreciate the animal rights and environment awareness enthusiasm. By the way, with so many capable web developers.
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| Passion of Adrian, our proofreader |
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June 24th, 2008 |
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 In all true honesty, I’m just honoured that a4trip knocked on my door to enquire if I’m ok to do some writing for this website. I’ve been writing regularly on Virtualtourist, and that was how a4trip found me. I’m not here to make tons of money. Not in the case of a royalty fee offer, anyway. I’m here to write so that people can enjoy what I had the opportunity to enjoy. In truth, as travelling is my passion, nothing else matters. I take time to travel the world and have been trevassing this planet since I was 10 and ever since then, its a must to travel – to experience another culture, to partake the food consumed by the people in the country, to do things commonly done by the locals and not by the tourists.
So far, I see that the a4trip community has been pretty friendly and warm. Do continue to stay that way. As for me, I’m just looking for my next trip. Never liked those 20 in one country hopping type. Just one country at a time to get that opportunity to smell the flowers.
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| Amy, the writer of Sydney Travel Guide is here! |
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June 24th, 2008 |
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What makes you hava faith in a4trip?
To be honest, I am still not sure how the guides will sell, however I know a company has to start from somewhere, even Lonely Planet a long time ago was just a small back office printing, so it’s in my best interest to try to make it work for everyone. In a sense, it’s my way to contributing to the guidebook community, having bought quite a few there are always ways to improve on traveller’s experiences with guidebooks. Being a travel agent means I get first hand customer feedback on their experiences travelling so it’s also a great “side” thing to do for me as a form of research!
Why you would accept the royalty fee offer, not a one-shot pay?
I figured that being a start up company a4trips are not going to have the money to pay their writers, just like all of us and how we started (having done a few ‘free’ jobs myself for my feature articles) and being writers we all know there isn’t that much money in writing anyway. If I (we) can create something different for the travellers in terms of our guidebook offerings and produce good quality product, the word will spread and eventually it’ll sell. It’ll take a while, but nothing comes easy in life.
How do you describe a4friends?
It certainly is full of cheery people! Understandably everyone is still learning, about the business and about the markets. The website has drastically improved since I joined so I am very please to see that! I’ll leave it in the hands of those developing the online communities. I’ll just keep to what I am good at: being a travel consultant and writing :)
How is your writing process?
I have been a little slack and not following my timeline. The framework is pretty flexible as explained to each writer in the beginning so I am happy with that. I just need to find time to dedicate myself to write!
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| Once upon a time, there’s a little girl named Shirley… |
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June 23rd, 2008 |
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My name is Shirley. I’m 22 years old and I grew up in Langkawi. I’m currently a university student, doing Bachelor of Commerce with Deakin University, and I’m majoring in Marketing and Economics. I’m a food lover, enjoy reading, blogging, traveling and am passionate in photography.
One morning, I turned on my computer to check my emails, without expecting to receive any emails from anyone except those annoying junk mails which I would delete straight away with resentment.
Before opening my first email that day, I took a quick scan along the list of unread mails and that’s when my eyes stopped at an unfamiliar name ‘Nicholas’. “Who on earth is Nicholas? I don’t know any Nicholas. Can this be a scam?” I thought to myself. My instinct told me not to open it, but my guts told me otherwise. Without hesitation, I opened the email from a stranger out of curiosity. A friendly greeting of “Hi Shirley got me wanted to read further. “This guy even knows my name!”
Nicholas invited me to join a4trip as a writer of their guidebook for Pulau Langkawi. Before I made my decision, I visited the website that was provided by Nicholas, to check out what sort of company it was. Despite being uncertain whether it was a genuine invitation, I replied to Nicholas and agreed to his offer. People say that curiosity kills. But, not all the time. I’m glad that I made that reply and now here I am, a proud member of a4trip!
I believe that a great effort will bear a fruitful success. Although a4trip is a newly established company, I believe it will grow as time passes. It’s their sincerity, helpfulness, the love for animals, kindness and friendliness that made me fascinated with their attempt to maximize profits while maintaining the closeness between members.
I see a4friends as a group of nice and friendly people with passions, who are doing what they can to help the company move forward. Besides showing love to the endangered species, this community also devote their time and energy to charity such as donating money to the victims who suffer from the tragedy of Sichuan earthquake. I see a4friends as not only a team that strives for a goal, but also a big family consisting of members from every corner of the world.
Since a4trip is based online, I would suggest a4trip to be advertised in blogs of the members. In order to spread the word of a4trip, it can be done through sponsored blogs or voluntary blogs. Further, reviews from buyers who have used our guidebooks would be a valuable source to win over the hearts of other potential buyers.
It’s a great pleasure to be part of a4trip family. It feels like home…
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