English Mysteries Club discussion
Archive pre-2020
>
Help
I'll think about a name, but the thing which struck me immediately about some of the suggestions so far is that I would think from the name that it was a bookshop rather than a travel agency. In fact, I think only the last of the list avoids that problem, and that one looks like a restaurant name!This sounds so negative, but I think it's important that you know.
I'll be back with a suggestion if I can come up with one!
The No. 1 Literary Travel Agency :-)
Hj wrote: "I'll think about a name, but the thing which struck me immediately about some of the suggestions so far is that I would think from the name that it was a bookshop rather than a travel agency. In ..."I agree with you HJ. I knew the names were not quite right but I couldn't put my finger on it.
Arpita wrote: "The No. 1 Literary Travel Agency :-)"I love this one Arpita.
(I thought of one then rejected it.)
That's an interesting idea. I know that Sharon Kay Penman does those types of tours and using her own books. And then there's the very popular Morse Tour of Oxford. Can't really think of a good name for the agency, but I wish you the best of luck with it.
I love Arpita's idea. BTW, where is your shop? I hope you keep us apprised of your progress. Such a great project!
I run it mostly off the Internet but I live in N. Calif. I know several authors run their own programs and it will be like a clearing house where I can put all the trips in one spot. There is a Diana Gabaldon tour, Margaret George, and lots of Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings. There are lots of festivals too like Agatha Christie, Jane Austen, and Daphne DuMaurier.There are also great festivals like Hay-on-Wye, Cheltenham, etc.
It would be a place where people could add one literary event to their trip if they didn't want to do a full blown one.
Please publish your agency's online site information. It would be great if you would consider arrangements for those traveling alone. Often it is difficult to find a friend or family member who shares literary interests with me.
Charlene wrote: "Please publish your agency's online site information. It would be great if you would consider arrangements for those traveling alone. Often it is difficult to find a friend or family member who s..."I agree.
Susan - these are the best (or the least worst) that I've come up with:Much Have I Travell’d
Realms of Gold
Travelling Readers
Travelling Booklovers
Literary Explorers
Literary Journeys
Bookish Tours
Bookish Travel
Bookish Journeys
Bookish Adventures
Adventures in Bookland
Book-orama
Novel Wandering
Literary Wanderlust
It's not easy, is it!
Hj wrote: "Susan - these are the best (or the least worst) that I've come up with:Much Have I Travell’d
Realms of Gold
Travelling Readers
Travelling Booklovers
Literary Explorers
Literary Journeys
Booki..."
HJ, wow do you have an active imagination. Thanks for the input.
Charlene and Leslie, I will definately do single travel. It's important to me as I am a widow so I do travel on my own. I am setting up some single trips now. I will keep you posted as things go along.
Thank you, my wonderful book club, for all your help.
How about:Book-ventures, Book-venturous
Lit-ventures, Lit-venturous
Take Me Away Book Tours
You my find some inspiration in
Following the Detectives
Riffing off of HJs contributions...Literary Latitudes
I like these especially literary latitudes.
Thank you all for your input. I really really liked Arpita's title No. 1 Literary Travel Agency but my other friends convince me that you would have to know the books to really appreciate it. i cried a few tears and let it go.So I am going to use Shera's suggestion of Take Me Way Book Tours. Everyone I talked to liked the vision of that one.
Thank you all for your creative input. You guys were great.
Mark wrote: "Riffing off of HJs contributions...Literary Latitudes"
I like this one!
Take Me Away Book Tours is good - it's clear from the name what it's about, and various searches would hit it.
Yes I think HJ is right : apart from the appeal of the name you might consider something that shows up on multiple search engines. Books Ahoy! would be a cute name but probably wouldn't turn up in response to travel searches.
Of course you can increase the likelihood of turning up on search engines by making sure that your tag line or description of what you do contains all the trigger words too - variations on terms people might use when looking e.g. location, set, setting, novel and story, character, journey, place, author, writer, literary.
Susan I like your tour idea. I personally love going to places that have literary significance. Some places I've been to: Haworth- the Bronte sisters home in the UK, Charles Dicken's museum in kent, in the US: the Robert Frost Farm in NH, LM Alcott house in concord, MA and Hemingway' s home in Key West.My dream is to visit PE island, do a Jane Austen tour someday. Have any of you been to interesting literary places and what's in your bucket list?
You might run into trouble from the Calgon people with "Take Me Away Book Tours". :-) I guess the other thing to consider is that "Book Tours" are normally associated with things that authors do to promote a book, and not necessarily something that readers do on vacation. You would somehow have to make it clear who the customers are for the service.
Mark wrote: "You might run into trouble from the Calgon people with "Take Me Away Book Tours". :-) I guess the other thing to consider is that "Book Tours" are normally associated with things that authors do t..."I have no idea what the Calgon reference means here. Is this the stuff which stops washing machines seizing up because the water is too hard? What do they have to do with taking people away?
I'm supposing that this is either country-specific (I'm in the UK) or age-specific (I think it must be pretty old if I haven't heard it, assuming it was used in the UK).
If it is the hard water stuff, then unless they somehow registered that phrase I would doubt if they could complain about its being used by a travel agency for book tours. There couldn't be any confusion between the two products.
Just did a search and I see it's a US fragrance company! You'll have gathered that the name means something completely different in the UK...And I see that www.takemeaway.com is their website address, although they don't appear to use that phrase on the various pages. I wonder if they've registered it as a trademark? - that's the only way to protect it, as I understand it. Maybe they tried and failed because it was too commonplace a term?
They've had a long running campaign for bath salts here in the US with the Take Me Away tag line.
It reminds me of the ads (in the UK) in the 1970s - 'Things happen after a Badedas bath'...
Thanks< Mark. I checked on the domain register and it's OK because I added Book Tours. Calgon does have the rights to the phrase Take Me Away but if you modify it then it's OK. I went ahead and registered Take Me Away Book Tours and Take Me Away Travel Agency.I did think about it conjuring up the authors book tours but decided to try it anyway. I am going to a book tour signing in the Bay Area (SF) to hear Kate Atkinson on Wednesday. I am very excited.
Arpita wrote: "Susan I like your tour idea. I personally love going to places that have literary significance. Some places I've been to: Haworth- the Bronte sisters home in the UK, Charles Dicken's museum in kent..."Arpita wrote: "Yes I think HJ is right : apart from the appeal of the name you might consider something that shows up on multiple search engines.
Books Ahoy! would be a cute name but probably wouldn't turn up in..."
Arpita,
You always make me think. We don't have a lot of literary sites in CA unless you count Hollywood. Ha. Ha. But I have been to see the Steinbeck house and museum. I have been to several Mark Twain sites including seeing the actual Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County contest which was so much fun. I have been to several author fairs.
When I was in England I went to the Readers Fair in Cheltenham. which was magnificant. In fact, that was one of the reasons I liked this month's read since it was in the Cotswalds. I've done some Jane Austen stuff including climbing three flights of stairs at her museum in Bath to have tea! I did a literary tour in Edinborough that was so much fun. I did a literary pub tour in Dublin.
My wife and I discovered the Jack London state historical park on a recent trip through Sonoma county. http://www.jacklondonpark.com/I can definitely recommend it.
Thank you, Mark. I have been there. Santa Rosa is our nearest "big city". It's only a 1 1/2 hours away. I love Sonoma County. I just went over to Mendocino last week. Did you make it there?
We stopped in Santa Rosa. It was pretty. We'd seen the Charles M. Schultz museum before, so we didn't stop there again. This time we explored some of the shops in the area. We live in San Diego, so this was our chance to see green grass and trees. :-)We haven't really explored LA that much. Are there any historical, writer-related sites to see? Perhaps Raymond Chandler, or Dashiell Hammett's San Francisco?
Ooh< wouldn't Dahiell Hammett's SF be wonderful. I'll check into it. You have great ideas, Mark.
Now I wish I lived on the west coast. All those places sound v interesting. I would love to go to an author fair someday.
I think they would have them all over the place back East. You just have to search them out. I'll keep my eyes peeled for you, Arpita.
My wife's a big Beatrix Potter fan so at some point we'll be making the long trek to the north of England to check out her farm. The other trips I would be interested in are Dylan Thomas's Wales and TS Eliot's London. It would be interesting to see where he wrote Prufrock. And an Agatha Christie tour of London. I haven't quite made it to Pour it's residence, but it's on my bucket list. And although not strickly speaking a literary jaunt, it would be nice to do a PreRaphaelite Tour.
My brother is a travel blogger. He has visited potter's farm in the Lake District. Also the Hemingway's Paris amongst other things.love your list.
A couple of other additions to the travel database for anyone doing road trips through Texas:O. Henry House(Austin) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_...
Katherine Anne Porter House (Kyle) :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherin...
Mark wrote: "A couple of other additions to the travel database for anyone doing road trips through Texas:O. Henry House(Austin) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_...
Katherine Anne Porter ..."
Hahaha! I just suggested this in 'Today in Literature' :)
I forgot to mention that the Menger is also the site where author and president Teddy Roosevelt recruited some of his Rough Riders.
Mark wrote: "We stopped in Santa Rosa. It was pretty. We'd seen the Charles M. Schultz museum before, so we didn't stop there again. This time we explored some of the shops in the area. We live in San Diego..."You might also find sights written about by James Ellroy or Ross MacDonald. They both had an intresting view of LA
I wondered of any US based members of the group have had any luck buying paperbacks from amazon uk? There are a few titles I would like to get that are available in the UK only. Thanks.
Arpita wrote: "I wondered of any US based members of the group have had any luck buying paperbacks from amazon uk? There are a few titles I would like to get that are available in the UK only. Thanks."I've ordered a couple of books through Amazon that came from the U.K. (not a separate site, just Amazon). I did have one get lost in the mail, but I was refunded promptly. And, since we have mail issues here on this end, it might have been local and not the booksellers issue.
Thanks Karlyne. Good to know. I was wondering if there might be issues with a non-uk credit card but seems like you had no issues.
Arpita,I've never had any problems with Amazon UK, either re delivery or credit card. My bank, and many others, do charge an international transaction fee.
I do find the postage exorbitant though, and whenever possible I use book depository.com - they have free shipping. But they also became an Amazon subsidiary within the last few years and sometimes books are not available for the U.S., I guess it's a competitive thing.
I also use bookfinder.com as a consolidated search site, and sometimes use bookdepository that way. It helps with comparing prices.
I tend to order used books, so maybe that's why my shipping has always been $3.95? I've never been charged international transaction fee, either. Hmmmm!
Karlyne wrote: "I tend to order used books, so maybe that's why my shipping has always been $3.95? I've never been charged international transaction fee, either. Hmmmm!"Sorry, I meant direct orders from Amazon UK.
I do order from UK vendors through Amazon.com too, but those are two separate systems.
That makes more sense, although I was thinking for a while I was special! Oh, well, back to my ordinariness.
Mark wrote: "My wife's a big Beatrix Potter fan so at some point we'll be making the long trek to the north of England to check out her farm. The other trips I would be interested in are Dylan Thomas's Wales ..."
Mark - if your wife is into the wonderful Beatrix Potter - in return for visiting her farm why dont you read Martin Edward's The Lake District Mystery series and then see if there are any places to visit - I'm sure there will be!
Some of the names suggested are:
Books To Go
Have Books Will Travel
Read and Go Travel
Eat,Read, Travel
I would appreciate any advice I can get.
Thanks.