7 ms·

On a related topic, a lot of tech companies will pay you $100-400 per blog post. For example DigitalOcean pays $200 per 1500ish words for in depth tutorials. T

by nickjj 11y ago

On a related topic, a lot of tech companies will pay you $100-400 per blog post. For example DigitalOcean pays $200 per 1500ish words for in depth tutorials. That's a little above 13 cents per word for a complex tutorial which solves a real problem and potentially has source code.

mprev 11y ago
Similarly, Exoscale (Swiss cloud hosting firm) are paying writers on tech subjects. Again, it's for a tutorial that solves a real-world problem but also for introductory pieces designed to get someone new acquainted with a subject.
- lucaspiller 11y ago
  As a developer how would I get into technical writing like this? Start writing a tutorial and send it to them?
  - ghaff 11y ago
    In many cases, a good place to start would be various online community-oriented sites that accept contributions from outside writers and have editors. They won't typically pay, but they'll give you experience and help you build up a portfolio that will be useful if you want to start doing this sort of thing more systematically.
scotchio 11y ago
Shameless plug: We do the exact same thing on https://scotch.io https://scotch.io [1]. * Publish near instantly through our writing portal called "The Pub" [2] or https://pub.scotch.io https://pub.scotch.io. We might open this up to other blogs one day too. * Write with our easy-cake custom markdown editor. * Your name and profile always stays associated with the post. * You can write about almost anything web dev related for our "Tutorial" category [3]. * You can write about almost anything tech/dev scene related for "Bar Talk" category [4]. * Get tweeted with your handle by our Twitter account 40k+ followers, go through our RSS feed, and get in front of our 1-2MM monthly visitors * Also, if you don't like ads but our writing tools, you can optionally host it on our site for free without ads in the community section. Two of our guest authors got their current well-paying jobs through their posts. Not a bad way to show off your skills (obviously I'm biased though). [1]: https://scotch.io https://scotch.io [2]: https://pub.scotch.io https://pub.scotch.io [3]: https://scotch.io/tutorials https://scotch.io/tutorials [4]: https://scotch.io/bar-talk https://scotch.io/bar-talk
- wyldfire 11y ago
  > Also, if you don't like ads but our writing tools, you can optionally host it on our site for free without ads in the community section. From https://pub.scotch.io/ideas https://pub.scotch.io/ideas: > "Sometimes we just feel an article isn't a good fit for our readers." Is there a way to submit a topic for an article for review without going through the trouble to submit the entire article? I'd hate to write an article that seems interesting to me but doesn't match Scotch's intended audience.
  - scotchio 11y ago
    Definitely (that would blow and be a waste of time for everyone). Our FAQ [1] outlines that. Basically you have two options: 1. Email us at pub@scotch.io first 2. Submit just the outline of the post for review as a normal post with comments at the top. We'll see it's just an outline and be able to provide feedback We've been working with guest writers for well over a year now and really try to work with everyone as best we can. I would say almost all our writers have had a good experience with us. You can imagine though that some of the post people want to write are really not fit at all for scotch.io (we have no choice but to maintain some sort of general theme and quality control). That's also why you can publish instantly whatever you want (well written, poorly written, on cats, tech, ice cream, whatever) to The Pub's community post section. We just launched The Pub like a month or so ago to streamline guest writings, so any feedback is super welcome. [1]: https://pub.scotch.io/faq https://pub.scotch.io/faq
- jdietrich 11y ago
  Of the three featured posts I was shown on pub.scotch.io, two were get-rich-quick spam. I wouldn't want my name associated with that sort of thing. http://i.imgur.com/HtrNbX5.png http://i.imgur.com/HtrNbX5.png
  - scotchio 11y ago
    Eh - yeah spam sucks. Like everyone else, we hate it and have a have a community system in place to remove that kind of junk.
Alex3917 11y ago
I would actually blog for tech companies on occasion if they were willing to pay 5 - 10k per post. It seems like companies are only willing to pay for very cookie cutter stuff though.
- logicallee 11y ago
  that's pretty crazy. There's hardly a post you couldn't write in a day of hard work (because then it's too long! spend one day writing it, so someone can spend 20 minutes reading it, don't make readers take hours to read through months of your writing.) So you want a monthly salary of 5k (your low end per day) * 24 days = 120k per month?
  - Alex3917 11y ago
    If there is research involved, each sentence or paragraph could easily take an entire day. E.g. a couple years ago I wrote a post about deaths caused by drug use/misuse, and just getting an idea of how many deaths are caused by smoking involved reading through several chapters of the Surgeon General's most-recent 800 page report. So I figure more like one post every 50 - 150 hours, for something 2,500 - 6,000 words in length. That said, even a monthly salary of 100k+ per month isn't completely crazy given that there are magazines that cost 100k per year to subscribe to, with dozens or hundreds of corporate subscribers. That's obviously not the market that most tech companies are going after, but there is precedent there in general.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >If there is research involved, each sentence or paragraph could easily take an entire day. E.g. a couple years ago I wrote a post about deaths caused by drug use/misuse, and just getting an idea of how many deaths are caused by smoking involved reading through several chapters of the Surgeon General's most-recent 800 page report. Journalists for established media do all that (and more) as part of getting the facts for their articles, and still take in something like $2-$3 per month or less.
    - greedo 11y ago
vtlynch 11y ago
"For example DigitalOcean pays $200 per 1500ish" Most professional writers/reporters would consider that a terrible wage.
- ohjeez 11y ago
  Most?!
  - CrankyBear 11y ago
    All.
CrankyBear 11y ago
Speaking as a professional writer who covers technology and business, that's awful. If you want to write to have something to add to your programmer resume, go for it. Everyone else, just say no.

by nickjj 11y ago

mprev 11y ago

Similarly, Exoscale (Swiss cloud hosting firm) are paying writers on tech subjects. Again, it's for a tutorial that solves a real-world problem but also for introductory pieces designed to get someone new acquainted with a subject.

lucaspiller 11y ago
As a developer how would I get into technical writing like this? Start writing a tutorial and send it to them?
- ghaff 11y ago
  In many cases, a good place to start would be various online community-oriented sites that accept contributions from outside writers and have editors. They won't typically pay, but they'll give you experience and help you build up a portfolio that will be useful if you want to start doing this sort of thing more systematically.

scotchio 11y ago

Shameless plug: We do the exact same thing on https://scotch.io https://scotch.io [1]. * Publish near instantly through our writing portal called "The Pub" [2] or https://pub.scotch.io https://pub.scotch.io. We might open this up to other blogs one day too. * Write with our easy-cake custom markdown editor. * Your name and profile always stays associated with the post. * You can write about almost anything web dev related for our "Tutorial" category [3]. * You can write about almost anything tech/dev scene related for "Bar Talk" category [4]. * Get tweeted with your handle by our Twitter account 40k+ followers, go through our RSS feed, and get in front of our 1-2MM monthly visitors * Also, if you don't like ads but our writing tools, you can optionally host it on our site for free without ads in the community section. Two of our guest authors got their current well-paying jobs through their posts. Not a bad way to show off your skills (obviously I'm biased though). [1]: https://scotch.io https://scotch.io [2]: https://pub.scotch.io https://pub.scotch.io [3]: https://scotch.io/tutorials https://scotch.io/tutorials [4]: https://scotch.io/bar-talk https://scotch.io/bar-talk

wyldfire 11y ago
> Also, if you don't like ads but our writing tools, you can optionally host it on our site for free without ads in the community section. From https://pub.scotch.io/ideas https://pub.scotch.io/ideas: > "Sometimes we just feel an article isn't a good fit for our readers." Is there a way to submit a topic for an article for review without going through the trouble to submit the entire article? I'd hate to write an article that seems interesting to me but doesn't match Scotch's intended audience.
- scotchio 11y ago
  Definitely (that would blow and be a waste of time for everyone). Our FAQ [1] outlines that. Basically you have two options: 1. Email us at pub@scotch.io first 2. Submit just the outline of the post for review as a normal post with comments at the top. We'll see it's just an outline and be able to provide feedback We've been working with guest writers for well over a year now and really try to work with everyone as best we can. I would say almost all our writers have had a good experience with us. You can imagine though that some of the post people want to write are really not fit at all for scotch.io (we have no choice but to maintain some sort of general theme and quality control). That's also why you can publish instantly whatever you want (well written, poorly written, on cats, tech, ice cream, whatever) to The Pub's community post section. We just launched The Pub like a month or so ago to streamline guest writings, so any feedback is super welcome. [1]: https://pub.scotch.io/faq https://pub.scotch.io/faq
jdietrich 11y ago
Of the three featured posts I was shown on pub.scotch.io, two were get-rich-quick spam. I wouldn't want my name associated with that sort of thing. http://i.imgur.com/HtrNbX5.png http://i.imgur.com/HtrNbX5.png
- scotchio 11y ago
  Eh - yeah spam sucks. Like everyone else, we hate it and have a have a community system in place to remove that kind of junk.

Alex3917 11y ago

I would actually blog for tech companies on occasion if they were willing to pay 5 - 10k per post. It seems like companies are only willing to pay for very cookie cutter stuff though.

logicallee 11y ago
that's pretty crazy. There's hardly a post you couldn't write in a day of hard work (because then it's too long! spend one day writing it, so someone can spend 20 minutes reading it, don't make readers take hours to read through months of your writing.) So you want a monthly salary of 5k (your low end per day) * 24 days = 120k per month?
- Alex3917 11y ago
  If there is research involved, each sentence or paragraph could easily take an entire day. E.g. a couple years ago I wrote a post about deaths caused by drug use/misuse, and just getting an idea of how many deaths are caused by smoking involved reading through several chapters of the Surgeon General's most-recent 800 page report. So I figure more like one post every 50 - 150 hours, for something 2,500 - 6,000 words in length. That said, even a monthly salary of 100k+ per month isn't completely crazy given that there are magazines that cost 100k per year to subscribe to, with dozens or hundreds of corporate subscribers. That's obviously not the market that most tech companies are going after, but there is precedent there in general.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >If there is research involved, each sentence or paragraph could easily take an entire day. E.g. a couple years ago I wrote a post about deaths caused by drug use/misuse, and just getting an idea of how many deaths are caused by smoking involved reading through several chapters of the Surgeon General's most-recent 800 page report. Journalists for established media do all that (and more) as part of getting the facts for their articles, and still take in something like $2-$3 per month or less.
  - greedo 11y ago

vtlynch 11y ago

"For example DigitalOcean pays $200 per 1500ish" Most professional writers/reporters would consider that a terrible wage.

ohjeez 11y ago
Most?!
- CrankyBear 11y ago
  All.

CrankyBear 11y ago

Speaking as a professional writer who covers technology and business, that's awful. If you want to write to have something to add to your programmer resume, go for it. Everyone else, just say no.