How to get started on building a personal brand as a Technical Writer? • Hacker News Board

Re: How to get started on building a personal brand as a Technical Writer?

#11

Post by hacym » Sat, Jan 28, 2023, 2:36 PM UTC

mirza_rizvi wrote: post #7

Eumenes wrote: post #4

Help some open source projects write some documentation

Currently looking at how I can help with the official WordPress documentation from ( https://make.wordpress.org/ ) here. But I am confused about how it gets documented on who did what.

May I suggest trying a much smaller project? Wordpress probably has a well established documentation team and standard. You won’t be making a name for yourself there unless you do something really amazing.

There are many small open source projects that could use a technical writer’s help.

Re: How to get started on building a personal brand as a Technical Writer?

#12

Post by brudgers » Sat, Jan 28, 2023, 3:07 PM UTC

[Metaphor]

When the phone rings, always answer and say "Yes."

When you get big, hire other writers to maintain the "Yes."

That's what a B2B brand is.

[\Metaphor]

Good luck.

Re: How to get started on building a personal brand as a Technical Writer?

#13

Post by Sevii » Sat, Jan 28, 2023, 3:27 PM UTC

There are a few books on it like 'Writing for Software Developers' and 'Write Useful Books'. Working with Hit Subscribe is an option for getting a better idea of the workflow. Then its really just a game of building up your blog/books and maybe sales with companies.

Re: How to get started on building a personal brand as a Technical Writer?

#14

Post by tomcam » Sun, Jan 29, 2023, 4:58 AM UTC

hacym wrote: post #11

mirza_rizvi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently looking at how I can help with the official WordPress documentation from ( https://make.wordpress.org/ ) here. But I am confused about how it gets documented on who did what.

May I suggest trying a much smaller project? Wordpress probably has a well established documentation team and standard. You won’t be making a name for yourself there unless you do something really amazing. There are many small open source projects that could use a technical writer’s help.

Not trying to be a jerk, but I have an alternate thought. OP could find a specific area of the Wordpress documentation that needs improvement, make that improvement, and do a pull request or whatever. That would probably be a good way to get the team’s attention.