Writing

[Aaron Vegh]

Thanks for the input Colin. I also write professionally and while I
don't make a living at it, it still makes up a compelling 15% of my
annual revenue, which I'm not prepared to lose! :-)

I think it IS possible to make a living writing; I just just would
rather it be a part of my overall technology business. Of course, the
answer is to diversify: write for as many publications as possible.
The trade press is the most profitable for mainstream stuff (I have a
number of articles for Smart Computing magazine, for example), but
corporate writing even edges that out. I've written a number of
articles for HP, of all companies, for a specialized Enterprise
computing magazine that you've likely never heard of ("Transforming
Your Enterprise"). They pay _very_ well. I can see that if I were to
string together a couple more magazines and another HP-class client,
one could make a reasonable living.

I think the only real point I wanted to make in this reply though is
to not be too picky about who you write for. The subject matter is
important, but if you're looking to do it as a career, you need to
think of writing itself as the reward, not the subject. I'd recast
that sentence, but hey, this is email. :-)

Cheers,
Aaron.

On 3/2/07, Colin McGregor <colinmc151-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Earlier this week I was helping out at the Society of
> Internet Profesionals booth down at the Career Door
> job fair (long, and ugly story there ... don't ask).
> Anyway of the hundreds of people I talked to down
> there was one lady who noted that her husband wanted
> to get into writing and I offered to sum up my $0.02
> worth (done!). Now, I thought my experiences might be
> of general interest to those on this mailing list...
> Taken from that e-mail, here are my thoughts on
> writing:
>
> In 2003 I set-up and ran a temporary Internet cafe for
> a convention, all on very little money, using a
> version of Knoppix Linux that I customized for the
> event. This I thought was a neat trick about which I
> wanted to boast a bit. So, in my case I went looking
> around asking which Linux publication seemed to be the
> most prestigious, and the best paying, which brought
> me to Linux Journal (after all if Linux Journal
> rejected me I could lower my sights :-) ). What I
> didn't considered at the time was how long it took
> between submitting an article and the article being
> published (in the case of Linux Journal it can be a
> while). I wrote the editor at Linux Journal, noting
> what I had done, and outlining what I thought would
> make a great article. A few e-mails back and forth,
> then I got busy writing.
>
> Several months later I was talking to the local
> Greater Toronto Area Linux user group about what I had
> done, and the idea of doing a presentation about my
> article came up. In reviewing what I had written with
> the latest version of Knoppix Linux I discovered that
> some of the material in my original article had become
> dated, which lead to my 2nd article. From there things
> have spluttered along.
>
> So, my suggestions,
>
> - Come up with a neat/clever idea.
> - Make a list of what publication(s) would be
>   interested in said idea.
> - Contact the editor of the magazine with the idea
>   and an article outline.
> - Be ready to do some back and forth tweaking/changes.
> - Write.
> - Submit article
> - Repeat above steps.
>
> Writing has varied, some articles I have sweated blood
> on, others have been fairly mindless bits of banging
> on the keyboard. Still, once you get a few articles
> under your belt the ideas in a way become easier. The
> Quake 3 game article came because the editor of Tux
> wanted to do an all video game issue and asked me if
> there were any games I wanted to write about. Then
> came the idea of a follow-up article on Quake 4...
>
> Now, sad but true, I don't yet know how to make a real
> living at writing. Depending on the publication I have
> seen payments that ranged from a bunch of free
> magazines (the little 200 word item I did for Linux
> Format magazine), to $600 (U.S.) from Linux Journal
> which is nice but not a living. Still, it has allowed
> me to play with some neat toys/software (for example
> my review of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (which has not
> yet been released to the general public) coming up in
> the April 2007 issue of Linux Magazine :-) ). I also
> get to increase the number of "interesting" keywords
> in my resume.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Colin McGregor
>
> Publication List:
> In Print:
> - "A Temporary Internet Lounge", Linux Journal,
> February 2005, pages 42-45
> - "Overseas LUG of the Month", Linux Format, April
> 2006, page 103
> - "Debian GNU/Linux", Tux Magazine, April 2006, pages
> 19-22
> - "KDE Kontact", Tux Magazine, July 2006, pages 37-42
> - "KDETV", Tux Magazine, August 2006, pages 21-24
> - "Quake 3 and Doom 3 or Nightmares Spoken Here" Tux
> Magazine, September 2006
> - "Freespire 1.0.2" Tux Magazine, September 2006,
> pages 56-58
> - "Quake 4" Tux Magazine, November 2006, pages 51 –
> 53.
> - "Tux People: Pamela Jones", Tux Magazine, December
> 2006, pages 18 – 20.
> - "Controlling Spam with SpamAssassin" Linux Journal,
> January 2007, pages 94 – 95.
> On the Web:
> - "A Temporary Internet Lounge Revisited", Linux
> Journal Website,
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8081
> - "A Motherboard Upgrade HOWTO", Linux Journal
> Website, http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8219
> - "A Look at the Linux World Canada Show", Linux
> Journal Website,
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8262
> - "A Video Card Upgrade HOWTO", Linux Journal Website,
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8511
> - "A Beginning Look At MythTV", Linux Journal Website,
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8658
> - "An Evening With Jeff Waugh", Linux Journal Website,
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8752
> - "The Linux Infrared Remote Control (LIRC) Project",
> Linux Journal Website,
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8811
> - "The 2006 LinuxWorld Canada Show", Linux Journal
> Website, http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9028
>
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