Durant Imboden, founder of the award-winning EuropeforVisitors.com, is a writer and netpreneur who knows how to create good web content, and at the same time turn his writings into a source of good income.Imboden is a former literary agent, freelance writer, and editor of Playboy magazine. He began his online career as manager of the Writing Forum when MSN launched in 1995. He moved on to become editor of Venice for Visitors and Switzerland for Visitors at The Mining Co. (later to become About.com) in early 1997. A travel writer since 1996, his publishing credits include novels set in Europe and a nonfiction book, Buying Travel Services on the Internet. Together with his wife, Cheryl, Imboden currently works full-time as editor and publisher of the several award-winning travel related web sites.
Aside from EuropeforVisitors.com, Imboden’s sites include Writing.org, Venice for Visitors, Switzerland for Visitors, and Austria for Visitors. His sites provide more than 3,500 pages of original articles, with traffic currently exceeding 300,000 visitors per month. EuropeforVisitors.com was named Forbes’ Best of the Web, proving that even a small home-based operation can receive acclaim for excellence.
PowerHomeBiz.com interviewed Imboden to discuss his strategies for creating a successful content Web site.
PowerHomeBiz.com: You created your first web site in 1996 with Writing.org. Then you added a host of European travel websites (EuropeforVisitors.com; VeniceforVisitors.com; SwitzerlandforVisitors.com; AustriaforVisitors.com; and The Baby Boomer’s Venice). What were your inspirations for creating each site?
Durant Imboden: I started work on Writing.org late in 1995, when I was under contract to Microsoft as manager of MSN’s Writing Forum. I’d been using the Web for a few years, and I thought a writing-related Web site might help to generate interest in my MSN forum.
The Baby Boomer’s Venice was my first travel site. I created it on the spur of the moment in 1996 as a test bed for a review of FrontPage 1.1 in Boardwatch Magazine, which at that time was a magazine for online entrepreneurs and users. The site was listed in Yahoo and several guidebooks, and it’s still around–although nowadays it’s mainly a feeder to my newer and much larger Venice for Visitors site.
I created Venice for Visitors at The Mining Company, which later became About.com, in spring of 1997. My wife’s Switzerland for Visitors–later Switzerland/Austria for Visitors–began at roughly the same time, and I expanded my beat to include all of Western Europe in 1998.. Our contracts were terminated in September, 2001 after I’d raised questions about About.com’s accounting practices and other contract issues. (Those contract issues are now the subject of a major class-action lawsuit, Levinson et al. v. Primedia et al.)
My wife and I owned the copyright to nearly all of our About.com content, so we relaunched the sites under the Europeforvisitors.com umbrella in October, 2001. They’ve been flourishing and growing ever since.
PowerHomeBiz.com: What were your expectations when you started any of your sites? Were your sites simply a venue to present, discuss and perhaps find like-minded enthusiasts on the subjects that you are passionate about - writing and European travel? Or did you begin the site thinking that this could be a way to earn money?
Durant Imboden: Writing.org was never conceived as a way to make money. I hoped it would benefit the MSN forum that I ran from 1995 to 1999, but I’ve always financed it out of my own pocket. (I don’t run ads on the site because nearly all writing-related ads are for vanity presses or scams.)
The Baby Boomer’s Venice wasn’t conceived as a moneymaker either. As I mentioned above, the site was built in connection with a software review, and I kept it going afterwards because I liked the subject matter and I hate to throw anything away!
The Mining Co./About.com sites were created as for-profit editorial ventures. I’ve been a professional writer and editor since the 1960s, and The Mining Co./About.com seemed to offer an opportunity to “monetize” editorial content on the Web. After Cheryl and I were fired from About.com, I decided that it was time to leverage my 30+ years of editorial and publishing experience by doing on the Web what guidebook author-publishers like Karl Baedeker, Eugene Fodor, Temple Fielding, and Arthur Frommer had long been doing in the print world–i.e., creating a strong personal brand and controlling the publishing process.
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