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For some of us, technical writing. You know those (non-Engrish) manuals you toss aside (or leave uselessly bonking around in the box) for your software package or electronic thingy? Yeah, that's our work. You're welcome. So, usage manuals, reference books, instructional posters, Material Safety Data Sheets, quickstart guides, and so on. Every company that makes anything needs at least one writer (unless you do agile programming, which for some reason shuns documentation being a resource unit and more of a PITA). And, I suppose you can make someone on your development or QA staff write docs, but who would want to? That's where we step in. I mean, the guy mowing the lawn outside your office complex has his job, I've got mine :D Mine does pay 90k year (and this is in the South), but my colleague in Sunnyvale is just over 6 figures. Yes, solely from writing for a major software company. Of course, there is the entertainment industry where, if you can get a good "holding" or "development" deal with a major studio, you're well into 6-figures, probably quarter-to-half million a year. Scriptwriting teams that don't get the byline in a movie make about 60-80k a film, depending on overall budgets. That's 2-3 months of work for some, so you can see how that stacks up in a year. I don't want to live that world, though, because you basically must be in Hollywood unless you're a superstar. Finally, there's game design and story writing, which for the most part, you'll find everyone there are from an English Lit. background. Talk about hand-to-mouth, though. A true feast/famine career. But, if you have a solid track record, you tend to "fail upwards" to bigger budgeted games at major studios. Be prepared to move to Vancouver, BC, though. I like that route, personally, but I don't have anything game-related under my belt (yet). |