Hourly Rates and Salaries

As you might expect, salaries vary considerably based on location. I’ve looked over various surveys and believe the following are representative of salaries currently being offered.

Tech-Writer. Careers>Salaries>Technical Writing

How Design Job Bank

How's Job Bank pairs creative talent with employment opportunities nationwide. Looking for a job? Search by location, job title or salary range to find your next career move. Hiring creatives? Plug in your requirements and contact information, and instantly reach qualified candidates.

How Design. Careers>Job Listings>Design

How Do You Deal With a CEO Who Wants to Run the IT Department?  

A CEO is enamored with technology but doesn't understand the issues involved in implementing his time- and money-hungry IT ideas. What would you do to solve this problem?

Roberts, Becky. TechRepublic (2003). Careers>Management>Technology>Collaboration

How Do You Make the Student-to-Professional Transition?  

A summary of the 1998 panels, 'Transitioning from Student to Professional: What's in Your Future?' and 'To Ph.D. or Not to Ph.D? That Is the Question'.

Trich Kremer, Jennifer D. HFES (2000). Careers>Human Computer Interaction

How Have You Advanced Your Career?  

Three technical communication gurus answer the question, 'What single action or decision did more to advance your career than any other?'

Barker, Thomas, Janice Gelb and Donald E. Zimmerman. Intercom (2002). Careers>Advice>TC

How I Leaped Almost Overnight from Traditional Tech Writer to Marcom Guy to Hybrid - in a Tad More Than Four Decades  

I began as a traditional technical writer and editor in January 1961. Then a gradual evolution changed my worklife: I became a multiple-threat hybrid. My experience zig-zagged from writing proposals to professional acting to building technical resentations to educating myself in marketing communications and marketing to counseling others in strategically thinking how to better market their ideas. Today, I am the hybrid of the future: technical writer and editor/marcom specialist/strategic thinker/marketing counselor.

Gottlieb, Larry. STC Proceedings (2002). Careers>TC>History

How Much Is Enough?

Conventional wisdom defines business success largely by company size; the steeper the growth curve, the better. But is this model appropriate for freelancers? Most freelancers in publishing work independently; the amount of work we can accept is limited by the number of hours we can work and how many pages we can edit, proofread, or index per hour. For this reason, if we cultivate too many clients, we’re forced to turn down projects we’d like to accept. On the other hand, few freelancers have arrangements for receiving regular, predictable assignments from clients.

Shore, Lys Ann. Editorial Freelancers Association (1995). Careers>Freelance>Management

How Papers Can Find and Retain Copy Editors

The American Copy Editors Society wondered what papers were doing to address this problem, whether editors felt that the academic community should do more to feed the pipeline, and what the industry was doing to encourage people to enter the field. The study was administered by copy editor Carrie Camillo of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. With the support of her paper and its editor, Tim McGuire, she produced a 33-page report that is the most comprehensive work available on the subject. This column is taken from Camillo’s report.

Glamann, Hank. ACES (2000). Careers>Editing>Journalism

How to Break into Marketing Communications  

Many technical writers, editors, illustrators, graphic designers, managers, and others would like to break into technical marketing. But how to do it? This mini-workshop gives technical communicators some practical tips for making the transition without the requisite “experience required”. As an added bonus, it shows that marketing jobs in general pay more than similar ones held by traditional technical communicators.

Vaughan, Caroleen L. STC Proceedings (1995). Careers>Business Communication>Marketing

How To Break into Technical Writing

Whether you're attempting to become a technical writer at 21 or 41, the steps are the same. Statistics show that the best way to find a job is network, network, network. Go to association meetings, like STC, and talk to as many people as you can. Introduce yourself and tell them honestly what you want. Ask them a lot of questions about how they did it. Everyone started somewhere.

MicroSearch. Careers>Writing>TC

How to Build a Nonprofit for Your Community

This article details how mozdev.org built a nonprofit organization and shows you how to do the same for your community. I'll cover fundraising, obtaining legal advice, staffing, and more.

Boswell, David. O'Reilly and Associates (2004). Careers>Management>Legal

How to Conduct a Review Meeting  

Although technical reviews of many draft user’s guides, references, and help systems occur through the black box (that is, the author sends out the material, and reviewers send it back marked up, without the two ever seeing one another), many technical communicators find that a personal meeting ultimately saves time and improves communication in the process of developing a technical communication product.

Carliner, Saul. Intercom (2003). Careers>Management>Editing

How to Create a Portfolio

So, you decide that you would like to create a portfolio. What do you do? Where do you start?

Burnett, Rebecca E. Thomson. Careers>Portfolios>TC

How to Create a Winning Tagline

The name of your company or consulting practice can offer prospects a clue into the work you do, which is especially necessary if it’s not readily understood, but if it bears your name, you’d better have a tagline to do the explaining.

Benun, Ilise. Usability Professionals Association (2005). Careers>Consulting>Writing

How to Deliver Bad News to Customers

In order to be effective in the usability business, you have to face the fact that you'll have to deliver bad news. You have to talk about what's not working. You might have to bruise egos and make your client uncomfortable.

Rhodes, John S. Apogee. Careers>Consulting>Usability>Collaboration

How to Find Clients Who Need White Papers

Freelancers often wonder where to find clients. What kind of companies need white papers written for them, anyway? Here's three simple questions that will tell you the answer.

Graham, Gordon. WhitePaperSource (2006). Careers>Freelance>Writing>White Papers

How to Find Technical Writing Jobs

There are some key differences between looking for publishing jobs and looking for technical writing jobs.

Hewitt, John. Writer's Resource Center (2004). Careers>Writing>Technical Writing

How to Find Your Executive Usability Champion

Discusses making usability routine throughout your organization.

Weinschenk, Susan and Jerome Nadel. Human Factors International (2006). Careers>Usability>Collaboration>Workplace

How to Get a Good Job  

Suggests ways to get a good job by cutting production time and cost on user manuals while increasing access and usability.

Bush, Donald W. Intercom (2000). Careers>Documentation>TC

How To Get Started As A Copywriter Or Business Writer

If you only read one book, then go for Ogilvy on Advertising, by David Ogilvy. An old book (in adland time) -- published in 1983. But the ghastly advertising mistakes it warns about (and smiles about) continue to this very minute. Each new tribe of copywriting recruits trips over the same stones.

Heath, Jim. Viacorp (2000). Careers>Writing>Workplace

How to Grow as a Graphic Designer

Catherine Fishel examines the philosophical foundations on which every creative business is based.

Fishel, Catherine. Graphics.com (2005). Careers>Graphic Design

How to Hire a Designer

Each year during May and June we get hundreds of calls, letters and emails from young graduates who would like to work for Showker Graphic Arts & Design or any of the Graphic Design Network web sites. This year, since we had a specific letter from a potential employer, we thought it would be cool to show graduates how we approach reviewing candidates for employment.

Showker, Fred. Design, Typography and Graphics (2001). Careers>Management>Graphic Design

How to Hire Technical Writers: A Manager's Viewpoint  

Hiring technical writers is an infrequent but important part of a manager's job. Clearly defining the job and the required skills is the first step. Then use all of your networks to find candidates. Read résumés to find those that best match your requirements. The interview team needs to be prepared to ask relevant questions that verify and expand on the résumé and samples. Compare the interview team's evaluations, then check the references of your best one or two candidates, and make a prompt offer.

Huettner, Brenda P. and Ken Jackson. STC Proceedings (1996). Careers>Management>Writing>Technical Writing

How to Interview and Hire People

Before you worry about interviewing, consider this: good interviewing does not make a good candidate out of a bad one. The higher the quality of the people coming in to your interviewing process, the higher the quality of those that will come out of it. Do not rely on HR or some other person to decide who enters the process. The more energy you, as a hiring manager, invest in recruiting, the better your results will be.

Berkun, Scott. ScottBerkun.com (2006). Careers>Interviewing>Management

How to Land a Career in Technical Writing

While technical writers are expected to have some knowledge of the subjects they write about, experts usually provide detailed information. Technical writers and editors organize the information, put it into user-friendly language, select graphics, write sidebars, and impose a consistent format, checking back with experts to fill in blanks and ensure that no errors have been introduced.

Bradley, Gwendolyn. Chronicle of Higher Education (2000). Careers>Writing>Technical Writing