Re: Producing Books

[John Posada <john -at- TDANDW -dot- COM>]

Stephen:

You deleted a part of my qualifying statement:

>> HOWEVER...if you approach it through a solid business case and =
justification, most "good" companies will give you most of what you need
=
(if not all).<<

Notice the word "good".

I've worked for companies and organizations where you could justify till
you were blue in the face and it would get you nowhere.

However, to me, that classifies them as an inferior company or
organization.

> If, for the sake of arguement we say that Word, Frame, and PageMaker
> each cost $750, and if the company has 5 Tech Writers, calculate the
> cost to the corporate pocketbook to purchase five copies (and or
> licenses for) of each package.  That's $11,250 + taxes and whatever else
> might be added on.

The business case might be that with Frame, you could have 4 writers
instead of 5 and meet a deadline instead of not meeting it. At the
"cost" of a techwriter at over $100k per year, even a half year is
$50,000 savings. My chump change beats your chump change.

Don't get me wrong. By going through this analysis which may take
several days (I'm not talking about a statement you write while you
munch a turkey sandwhich at your desk), you may find out that what you
want DOESN'T make business sense. In that case, you should not ask for
it in the first place (see Iwant-Iwant-Iwant).

> That might be chump change for some companies, but impossible for
> others.  In any case I think you completely missed my point.

OK...what was the point?


--
John Posada, Technical Writer (and proud of the title)
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