Zero to Hero in Technical Writing: Making Consistent Income

Introduction

Technical Writing is about writing articles, documentation, emails, technical reports, and other content related to computer hardware and software, architecture, software engineering, and other fields that help in building software. My main focus here is on writing articles as a technical writer.

It is rising with the rise of platforms such as dev.to and Hashnode, where you can share your articles online. The platforms have made it quite easy to publish technical articles. They have their own audience along with search engine traffic is also quite good. I believe that every developer should at least try to write articles online. It can help in various ways for their career and can create a consistent income through writing.

The below content covers some topics related to technical writing from my latest ebook, Zero to Hero in Technical Writing: Making Consistent Income. It covers topics related to writing technical articles online. Tips and tricks from my journey of writing articles. If you want to deep dive into writing technical articles then you should get the ebook. You can get the ebook here.

Note: I am running a launch campaign right now, you will get the ebook at a discounted price now. So grab it soon.

Now, let’s look into some of the content that the book contains.

Why should you write technical article?💡

I mentioned what technical writing is. You can pursue it as a side hustle or a profession. This choice depends on what best fits you. A developer at the beginning of their career can pursue it as a profession. However, someone who is already writing code and has experience can write articles as a side hustle. Both scenarios will be beneficial. Now let's explore some benefits of it.

Building Audience

By starting a blog on a platform and on your website, you will start reaching an audience (other developers most likely) through the articles on it. On the platform, they can interact with the posts by giving their reactions and commenting on their thoughts about the articles. They can follow the platform to receive more articles from you. By doing this, you will create an audience for your blog that will read, react, and comment on your blog posts.

Learning Opportunity

While researching the articles, you will learn a lot about the topic, enhancing your knowledge of the domain. I learned many things just by writing articles. Additionally, the community will interact with your posts to share their experiences and opinions. You will also learn a lot from other perspectives on the posts.

Helping Developers

The best way to solidify a piece of knowledge is by sharing it with others. When you write an article about a topic, it will only deepen your knowledge about it. Also, with your knowledge and experience, you can help other developers who are at the stage where you once were. So, it's a win-win situation for both the reader and the creator.

Generating Income

There are various blogs that pay writers for their articles. Tech startups need technical writers to spread the word about their products. We will discuss such blogs that pay well for writing articles. You can do a part-time/full-time job as a Technical writer. With this point, I just want to highlight that you can generate good income as a side hustler or a job seeker.

Potential Job Opportunities

A technical writer job is quite valuable. However, someone who wants to explore more opportunities from here can add more skills, such as communication, management, and public speaking. This will open doors for opportunities such as Developer Relations, Developer Advocate, Community Manager, and Content Manager. There will be more such jobs that you can adapt from technical writing by adding more skills to it.

The domain is quite promising. The opportunity is substantial in it, as blogs and startups are always looking for skilled writers to join their platforms. I will not recommend everyone pursue it because some enjoy sharing, while others do not. However, I will definitely recommend everyone to at least give it a try. See how it goes for you. I hope the benefits of technical writing have excited you to start a blog today. But please wait for a moment before commenting on the ebook, as I will guide you through some processes that are specially tailored for my blogs. Whether you are new or already have a blog, this guide will help you sort out lots of details.

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What should you write?🤔

One of the most asked and as well as most searched questions is “What should I write?” while starting to write articles. In my early days as a technical writer, I used to write about topics that I was learning. It was easy as I was already having knowledge about the topic. It also enhances my knowledge as I write and also engage with other developers through my article's comment section. As I grew, I started finding topics that I had to learn and then write. In this case, I was able to explore more topics.

You can take a look into the following methods to find topics to write an article on it.

Write about what you are learning

My first recommendation whenever someone asks me about this is to write what am learning. In the beginning, we learn a lot about any tech stack/framework/tool. You can convert that into a blog by adding your point and way of explaining things.

This allows you to gain more knowledge about the topic and you will retain it for a longer time. Also, you will be able to hear from the community about your learning and points to add to your notes.

Social Media Post

You can take inspiration from Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram posts for the topic idea. Don't copy all the information from the post. If you have anything more to say or you want to add your points about that topic then write an article.

While taking inspiration, you should give credit to the original source.

Convert the topic into a series

It's not about finding topics but generating multiple topics from one. For instance, you are writing about the NextJS .env variable. You can create a series of NextJS to discuss NextJS. This will lead to having many topics from just one domain.

I avoid breaking a tutorial article into multiple series as some articles I find on the internet, I would like them to find all the information on the same page.

Maintaining a note about topics

We sometimes encounter topic ideas in our brain but later forget that or lost in the realm of imagination. So, having a topic sheet with the topic ideas will help you maintain ideas. I use a notion template to manage my blog ideas. If you use notion then you can check the template here: https://www.prototion.com/notion-template/Blog-Tracker-a4tGHDAESUHHuT9q

Tools

I don't use a lot of tools to find topic ideas but sometimes I use AnswerThePublic. It is a tool to find what questions are public is asking on search engines. Its visual representation and ability to export into an Excel sheet are what I like most about the tool. You can find some good topics to write an article on. You can also use Google's auto-suggest when searching on the platform. The topics in this are quite relevant.

AI Tools

There is no way, we cannot leave AI tools from any field. The rise of so many AI tools and the benefit that they can provide you is mind-blowing. You should use AI tools such as ChatGPT, Bard, Bing AI, or any other tool to explore different topics. You can enter prompts such as “Topics to write an article on X”, “Trendy article ideas on X”, or anything you would like.

One more thing, Andrew Baisden has written an article, 100 blog topic ideas for your next article, from here you can take some topic ideas.

Conclusion

These are just 2 topics among the 12 topics that I have covered in the ebook. The complete list of topics that I have covered are these:

• Introduction👋
• Why should you write technical articles?💡
• How to start your blog?🌱
• What should you write?🤔
• Researching the topic🔍
• Writing style to follow🎨
• Markdown📄
• Things to do before publishing the article📑
• Things to do after publishing the article📢
• Tools to Use🛠️
• Challenges of Writing Technical Articles📚
• Earning money through Technical Writing💰

If this excites you then you should look at the ebook here. It is available in ebook PDF and Notion template variants. You can get the ebook here.

Note: As I mentioned above, I am running a launch campaign right now, you will get the ebook at a discounted price now. So grab it soon.

I hope this article has helped you in knowing technical writing. Thanks for reading the article.