There was a time that before travel writers set off for their trips of researching and exploration publishers of guide books would thrust upon them every conceivable tome in the hope that they might use and review it as they made their way around the globe.
Times changed and the way it then worked was the writer asked for preview copies of a guide and gave the publishers an undertaking that they would give their books a plug.
Now even that has changed. Publishers are now so rude as to not even find the time to send an e mail to say no in response to a request.
Such is the case with our up coming trip to Chile and Argentina not a single publisher was polite enough to answer our request.
So we have bought our own, we will use them and probably never mention which ones they are.
So why do we worry? Well because we are professional writers and it is the very same publishers who commission colleagues of ours in the British Guild of TravelWriters to write books such as these.
If the only place a guide book gets exposure, is on an obscure shelf in a seedy corner of a high street book shop, what hope have they of being able to sell enough copies to fund their business and commission new work?
Thank goodness we do not rely on guide book publishers for our income