Picky Postcards

⭐An Interview With the Author⭐

Ella Rowan answers the tough questions from her harshest critic! Well, apart from that one reviewer who said her novel made them start vomiting from the first sentence. 

All the postcards in your book make the places sound so awful. Are they really as terrible as this book suggests?
Not at all. Most people leaving reviews on TripAdvisor had a wonderful time. It's only a small minority who leave one-star reviews.

So why didn't you make postcards from all the good reviews?
Er ... because that wouldn't be amusing?

Were there any reviews that you refused to cover?
I didn't shy away from controversial topics, but I didn't choose reviews that used racist or ethnic slurs, or attacked people based on their sexuality or body size. More than anything else, this didn't seem funny to me.

Look, I've Googled some of the exact text used on the postcards, and they don't show up on the TripAdvisor site. Are you just making them up?
The words as well as the pictures are a collage, so I freely combine words and phrases from different reviews, edit reviews, juxtapose certain words together, or take words and phrases very slightly out of context. Nothing is invented, but it's all my creation.

What things do travellers complain about the most?
Crime, especially theft and scams, or not feeling safe
Dirtiness, graffiti, and vandalism
Expense – a lot of people think if the plane fare is cheap, everything else will be
Crowds – everyone goes to the same place at the same time, then complains about the crowds
Not enough to do – any place that is clean, safe and uncrowded is instantly dubbed 'boring'!

Which places received the most one-star reviews?
Dubrovnik – once a fairy tale city, now ruined by Hollywood and consumerist greed
Naples – combines a high crime rate with filthiness and no major attractions
Athens – dirty and polluted
Hamburg – ugly and depressing
Moscow – cold and miserable

Which places did people rave about the most?
Ibiza, Bergen, Kraków, Antwerp, and Salzburg were some of people's favourite spots. It was actually really hard to find any negative reviews about these places. Valencia is the only city that received no one-star reviews at all – three-stars is the lowest it got.

Have you been to any of the cities covered in Picky Postcards?
Only Paris and Copenhagen. They were lovely.

Has doing the book made you want to visit any of these places?
I'm not a keen traveller, and I don't even like going to cities in my own country, where I speak the language and have the right currency. But I did think Madeira sounded very restful.

I can't help noticing that the book is called Picky Postcards, but hardly any of the chapters are actually postcards
Well spotted. Most of them are Instagram or Facebook posts, because they're larger, and have a wider selection of designs. I made sure to finish the book with a postcard though.

Do you feel embarrassed by the low quality of the postcards you've designed?
Not really. I'm not a professional artist, or even a talented amateur – I barely passed the one and only art class I ever took. The postcards are meant to have a sloppy sort of handmade craftsy look.

Really? Not embarrassed by any at all?
If I'm honest, there's a couple that I think are pretty bad. And I have redone postcards that I thought really didn't work. I might redo more.

What were you thinking with the white postcards? I mean, white postcard on a white page? That's not going to work, is it?
I originally did the postcard series for Instagram, which provides a frame for pictures so it didn't matter. I have tried to redo the white ones, but with a lot of them, Canva has since retired the designs I used for them back in 2020, so I couldn't change the background colour easily.

How popular were you on Instagram?
Very unpopular. I got a few pity likes from people who were probably hoping I'd follow them or vote on their pictures.

Did you pay them back?
I followed one guy, left some hearts on his drawings, and wrote some harmless comment on one like, Intriguing. He immediately left Instagram forever. I was too scared to do it again in case I brought the site down.

Do you have any favourites among the postcards?
Visually, I think Hong Kong, Moscow, and Dubai look pretty spiffy. Athens, Brussels, and Venice have the sickest burns. Madrid made me laugh the most.

Any TripAdvisor comments that you could barely believe?
The ones for Kraków and Rio made me really angry.

Which are the most popular postcards with readers?
By percentage of readers, St Petersburg and Tenerife have the most views, and Lisbon has the most votes. I don't know what that means.

Your biggest surprise with Picky Postcards?
That nearly all my readers are female. With my other books, readership is fairly equally split between males and females, so I thought a book of humorous travel postcards would have broad appeal. Apparently not. (Give it a go, guys!)

How does it feel to have nearly 1k views already?
Amazing, as in, I'm amazed! Thank you to all my readers, and especially the very supportive - : 

Pollyf79, AubreyWhitten, AnnamitaMuscaria, EMMcNulty, _abhipreeti_,   carol_carrots, Mariya_Evans, kth_disneyfanatic, angelsho, and Olivia_Benedetti.

So I suppose you feel pretty smug that you won third prize the first time you entered this book in an awards?
Well, I only got 53% so I don't think I can feel too smug. But I'm quietly pleased, yes.

Is this the end of Picky Postcards?
Yes. I based the postcard locations on the TV show Travel Man, and there's no more episodes. I'm slapping the green Completed sticker on it, and that's a wrap.

What if they film another series?
Then I'll add more postcards. They only do about four episodes per year, so even if they continue the series, it won't be an onerous burden on me.

Will there ever be a sequel?
I don't know. But if there is, it will be based on Australian tourist destinations.

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