Forty listings, revisited
What changes in a guidebook chapter in three years, and why a phone call is not enough to update it.
By Clara Weiss
Updating a guidebook chapter sounds like checking opening hours. It is mostly walking.
In the last chapter I updated, eleven of forty listings had closed, moved or changed hands. Three had changed so much that the old description was wrong in every sentence but the address. A phone call would have confirmed the hours of all three.
A phone call would have confirmed the hours of all three.
So I visit every listing, eat or buy something, and rewrite the entry from what I saw. It takes longer than editors expect, and it is the only way the chapter is still right when the reader arrives.
More in Guidebooks
The whole section-
A guidebook chapter in six weeks
Week by week: how a new chapter goes from a blank brief to forty checked listings.