Advice to Technical Writers

A friend asked the going rate for author's royalties on a technical or trade paperback, so I asked some people what they received. A few wrote back with extremely enlightening and fascinating comments. I passed these notes on to other authors, and received yet more interesting reading back. I have now edited all these comments down a bit, mostly taking out the names of authors and publishers and removing publisher specific comments.

Ray Tracing News (1996). Careers>Writing>Pricing>Technical Writing

The Business of Writing: How Do I Set My Rates?

Do you know how much what you do is worth? Very likely a lot more than you think. But how do you figure out how much to charge for a given job?

Knowles, Michael. Write Thinking (2001). Careers>Consulting>Pricing

Estimating Editorial Tasks: A Five-Step Method

Accurate time estimates are essential to projecting the costs of doing work, whether it's for external clients or other departments within an organization. In the olden days, it didn't seem to matter how many hours were spent editing, as long as all the errors were caught. Now, managers everywhere are looking for ways to cut costs; they want to know in advance how long things will take so they can monitor their increasingly strained budgets. Publications are often a prime target for cost cuts.

Cormier, Robin A. STC Northeast Ohio (2001). Careers>Editing>Pricing>Estimating

Estimating the Cost of High-Quality Documentation    

The cost of developing a typical end user document at Cadence Design Systems is about $40,000. The cost of not providing complete and completely accurate documentation can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Cover, Martha, David Cooke and Matt Hunt. Technical Communication Online (1995). Articles>Documentation>Pricing

Estimating Worksheet

An example worksheet for generating TC job estimates.

TECHWR-L. Resources>Workplace>Pricing>Estimating

J.A.W.S.: A Historical Perspective  

This article is a historical perspective on librarians' fight against rising journal prices. Libraries' battle against rising journal prices and the publishing industry is compared to a horror movie. To emphasize this point, the author has revised the script of the movie Jaws so that the horror transpires within a library setting. This article shows how the battle for more affordable journals has empowered librarians and helped make them a more cohesive community. The author's revised movie script illustrates the parallels between the terrorized islanders in the original movie and the once-fearful librarians warring against rising journal prices. Due to the graphic nature and adult language used in the scripts, reader discretion is advised.

Smith, Felicia A. Journal of Electronic Publishing (2007). Articles>Publishing>Pricing

The Meter is Running: Setting Consulting Rates for Independence  

Setting your billing rate can be one of the most difficult and mysterious aspects of operating a consulting practice. There are nearly as many approaches as there are practitioners, with results that range from consultants who price themselves out of the market to those who fold because they simply cannot make enough money to survive. By employing a straightforward business model that includes estimates for expenses, labor and, yes, profit, independent consultants, both fledgling and established, can establish billing rates that are fair to consultant and client alike.

Juillet, Christopher. STC Proceedings (2002). Careers>Consulting>Pricing>Estimating

Micropayments: Do Users Want Them?

It used to be a given (amongst those in the know at least) that ‘micropayments’ were the only sustainable business model for those providing content on the web. Micropayments work by charging a tiny amount for access to web content, and are touted as the alternative to giving content away for free (which doesn’t make any money) or charging for subscriptions (which is unlikely to appeal to Internet users now accustomed to freedom of movement online. The theory goes that small amounts to each individual consumer will add up to sufficient funds to keep online publishing firms in business. In recent times, however, any consensus there was surrounding micropayments as ‘the way forward’ has begun to dissolve. There is a growing feeling that the slow introduction of this method of payment is less to do with technical constraints than user requirements. Put simply – micropayments are not emerging as a ‘web standard’ because users dislike them. There are certainly a number of good arguments against their implementation.

Farrell, Tom. Frontend Infocentre (2002). Design>Web Design>Pricing>Micropayments

Pricing a Documentation Project Is Part Science, Part Art

This article describes the ways in which determining a price to charge for documentation services is among the most important — and most challenging — tasks facing a contract writer or editor.

Zvalo, Peter. Writer's Block (1999). Careers>Documentation>Pricing