RE: Chattiness in manuals

["Fred Ridder" <docudoc -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

If you're thinking of the "xxx for Dummies" and "Idiot's Guide to xxx"
kind of books, then yes, I suppose US writers are guilty of chatty
writing. But those are only a specific subset of all technical writing,
and they effectively target a specific market segment. And they are
easily avoided if you find them so annoying.

As to being paid by the word, I think you're off-base. The vast
majority of technical writing (but not the kind of writing you'll find
on the shelves of a technical bookstore) is done on a work for hire
basis, so the pay rate is either time-based or project-based. I suppose
that in a strictly project-based model, ther might be some incentive
to leave wordiness in rather than take the time to edit it well (was
it Mark Twain who wrote something like "I apologize for the length
of this letter. I didn't have time to make it shorter."?), but it's not
a major factor.

Independently published books that are generally done either on
spec or on a negotiated contract. The publisher's offer for a book
may be based in part on word count or page count (which is either
already known for a book written on spec, or part of the proposal
for a contract job), but the estimated market size for the book is
at least as big a factor, and that is dependent on the subject
matter rather than the size. And if you deliver a manuscript that
is longer than specified, you don't get paid extra for the extra
words.