[unD]

How do you get clients for tech writing, if I may ask? Are you maintaining a stable pool of companies and doing work as they need it, or do you always have to fish for new opportunities? I've been authoring sw dev books that target a niche audience, and I've done some writing for the company that develops the sw itself. I'm wondering whether to expand to other areas, too—I've got the feeling that 2024 is going to be a rather challenging year, financially speaking.

[k__]

As all articles I wrote under my own name (some are ghost writing) are implicit advertisement, most clients approached me after they read some of my pieces.

Over the years I got a hand full of stable clients. Some want content every month, some every quarter, etc.

Then there is word of mouth. The people I work with at my client companies are usually in the content business, so they need constant influx of quality content and know many other people who need it too.

I also work with a tech content agency, they always have a few articles a month I can work on, if business is slow.

[geye1234]

I had a couple of questions if you don't mind:

- I have a Business Analyst/Product Mgr background. I've never been a developer, but I can read code well enough and get a good idea of what's going on. Do I have a chance of breaking into this? How would I go about doing so (other than the obvious like trying to do it as part of my day job)? - Do you worry LLMs are going to put you out of business? - Very broadly speaking, could I make $150k doing this?

[k__]

"Do I have a chance of breaking into this?"

In my experience, the success stands and falls with how well you can grasp technical topics and explain them to people who have less time than you to learn them.

I know a bunch of good writers, who never got far, because their technical understanding wasn't enough to write guides/tutorials/explainers.

"Do you worry LLMs are going to put you out of business?"

Not yet. I use LLM every quarter to write an article, and they've always been bad.

"Very broadly speaking, could I make $150k doing this"

Probably.

An article makes you between $500 and $1000, depending on the length and quality. If you could write 200 a year, that could work.

[geye1234]

Belated thanks for the reply.