Technical writing to supplement early retirement income (sentence, grammar, money)

[localinsight]

Hi everyone.
I am looking for a way to supplement my income.
Formerly I worked as a Support engineer in the defense
Business. After the major cutbacks in the field, I went
Back to grad school for something not at all marketable today.
I have no professional contacts remaining (too many years,
Fellow workers scattered ).
I have training in technical writing and am looking into "freelancing"
Per job.
I am finding, however, that companies either hire
Their own employees or contract work out to India.
I perished this file & the results of a search for technical
Writing and did compile a list of places to begin
Studying.
My question is this - is there really a market for
Someone who "used to be" and could churn out
Decent content from technical to nontechnical people.
Significantly, I was a hardware engineer so computer
Programming/IT is not my area.
I also took classes in medical writing and legal writing.
These seem to be inaccessible to someone not in the field.

Does anyone have an assessment on this objective?
The only people I have known to actually do it are retired
Military with many contacts.
Thanks for your insight.

[old_cold]

I'm not familiar with the requirements of technical writing but if your post is indicative of your proficiency in proper grammar and sentence structure, I say "Forget it."

[localinsight]

Thank you so much.

[Metlakatla]

Let me fix your sentence for you.

I'm not familiar with the requirements of technical writing but if your post is indicative of your proficiency in proper grammar and sentence structure, I say "Forget it."

I'm not familiar with the requirements of technical writing, but if your post is indicative of your proficiency with grammar, I say, "Forget it."

Sentence structure is a part of grammar, which is why I left it out of the correction. YW.

Back to the OP:

You could try writing for content mills. A lot of retirees supplement their incomes this way. Despite what you may have read on this forum, legit ones do exist. They're probably ideal for someone in your situation who doesn't need to earn a full-time income from writing.

[goldbear]

As others have mentioned, your opportunities are severely limited by your writing skills. If you are really interested in this, you will have to get better to further your opportunities. With better writing skills, you can:
- ghost writing stories
- technical blog revenue off of ads
- writing and selling whole articles
- tutoring and homework help

Your current opportunities are quite limited:
- article spinning
- transcription (requires transcription pedal about $30 USD used and software)
- microtasks / mechanical turk
- virtual assistant

Freelancing is difficult to wade through all the garbage. Many jobs are snatched up by extremely-low wages by folk who live in countries where the cost of living is low. If you do not live in such a country and those wages don't make sense for you, then you must be extra diligent about reading all the freelancing articles, tips, and tricks and put much more effort behind landing the position at a wage acceptable for you. Freelancing is also difficult because sometimes clients will try to get you to work for free - be on your guard. Also be wary of "payment websites" that are designed to steal your banking information and/or your identity. if something smells fishy, it probably is.

[localinsight]

Thanks for the helpful replies.
After reading content writing websites,
I was a little wary. Interestingly, clients wrote in saying that they liked, for example, the site Hirewriters, because they got free content by criticizing content. Writers complained about all sorts of things. Some were just canceled for administrative glitches and many felt their work was unfairly assessed.

Buy thank you. I haven't precluded it but have been looking into technical writing. A poster on this forum suggested that I check out the Society of Technical Communication.
Interesting website. I am interested in some of their online courses.
Of course, the flow of money would be in the wrong direction.
Perhaps I should register in an expository writing course at a junior college. After taking one in 2001, my writing became much more direct.

Good luck to all writers. I have submitted articles to some creative writing magazines. They corrected my grammar (I thought kindly) but told me that my genre was not being published
Much at that time. I didn't know I had a genre.

[Metlakatla]

I haven't really heard anything good about HireWriters, though one poster here seems happy with it. Personally, I think there is way too much room there for writers to be taken advantage of. I do know some retired people and others who don't need full-time incomes who do okay with some of the writing sites, like Blogmutt and Textbroker. I think that the key is to stick with sites that only hire native English speakers if you want to go that route.

Only about five percent of freelance writers actually make a living at it; it certainly isn't easy. Knowledge pays, though -- more so than "proper grammar and sentence structure," so if you've got a certain niche, it might be worth your time to write an article targeted to the trade publications in your field.

[yellowsnow]

Scams abound and legitimate writing jobs are few and far between. Usually the pay is pennies per hour once you consider research time.

But it is an enchanting idea to be paid to write.

Best of luck to you!

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by yellowsnow

Scams abound and legitimate writing jobs are few and far between. Usually the pay is pennies per hour once you consider research time.

But it is an enchanting idea to be paid to write.

Best of luck to you!

I'm not saying that there aren't scams out there, but there's a fairly decent market for skilled writers, particularly if they have specialized knowledge. It's not the easiest field to break into, but opportunity exists.

[localinsight]

Thanks for your replies.
Last week I met with a local recruiter regarding a technical writing contract (short term). Unfortunately, the client had
just pulled the job. The recruiter explained to me that her company specialized in IT work, security work (software design) and
Big Data. My niche would be hardware, not software. She did not know where I could look for contracts involving writing instructions, safety procedures or the like. She did suggest that I see a counselor at a university but I have found that they are more interested in enrolling students to bring money into schools than providing honest assessments of available work for their accredited graduates.
My next step is to meet with a vocational counselor and get a resume tailored to technical writing. This will undoubtedly be good experience regardless of the outcome.
I am surprised that there are not more companies looking to meet a deadline with contract workers. Perhaps there are but a personal contact in the company is required.
In the mean time, I am going to try to volunteer my services for a few hours/week. This will at least give me some current experience.
I am leery about those content writing sites but may return to that avenue after actually contacting some companies. There is an employment forum on City Data which I have also been reading. Primarily they are people looking for full time work with benefits. It is definitely a challenge for everyone. So many people have lost jobs due to "realignment", hiring younger, less expensive workers and company mergers .
I will keep you posted.

Best of luck to you all.