3 ms·

Technical writing is almost never about revenue: there are very very few authors,who could live off writing about computer related subjects.Most of the revenue

Technical writing is almost never about revenue: there are very very few authors,who could live off writing about computer related subjects.Most of the revenue comes from alternative sources, such as consulting, conferences,maybe even some online courses and etc.

asicsp 7y ago
I wish that weren't the case. A good book can help millions and I feel we'd get more good books if authors were paid well. Writing a book isn't an easy task and it can take years to write.
- Swenrekcah 7y ago
  On the other hand, I'd much rather read a technical book written by an expert on the topic than an professional writer.
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
Just to add some background. My lad has just started a Udemy online course in Unity/C#. From the number of course completions and the price the 2 authors appear to have taken ~$10M for what amounts to, it seems, a relatively straight forward course. (I'm not saying it wasn't hard work setting up, but it seems like less work than a year's regular teaching.)
- rpeden 7y ago
  With Udemy, keep in mind that most people will have purchased the course for about $10, and not whatever shows up as the list price. That doesn't mean the course creators aren't still doing well. Just that there's almost always some kind of '90% off' sale or promotion available. So I find the list prices for courses on there to be mildly dishonest because hardly anybody pays anywhere near that price. I don't let that stop me from buying courses via Udemy because I've been very happy with the quality of what I've gotten so far.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    Yes, we bought at discount and IIRC I assumed 80% did, it was a very popular course (I'd be surprised, given the figures were correct and the course wasn't free at any point, if I'd been more than one order of magnitude out -- which makes it still massively more financially rewarding than direct teaching: which was my point).
  - ghaff 7y ago
    >That doesn't mean the course creators aren't still doing well. There's almost certainly a power law effect. I'm sure a (small) subset of people who do training/consulting/writing/instruction who have managed to build mostly fairly small-scale but very respectable businesses. The nice thing about video training course is that they're probably a better way for a solo practitioner to scale than most other things out there. Assuming they have the skillsets/talent for it of course.

asicsp 7y ago

I wish that weren't the case. A good book can help millions and I feel we'd get more good books if authors were paid well. Writing a book isn't an easy task and it can take years to write.

Swenrekcah 7y ago
On the other hand, I'd much rather read a technical book written by an expert on the topic than an professional writer.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago

Just to add some background. My lad has just started a Udemy online course in Unity/C#. From the number of course completions and the price the 2 authors appear to have taken ~$10M for what amounts to, it seems, a relatively straight forward course. (I'm not saying it wasn't hard work setting up, but it seems like less work than a year's regular teaching.)

rpeden 7y ago
With Udemy, keep in mind that most people will have purchased the course for about $10, and not whatever shows up as the list price. That doesn't mean the course creators aren't still doing well. Just that there's almost always some kind of '90% off' sale or promotion available. So I find the list prices for courses on there to be mildly dishonest because hardly anybody pays anywhere near that price. I don't let that stop me from buying courses via Udemy because I've been very happy with the quality of what I've gotten so far.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Yes, we bought at discount and IIRC I assumed 80% did, it was a very popular course (I'd be surprised, given the figures were correct and the course wasn't free at any point, if I'd been more than one order of magnitude out -- which makes it still massively more financially rewarding than direct teaching: which was my point).
- ghaff 7y ago
  >That doesn't mean the course creators aren't still doing well. There's almost certainly a power law effect. I'm sure a (small) subset of people who do training/consulting/writing/instruction who have managed to build mostly fairly small-scale but very respectable businesses. The nice thing about video training course is that they're probably a better way for a solo practitioner to scale than most other things out there. Assuming they have the skillsets/talent for it of course.