TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Another spin-off: where to find writing jobs that are NOT IT related?
Subject:Another spin-off: where to find writing jobs that are NOT IT related? From:Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 09 Jun 2005 09:54:40 -0400
Kevin wondered about my response: <<I'm sure it works, or you wouldn't
be here telling us about it.>>
Indeed. In my first year of freelancing, I earned something like 2/3 my
wage slave salary, and this year I'm on track for matching my salary.
It's letting me freelance quite comfortably, though I'm still trying to
get past the "Oh my God! I've got so much work" phase to the "Thank
God! I've got so much work" phase. <g>
<<Certainly you widen your potential customer base when you go after
the individual writers/researchers (who are many), rather than just the
publishing companies (relatively far fewer).>>
The publishing companies have no money, and pay less. Go after the
individuals and the companies who employ them. (Government clients can
also be very lucrative.) The downside is that you end up with 100
clients instead of one or two big ones, and sometimes they all want a
piece of you simultaneously. And there's much more overhead printing up
100 invoices and holding 100 pairs of hands instead of only one or two.
But it's a good living once you find your niche.
<<My question is whether the targets are individually rich enough.>>
Depends on the targets. Tenured professors and other senior researchers
unquestionably have research budgets that will cover your costs, and
they're happy to do so... even though I charge a premium rate. Grad
students and researchers in the developing world don't have much money;
the former can sometimes get their prof to pay, but when they can't,
both these groups are a low-payoff clientele. I do some work for them
pro bono, but pass on other clients to colleagues who need the work and
charge less.
I do a lot of work for Chinese clients for half my usual rate both
because it's semi-pro bono work and because I expect to be earning a
lot more per hour once China floats the RMB ("real soon now", I'm
told). I do some work for students at half price because they'll
eventually grow up, get a real job, and become clients at full price.
It's called investing in my future.
<<I don't know many budding authors, and almost none in technical and
scientific fields>>
The thing to remember about scientists is that they must publish or
perish... literally. It's a condition for getting tenure and
promotions. So they have to work hard, particularly in their early
careers, to publish journal articles. Anyone who can help them do
this... An economist colleague demonstrated that researchers can spend
something like 25% of the money they get from a grant simply paying
back the time they lost in writing the grant. That's a no-brainer when
it comes to reminding a scientist they'd rather be in the lab than
writing grants (and a great "prove your worth" proposition).
Details: McKenney, D.W. 1994. On the cost of chasing research dollars.
Can. J. Agric. Econ. 42:105-112.
<<... my impression is that most unpublished authors don't have a lot
of money to throw at major editing and re-writes>>
Very true in the popular press (e.g., popular science books, novels),
but I'm not talking about them: I'm talking about researchers, most of
whom are well-funded and very happy to find help getting published. You
can make a decent living editing for book publishers, but not nearly as
good a living as if you work directly with well-funded authors.
<<So, what kind of money would a body make from editing/re-writing a
hefty technical paper/article that was poorly written by an ESL
author?>>
I'm not spilling any state secrets when I report that my standard rate
is C$60/hour (or a comparable rate when I work per word); this
information is freely available in the "standard terms" brochure I send
to all my clients.
I could almost certainly charge more, and may soon try raising my rates
slightly to see whether I can lower my workload <g>. But please note
that I'm a specialist, with very few people who can do my job; other
editors charge much less. In more rarefied fields (e.g., medical
writing and editing), C$80 is not unheard of. I imagine that U.S. rates
in high-rent areas like Silicon Valley are even higher, but the cost of
living here in Montreal is unbelievably low compared with most parts of
the developed world, even after allowing for taxes.
And for French translation of the kinds of things for which translation
memory and MT isn't useful (i.e., very little reuse of phrases), I can
earn an embarrasingly higher rate. I charge by the word, but produce a
great many words per hour, so...
New from Quadralay Corporation: WebWorks ePublisher Pro! Easily create
14 online formats, including 6 Help systems, in a project-based
workflow. Live, online demo! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
Doc-To-Help 2005 now has RoboHelp Converter and HTML Source: Author
content and configure Help in MS Word or any HTML editor. No
proprietary editor! *August release. http://www.componentone.com/TECHWRL/DocToHelp2005
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Send administrative questions to lisa -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
