The problem with this article is that it allows the word 'writing' to cover so much ground it means practically nothing; butter spread over too much toast. It's like talking about the "market for painters" and never clarifying if you mean the Home Depot kind of the Van Gogh kind (or for that matter, the guy operating the enamel sprayer at the Le Cruset factory.) When 'writing' is understood in a more limited context,…
And what do you mean by "(sparkle emoji) Writing (sparkle emoji)"?
For someone that does not have English as a native language. Do you think Chat GPT could act as editor? Basically correcting grammatical mistakes and similar?
It’s pretty good at getting the grammar right. My guess is that it would be good at checking yours. The prose it produces isn’t great.
I have some thoughts on this as a career writer who’s friends with plenty of other career writers—but most of those friends write the kind of content discussed here, whereas I'm a technical writer who works on software documentation (hence why I'm on HN :P). Technical writers do pretty well; we don’t make as much as engineers, but the pay is nothing to sneeze at. My friends who write blog posts, industry reports, and…
> the allure of what you do makes it less likely that you’ll jump ship to something less exciting but more lucrative (similar to how game industry devs tend to make less than regular software engineers, from what I’ve heard—you can exploit people’s enthusiasm), I used to be a game developer and you're exactly right. People tend to frame this observation in a negative way, but I hate that mindset because it portrays e…
I agree, I dislike the use of "exploit" in this context because it sounds like enthusiastic people are mindlessly accepting these poor paying jobs. I like to believe that they know exactly what they're getting into, why it pays less, and they are taking the job for other reasons such as the ones you've named: prestige and glamour.
> the allure of what you do makes it less likely that you’ll jump ship to something less exciting but more lucrative (similar to how game industry devs tend to make less than regular software engineers, from what I’ve heard—you can exploit people’s enthusiasm), I used to be a game developer and you're exactly right. People tend to frame this observation in a negative way, but I hate that mindset because it portrays e…
I agree, I dislike the use of "exploit" in this context because it sounds like enthusiastic people are mindlessly accepting these poor paying jobs. I like to believe that they know exactly what they're getting into, why it pays less, and they are taking the job for other reasons such as the ones you've named: prestige and glamour.
I meant no offense by the use of the word—rather that I think game devs should be able to enjoy the prestige and good pay/working conditions ;) If anything it's a jab at the companies who make record profits and still don't compensate their employees fairly, not the workers who take those jobs.
For the HN crowd there's probably a more realistic path toward writing as a career: self-publishing technical books. [By one year after publishing my first book]( https://jeremykun.com/2019/12/01/a-good-year-for-a-programme... ), I had sold 11k copies, and with self publishing you get a much bigger royalty from each copy, drastically lowering the bar for financial success. I expect my second book to do even better, b…
Specifying technical books is interesting - my first book was fairly technical (though the spiritual theme which probably reduced the target market significantly) but my most successful books monetarily were far and away the erotica I wrote primarily for my own gratification. I know erotica's an active genre, but it's still a source of consternation that I get so much more reader interest for something so much easier…
Having written erotica on the side while working a day job where I write technical content, I truthfully find it much more difficult to write erotica. :P Props to you for doing it skillfully enough to get paid!
For the HN crowd there's probably a more realistic path toward writing as a career: self-publishing technical books. [By one year after publishing my first book]( https://jeremykun.com/2019/12/01/a-good-year-for-a-programme... ), I had sold 11k copies, and with self publishing you get a much bigger royalty from each copy, drastically lowering the bar for financial success. I expect my second book to do even better, b…
I have some thoughts on this as a career writer who’s friends with plenty of other career writers—but most of those friends write the kind of content discussed here, whereas I'm a technical writer who works on software documentation (hence why I'm on HN :P). Technical writers do pretty well; we don’t make as much as engineers, but the pay is nothing to sneeze at. My friends who write blog posts, industry reports, and…
> In some ways it does seem like the perceived glamor of these jobs is a double-edged sword: the allure of what you do makes it less likely that you’ll jump ship to something less exciting but more lucrative (similar to how game industry devs tend to make less than regular software engineers, from what I’ve heard—you can exploit people’s enthusiasm), and the fact that it’s a cool job means everyone else is also tryin…
There are 2 sides to this coin. Jobs with too much interest are discounted, but jobs with not enough interest pay extra. I'd rather live in a society where this is the case than in one where market pressure is distorted to the point that important yet under-appealing roles cannot be filled.
I agree, I dislike the use of "exploit" in this context because it sounds like enthusiastic people are mindlessly accepting these poor paying jobs. I like to believe that they know exactly what they're getting into, why it pays less, and they are taking the job for other reasons such as the ones you've named: prestige and glamour.
I meant no offense by the use of the word—rather that I think game devs should be able to enjoy the prestige and good pay/working conditions ;) If anything it's a jab at the companies who make record profits and still don't compensate their employees fairly, not the workers who take those jobs.
Unless there are significant anticompetitive forces in your industry, unfair compensation is simply not a stable state. Since the gaming industry is very large and many upstarts seem to find success, how can the prevailing wages be considered unfair? Everybody would have a profit motive to quit their employer and become a greedy exec themselves.
The problem with this article is that it allows the word 'writing' to cover so much ground it means practically nothing; butter spread over too much toast. It's like talking about the "market for painters" and never clarifying if you mean the Home Depot kind of the Van Gogh kind (or for that matter, the guy operating the enamel sprayer at the Le Cruset factory.) When 'writing' is understood in a more limited context,…
I wouldn’t compare technical writing and fiction writing as painting a barn to painting a Van Gogh. It’s a bit hyperbolic. There’s masterfully written technical docs and terrible Sherlock Holmes erotica. I wouldn’t compare the Holmes Erotica to Van Gogh.