atw: Re: Request advice on transition to Tech Writing

Don,
My suggestion is to take the role as a technical writer with your current
employer. It gives you the opportunity to build your skills and develop
current experience with the tools you  need to know about, without the
expectation that you can already do it and have to hit the ground running.
The ASTC in NSW is a good society to be involved with. Groups like the
Westies provide good interaction with fellow writers and opportunities to
get feedback/advice/sounding boards of peers about work you may be doing. 
 
Welcome aboard and yes, any writing you do should benefit. My advice is to
get some good practice before starting to apply for other technical writing
roles, recruitment can be a real issue for inexperienced people. 
 
HTH.
Warren.

-----Original Message-----
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Don Burch
Sent: Saturday, 28 April 2007 08:41
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Request advice on transition to Tech Writing


Hi austechwriters,  
 
I've had a read through the last few months archives of this list, and
looked at several websites related to TW, but not found much advice for
people transitioning into Technical Writing.  I'm sure the same question is
raised often, and any suggestions will depend a lot on individual background
and goals. 
 
I was a commercial programmer 25 years including 7 website development, but
my technical skills have gone down a dead end.  I'm currently doing Tech
Support (phone, email, website FAQs) and my current employer offered me a
job as Technical Writer - which got me thinking about TW as a better career
direction.  Certainly the manuals for some of the products I currently
support are a complete waste of money and paper, and I'm sure any 10-year
old would do better !  I have always tried to look at systems from a user
perspective, and wrote several User Manuals which were well received, but
many years ago.  The TW job fell through, but my boss has got me writing and
editing Press Releases and brochures - very different style from
documentation ... but still I'm finding writing much easier than it would
have been 20 years ago. 
 
In particular I'm looking for advice on :
(1) which professional organisation (if any) is worth joining in NSW (I live
on Sydney's North Shore), Australia and/or international.  Ones I've looked
at don't seem to provide much in the way of resources for members.  
(2) which tools and/or methodologies are common requirements.  I'm pretty
familiar with MS Word (i.e. regularly use Styles and have done a few small
Master/slave documents), and did an Information Mapping course several years
back. 
(3) other than the obvious (cold calling every business in the phone book),
any recommended strategies for getting into full-time TW ? 
(4) business aspects of finding work, charge rates, negotiating contracts,
etc.  There is a fair amount on this for creative writers, though that's
commonly a freelance basis. 
 
I anticipate that writing User and Technical Manuals would be best career
option (leverages my background and interest in helping users, plus stable
income) but I don't have any examples of my work (they were many years ago).
I have considered writing articles for IT magazines, thinking that I can
submit to websites if not accepted by paying publications - but it's a
different style of writing, how relevant would it be ?  The current Press
Releases I'm doing are even further removed from a documentation writing
style.
 
Thanks very much for taking the time to even read this long posting - I'm
sure you must get quite a lot of newbies asking the same questions. I
certainly will appreciate any advice and suggestions you care to make. 


Cheers,
Don Burch

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