Exploring Dark Tourism: A Creative Journey

What is dark tourism and why are many of us interested in places associated with death and tragedy? How can you write and self-publish a premium print guidebook while managing complicated design elements, image permissions, and more? With Leon Mcanally.

In the intro, level up with author assistants [Written Word Media]; and Blood Vintage signing pics.

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Leon McAnally is the author of A Guide to Dark Attractions in the UK.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• The definition of dark tourism and what types of places it includes
• Public opinion around dark tourism sites
• Self-publishing to keep creative control of book design and content
• Researching historical sites and keeping an organized system
• How to obtain permissions for publishing images
• Working with a designer on a photo-heavy book
• Using book signings and social media as part of a book marketing strategy
• Managing expectations for research- and design-extensive projects

You can find Leon on his Facebook page: Dark Attractions in the UK.

Transcript of Interview with Leon McAnally

Joanna: Leon McAnally is the author of A Guide to Dark Attractions in the UK, which is brilliant. My quote is on the back, and I said, “A fascinating book for all the dark little souls out there.” So welcome to the show, Leon.

Leon: Thank you, Joanna, for having me.

Joanna: I'm excited to talk about this topic, and you and I are both dark little souls. First up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and self-publishing.

Leon: Well, I studied travel and tourism in college. That's where I first learned of this term called dark tourism, places associated with death, suffering and tragedy. I came away looking into these places and was really fascinated with the tourism aspect and the history aspect.

My university touched on this topic more, so I went and studied Travel and Tourism at the University of Northampton. I focused a lot around the motivations of dark tourism and the ethical issues around dark tourism.

After uni, I wasn't sure what to do, but I wanted to travel to a lot of the places that I'd been writing about, like Auschwitz and the Catacombs of Paris. Then I got into writing because I came across yourself, actually. When I was researching dark tourism, I think you popped up on a website. I started reading your ARKANE thriller series and looked into yourself a bit more, and I was like, you're just an inspiration.

Joanna: Thank you.

Leon: So it seemed from that, and then yourself. Then I was in Paris visiting the Catacombs at the time, and that evening I sat down and was like, what do I do with myself now? Then I thought to myself, there's no book that covers like dark tourism across the whole of the UK. So, yes, it set me off on a journey, really.

Joanna: First of all, I'm really thrilled to inspire you. I'm glad I turned up on some website, that's excellent.

Let's just return to this idea of dark tourism.

You mentioned places associated with death, suffering and tragedy. You mentioned two places that are quite different, Auschwitz, which of course, is modern horror, really. Then the Paris Catacombs, which, if people don't know, are full of plague dead, but it's bones that are arranged in different ways. I find the Catacombs an awesome place. I'm sure you enjoyed it as well, right?

Leon: Yes, definitely. It was really eye opening.

Joanna: Exactly. I think those two places are disturbing in different ways. People are like, why are the pair of you interested in this stuff? So what do you think? You mentioned studying the motivations. Why do people visit these places?

Why do you and I find these ‘dark tourism' places interesting?

Leon: I think there's a number of factors at play. It depends on the place you're visiting because dark tourism is an umbrella term for loads of places, and that's what a lot of people don't realize.

So it could be that you go to a memorial to remember people who have tragically died. It also could be a totally different place, and it makes you perceive life differently and how you wish to be known in life, as well as after life.

The Victorian cemeteries that are within my book, The Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London, I visited them. So one, they gave me a kind of inspiration and motivated me with my book.

Also, I look at the people who are buried there and how they are known after life. Like they were known back when they were alive, and they're still being known, and their story and their life history is being retold.

Joanna: I mean, you're still in your 20s, and I'm nearly 50, but—

We share this idea around Memento Mori, “remember you will die.”

By going to these places, it's almost inspiring—you mentioned the word inspiration—inspiring you on how to live your life.

Leon: Yes, that's one thing from each place I've visited, while they are different, it still drives that determination in getting my book out there and getting these places known.

There's so many simple memorials to massive tragedies. There's one in Barnsley, a memorial to a coal mine disaster, I believe it killed 361 people.

I look at that and think of the Aberfan in Wales, that is an awful disaster as well, and that's a kind of well-known disaster. It tragically killed a number of children, and that's really well known, but I feel like this other one in Barnsley should just be as well-known as that one.

Joanna: Yes, if people have seen The Crown, they show that Welsh tragedy on The Crown. I can't remember which series.

I get what you mean, like some of these things are more famous than others. For example, Auschwitz, obviously that's not in the UK, but many people will have heard of that and the deaths that went on there. There were so many other camps, that was not like the only camp, but that seems to be what people think of.

So as you say, it's remembering the past, but also helping us live in the future. So I did also want to ask, what reactions have you had around this? So do your family think you're weird? Do your friends think you're weird?

What are the reactions of people who know you?

Leon: When you're going to these places, a lot of people don't consider it dark tourism. You may just go to a castle and learn about executions and walk away, and you don't consider that it is dark tourism, but it falls under this umbrella term. So I'm like, you've participated in dark tourism without knowing it.

They do find some of the places that I visited a bit odd and peculiar. There's a place called Littledean Jail. A gentleman has this old jail, and he's filled it with a number of artifacts and newspaper clippings. It's got artifacts to the likes of Fred and Rose West, the infamous serial killers, and the Kray twins. They found that a bit strange. Like, why would you want to go there and see that? That was a very unusual experience.

Joanna: Did you find that it was glorifying the serial killers or it was more just exposing them?

Leon: Yes. The rooms within the jail, when I walked into Fred and Rose West's cell, it had belongings, like his work boots and a tie and a cabinet, and it had newspaper clippings, obviously, when it all happened. I felt like it was a shrine to them.

It was a bit strange. I was like, why would you want to have all of this on display and stuff. In some aspects, yes, you can look at it as it's glorifying these kind of infamous criminals at the end of the day.

Joanna: It's interesting that some places, so again, we mentioned the catacombs, I find catacombs where there are bones that are obviously long dead, more, I don't know, more peaceful in some way. Yet, I don't want to visit serial killer things.

So I think there are also gradations. So if people listening are like, everything's the same thing, it's not, is it?

You can visit one thing and be disturbed, and visit another and feel at peace. It's really tapping into those feelings.

Leon: Yes, there's definitely a lot of different emotions and feelings that come into these places. I definitely agree with you on that. If you go into the likes of Princess Diana's grave, you're going there to pay respects and remember her life.

You're going to feel a number of different emotions to maybe what you'd feel if you were to visit the Tower of London. You may take a tour, and that's going to be very energized by the tour guide. They're totally on different spectrums, but that's where it's an umbrella term, dark tourism, for all of these different kind of places.

Joanna: Yes, so I was thinking too whether it taps into the same thing as the true crime podcast. True crime is the biggest podcast niche, and I feel like perhaps dark tourism is similar.

It comes from a similar place, a sort of fascination with death and the macabre. It's having a separation from violence and death, like we're still alive, we're still fine, and sort of reflecting that way. What do you think? Do you think it relates to true crime?

Leon: Yes. In some aspects, yes, but it depends how recent the event is because there's got to be some underlying historical factual elements, that dark tourism element. I think the dark tourism has been getting thrown around and been used for marketing of places on the wrong kind of aspects.

Places in America and stuff, places that are haunted are marketing themselves as dark tourism. I'm like, no, it's not. It's not that. There's got to be the factual history element to be labeled under this term dark tourism.

Joanna: I like that because that annoys me as well. To me, I know what dark tourism is, but as you pointed out, a lot of people might get confused.

So let's get into the book then because I have lots of dark tourism. I guess I call them death culture, so morbid anatomy and books around that kind of thing. Paul Koudounaris, I'm sure you've seen his books, lots of that kind of thing. I feel like you could have pitched this to traditional publishing, but you went indie.

Why did you decide to self-publish this book?

Leon: I think that's where you come into play a little bit because you inspire me because you're self-published and everything. So that kind of came into play.

When I actually started looking into it with my designers, they said you could take it to a publishing company, but you wouldn't have so much control over elements of it.

That was a big thing because I was covering the umbrella term of a number of sites. I didn't want a publisher to be like, “No, I don't feel that site should be in there. I don't feel that site should be in it. Oh, this should be in there.” It gave me the control of giving a vast amount of attractions and showing what falls under this term.

Also about when I was styling my book as well, some publishers may have a particular kind of format and style that they would steer towards. I didn't want to be constrained on the designing aspects of my book, really. So it gave me a bit of freeness, should we say.

Joanna: Yes, I love that. I mean, that's why a lot of people go indie because of the control aspect of what goes in the book and the design. We're going to come back to the design, but let's talk about the research. You did mention a bit earlier that you went traveling, but this particular book in the UK, it is really comprehensive.

How did you do your research?

Leon: It took me three years in all. It was traveling to places and also working with a lot of places. I wanted to make sure the factual history element was there within each kind of place. So it was traveling to places, and working places, and also cross referencing information, really.

Joanna: How did you keep all that organized? If you visited a site, did you write notes in a journal? Did you write them on your phone?

Leon: I used notebooks, and I did use my phone to take bullet points of information. So I would read the exhibits, and if there was bits of information that would stick out with me, then I'd bullet point them.

Then I also would then go back to the attraction and say, obviously, “I'm writing this book, and I've got this information, so I just want to double check things.” That then started to build a relationship with attractions.

I just found that when I was researching, there's just so much. I didn't really want to use the internet so much because there's just so much unreliable information and incorrect information. So I made sure that was up to date and things.

Joanna: I think that's great.

How many things are there in the book? How many sites?

Leon: Oh, my goodness. There's just over 300 places.

Joanna: That's just incredible. So you didn't visit every single one of those?

Leon: No, I couldn't visit every single one. I did visit quite a few of them. I did work with quite a few as well. Up to Scotland, all the way down to the south of England, I was working with places.

When I was writing about their history and things, and when I was saying I was writing about dark tourism, a lot of places would be like, “Oh, we're not too sure.” Then showing them what I was writing about and giving them more of an in depth understanding of the dark tourism term, that helped in me gaining places. Also some places just still didn't wish to fall under that term.

There was one place that I won't say the name of, but I'd written about, and they was happy with the write, but they said they don't wish to fall under this term dark tourism because they look at it more as a scientific kind of purposes. So I was like, okay, no, that's fine. So obviously they didn't make it into my book.

There was another aspect to it is I wanted to show how society reacts to dark sites. So if it was a more memorial, how had societies reacted in the process of the disaster and after the process in remembering people?

So that Barnsley Coal Mine Disaster Memorial, there was a community that helped that disaster, and there's still a legacy of it. The community is wanting it to be known and remembered. So I felt that it was important that places like that went into my book, really.

Joanna: I agree with a lot of the places in the book, but you do have a lot more memorials and things than I would have I've. I've got the book right here next to me. I've got my copy next to me, and I just opened it. I just opened it to London.

So you've got the Hunterian Museum, which is awesome. I should say that it inspired my book Desecration. I love that museum. Then next to it is the Hungerford Footbridge Skateboard Graveyard. So I was like, okay, that's really interesting because I do know that if you walk over that bridge, you can see it. Why choose something like that?

Is that more, as you said, the response to grief over something people care about?

Leon: Yes, it's the response of the skateboarding community of what took place on that foot bridge, at the end of the day. It's kind of how they remember a local skater, that aspect of how they pull together and remember their fellow skater. They lay their skateboards and chuck them over the bridge.

Joanna: It's interesting. In the book you say, “The skateboarding community has shown how the process of grief differs among communities, and there's a need to personalize the way we honor someone's life.” So I love that. I think it's really interesting what you've done with the book.

One of the things I noticed immediately is that there are lots of pictures. I've discovered that image permissions are a nightmare. Even if they're your photos, if they're in a private place, then you need permission.

How did you manage the image permissions?

Leon: It stems back to building that relationship with places. So I'd write the piece and send it over, and they would be quite happy with it. Then I would say, I've got images from myself, or I've sourced images, are you happy for this to be featured alongside it?

There was like, yes. Other places would be like, oh, we prefer to give you an image for it to be credited. So I was happy to do that. It was literally building that relationship and saying, “I'm writing a book. I'm looking at featuring you in my book. Can I write a piece and see what you think?”

I was making sure that the kind of factual history element was correct, and then going from there, really. There was a couple of sites who were like, “No, you can write a piece, but we don't wish for an image to be featured because we don't allow photography within this space.”

So that's why there's a few places I name that have not got images because they were happy for the entry to be featured, but as they don't allow permission of photography, they didn't wish for an image to be featured within the book.

Joanna: Did you have to pay for any permissions?

Leon: I did have to pay for a few of the permissions.

Joanna: What sort of price?

Leon: It varies a lot. One of them was 170 pounds to have it within my book to get the permission, but I was adamant that I wanted that image within my book.

Joanna: Yes, you have a lot of images. I like the book a lot because it has so many images. As I said, when I looked at it, I was like, oh my goodness, I know how much pain this is. You must be very organized then to keep track of everything. Like, if you're emailing all these places, you're sending them text, you're asking for images.

Did you have a process for keeping track of permissions, or are you just a super organized person?

Leon: I am a very organized person. I get told I'm too organized. Even in doing my day job, I get told I'm too over organized because I'm looking at kind of February now. People are like, Christmas is not even here yet.

So, yes, it was emailing places, and then I'd have kind of that written permission, and I'd put it to one kind of side to keep at the end of the day. I think my designer has a few as well.

We keep them to one side because if later down the road, they were to say they don't wish for that image to be featured anymore, that's fine. We can obviously remove it and things later, at a later day.

Joanna: You mentioned your job.

What do you do as a day job?

Leon: I am an activities coordinator in a care home. So that did actually come in. It did make me think a little bit when I was writing about my book, because working with the elderly generation, history is important to them.

I was speaking to the residents, and they would tell me aspects of the war and stuff. They were so passionate about telling their stories to make sure that future generations were known and they were told correctly. So that had a bit of an impact as well while I was writing my book.

Joanna: Oh, I love that. So you mentioned your designer. So tell us, how did you work with the designer? As you said, you're quite controlling, so you must have known how you wanted it to look.

How did you find a designer and then work with them?

Leon: Three designers actually collaborated on this book together. I had one main designer, Marie-Louise, who owns the company Lovely Evolution. Then she was working with another two designers as well, and they gave me different proofs.

Then I picked aspects that I liked from different proofs, and then that was brought into one. I was a bit picky along the way of my process of designing it.

So even when I got the proofs—because there's a background on the pages, like the illustrations behind the text and the images and stuff—we only had the one proof of that. I was like, oh, it'd be a really good idea to have the sections with a different background.

So it was little bits like that I picked out and made suggestions. All three designers were very good at working together. It was just a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, as you can probably see from looking at it, and fitting it all together.

Joanna: Yes. I mean, I think my brain is very different to your brain. It is, as you say, a jigsaw puzzle. Your brain must have figured out how you wanted it to go.

As you say, there's so many little extra things. Like in the corner of each section, there's like a little illustration as well. A dragon in Wales, and different things there. As you say, different background images as well as other images. I just think it's incredible.

You mentioned there, three designers, it's took you three years, you've got all these permissions.

What kind of budget did you have for this book? Basically, is this a labor of love?

Leon: It is a labor of love because I'm just very passionate about our British history at the end of the day. With dark tourism, people associate so many places abroad, like Auschwitz, the Catacombs of Paris, Ground Zero.

I was just like, there's so much to England. So it was a very passionate project in showing there's so much more in England that's linked to dark tourism than people initially thought. There has been a budget and that has gone over a bit, I'm not going to lie.

Joanna: It does look like a pricey project, as far as I can see. I did want to ask, because at the moment the copy I have is a large scale, but it's still paperback. So are you planning on doing an eBook? I think it would work on a tablet, on an iPad or something. I think you could also do an audiobook, or a short form podcast, or a hardback.

Are you thinking of doing other editions?

Leon: I can't say too much because we are working on other little things, but the physicality of the book is an important part to myself. Like I feel like to appreciate it, you've got to be holding it.

I know a lot of people like tablets and things, and I do understand that, but I just feel like it's so heavily designed. My designers like really hard on designing it and piecing it all together.

Like the maps on their own, Mark worked on the maps at Pixooma, and he took three months just working on the maps on their own. So I just feel like you have to be holding it to appreciate it. I'm a bit old school like that.

Joanna: I love this. You're like, 20 years younger than me, and you're so old school. I am actually holding it, and I am appreciating it as we're talking.

When did you work with an editor in the process, for the words?

Leon: I started working with an editor really early on. Before the design kind of process, it was important to get the editing aspect of it all done to hand over to my designers because of the length of the text, and obviously then putting it together like a puzzle piece.

So working with an editor started very early on, and she worked on Lonely kind of Planet guide books, and had a lot of experience on guide books and things. She made a number of really good suggestions, as well as the text. She also helped me on proofs of the designs. So she gave suggestions for the designs from her experience.

Joanna: I think that's a great person to work with, someone who's done like the Lonely Planet books. It is similar to that in the vibe, in that you don't sit down and read this cover to cover. You're going to dip in and out depending on different areas. I buy books like this for inspiration for my own travels, but also for my own writing. So I think that's cool.

So we've got the book. You've invested your time and your money in making this beautiful book, but marketing this kind of book is difficult. So tell us—

How have you been marketing the book?

Leon: I haven't stopped marketing the book since its release. It's been a real push. I've marketed the book from doing a few book signing events that stemmed from me building that relationship with places. So they've been happy enough to hold me for book signing events.

Then I've also done podcasts with people. I'm using social media. I'm speaking about the book wherever I can, really.

Joanna: I did see you doing signings at interesting venues, like some of your dark venues, on social media.

How did you get people to come along to those signings?

Many people, including myself, are scared of doing signings because often nobody shows up. So how did you do that? How were those?

Leon: Yes, they worked okay. It did depend on the day and the footfall. A lot of the attractions, because we'd organize this book signing, they would promote it on their social media or via their newsletter.

What really helped, some places have been better than other places, but there has been this rippling effect I have noticed afterwards. So I have had people contact me afterwards and said, “Oh, I saw that you were at Shrewsbury Prison. I'd actually be interested in a copy of your book.”

Then I've also had places that have been then willing to stock it in their gift shop as well.

Joanna: I was going to ask about the bookshops because it seems to me a lot of these bigger places have bookstores, and if you can get them to take some copies and do it like that. I do know the profit margin on that is very low, and they'll want their own profit.

Are you pursuing more bookstore sales, or are you preferring to sell from Amazon?

Leon: I think the agreements have worked quite well so far. The places that I've built that relationship with and worked with, they've been quite good, really, in compromising. Obviously they have wanted to take a profit and a percentage of that, but then obviously they understand the product as well.

Obviously, there's the time that I've put into it and my designers working on it and everything. So they've been quite good at working together.

Joanna: Then on social media, obviously you've been posting photos of you in these different places and some of the research stuff.

What have you found works on social media?

Or are you just trying to do as much as possible and see what happens?

Leon: I think one thing I have noticed is getting it into the relevant groups that would be interested and showing how that is relevant to that group. If you're going to use social media and just plow it across social media and use kind of one post, then it probably wouldn't work.

I've been going to groups and speaking to people and stuff, and then seeing which aspects of my book links in, and then I've shared about. That has helped as well.

Joanna:

It is full color. It has so many pictures. The production value is high on the book. So I think this is a gift book as well.

This is something that people buy and have on their shelf or their coffee table, whatever. This is difficult in one way to market, but in other ways, it's evergreen.

So it's going to keep selling over time, as opposed to make you tons of money right now and then stop selling. This is more like a long-term prospect, I think.

Leon: Yes, definitely. Me and the designers I work with wanted it as that guidebook that you can take with you, but also it's a coffee table, bookshelf kind of book that is a talking point. It's something that you can pick up, read one entry and put it back down, and then pick up and read a different entry another day.

So it's not going to generate that massive one-time income. I do to see it is a trickle in, long-term thing. Hopefully, I'll work on other ideas alongside that.

Joanna: Yes, well, that's the other thing. Marketing one book is hard. So are you considering Dark Attractions of Europe?

Have you thought of other book ideas? Or was it just a one-off?

Leon: There are other ideas. I'm working with my designers, and I'm also still working with the attractions closely. So, yes, there's little ideas there, but it would be at a moment where I'm just not expecting it, and it will all just gel itself together.

Like I said going back, you inspired me. I'd learned of this term dark tourism, and it was when I was on a holiday of an evening. It literally will be that I'll have a moment, and I'll think, right, okay, that is it. So, yes, I'm kind of working on a few different ideas that I'm trying to just gel together at the moment.

Joanna: I love that. You said you're super organized and quite controlling, but you're also intuitive. So I think that sounds great.

Just looking back over the years you've been working on this project. So if people are thinking of doing something like this—

What would you say were the biggest challenges of this project that you've learned to do differently if you do another project like this?

Leon: I think don't put too much pressure on yourself. Along the whole process of my book, I was very harsh myself because it was a vast book, and I was doing a number of different places.

There's so many aspects to this book. Designing, researching, writing, and then I was emailing, and I was calling, and I was sourcing images. If you're going to take on a big project like this, don't be too harsh on yourself.

Just give a good time management to each aspect that you're working on. Have time to step back away from the whole desk to re-energize because it was a hefty project to take on. I was very determined, but I was very harsh on myself as well.

Joanna: I do remember when we had originally talked, you had a timeline in mind. Then you said, no, it's going to take longer. As you said, this is a huge project.

Had you underestimated the amount of work?

Leon: Yes, definitely. I definitely underestimated. I was writing, and there were so many places that I wanted to get in and then research. Then when I got to just over 300 I was like, this is the cut and rope kind of moment.

There's also a lot more to the design process because I know that I wanted a lot from my designers. I asked for a lot in the whole kind of designs, and I was picky. So, yes, there was that aspect. My main designer, Marie-Louise, she fell pregnant and didn't expect to fall pregnant in the process.

Joanna: Well, I think you've done an incredible job. So how do you feel now?

Are you proud of the book? Is it everything you wanted it to be?

Leon: Yes. I am really proud of it. I am happy with it. I just want to keep on pushing it and getting it out there and known. It's not a financial element, it's actually I want to get more of our history made aware.

Like I said, there is loads of little places in there that are simple memorials, or just little places that people are just not aware about. I'm very passionate about our British history, and I just want it to be known. I want to give people inspiration to just have a simple little day trip out.

People say, “Oh, there's nothing to do, and we've got to go abroad to go on holiday.” There's just so much that people don't realize that there is to do.

Joanna: That is so true. The more I stay in our country, the more interesting I find things. There's so much history here.

Where can people find you and the book online?

Leon: You can find my book on Amazon. I have a Facebook page at Dark Attractions in the UK. People can follow me through that and keep up to date.

Joanna: So thanks so much for your time today, Leon. That was great.

Leon: Thank you, Joanna, for having me. It was fantastic speaking to you. Thank you.

Takeaways

• Dark tourism encompasses a wide range of sites and experiences.
• Personal experiences at dark tourism sites can inspire deeper reflections on life.
• The motivations for visiting dark tourism sites vary greatly among individuals.
• Self-publishing allows for greater creative control over content and design.
• Researching dark tourism requires thorough investigation and relationship-building with sites.
• Community responses to tragedies can shape the memorialization of events.
• Dark tourism can evoke a spectrum of emotions, from respect to fascination.
• The relationship between dark tourism and true crime reflects a societal curiosity about death.
• Image permissions can be a significant challenge in publishing.
• Being organized is crucial when managing extensive research and communications. Historical permissions are crucial for ethical storytelling.
• Collaboration with designers can enhance the creative process.
• Passion for a subject can drive a project forward.
• The physicality of a book adds to its appreciation.
• Editing should be prioritized early in the process.
• Marketing requires consistent effort and creativity.
• Social media engagement is key to reaching audiences.
• Books can serve as both guides and coffee table pieces.
• Long-term vision is important for book sales.
• Managing expectations is essential in large projects.

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