Last month, the backpacker couple founders of Lonely Planet, Maureen and Tony Wheeler, were here in Singapore at Kinokuniya and Borders to launch their new story book about how Lonely Planet started. I found them to be extremely nice, down-to-earth people.
Most empires have modest beginnings, and little beknownest to most people and to most Singaporeans, Singapore was a vital part of the history of what has become a multi-million dollar global travel publishing empire today.
When they decided to write their second travel guidebook, they travelled up to Singapore and camped out at a very modest hotel along Jalan Besar called The Palace where they spent many weeks hand-writing the text and hand-drawing the maps on their tiny hotel room table. When they finished the book and went out to find buyers, MPH gave them their first order of 1,000 copies, which they have very fond memories of till today.
One funny story in the book tells of the time when they were trying to think of a nice name for their
new business -- Tony was singing a song "Space Captain," by Joe Cocker
and Leon Russell, but he got the lyrics wrong and sang "..lonely
planet" instead of "...lovely planet", and his wife pointed out the mistake to him.
So this was how the "Lonely Planet" brand name was invented - One of the world's most well-known and well-loved brands was the result of a complete mistake! If he hadn't made that mistake, all of us might have been reading "Lovely Planet" guidebooks instead -- A great story!
The Lonely Planet Story is a delightful book with a unique mix of autobiography, business history and travel stories. It narrates Tony and Maureen Wheeler's personal story as well as the bumpy evolution of their travel guide business into the world's largest independent travel publishing company. Above all, their memoir reveals the spirit of adventure that has made them, according to The New York Daily News, "the specialists in guiding weird folk to weird places."
David Lim
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PS: The book is published by Periplus and can be found in all the leading bookstores in Singapore. I've bought and read it, but go get your own, coz I'm not lending my signed copy to anyone ;-)
It is very nice to read articles from David. His affinity for the books remains the same -
RGDS/RYAN
biomkting@yaoo.com
Posted by: Dr. Ryan Baidya | October 22, 2006 at 12:52 PM