I've really enjoyed the process. It's nice to have an article done and dusted, and then you don't have to worry about it anymore. Unlike code, which keeps breaking, you have to maintain it, deploy it, add features, etc. Code is never done. But an article gets published, and (apart from reading a few comments) that's the end of it.
So I highly recommend subscribing to (or writing for!) LWN. It really is quality content. And I'm not even an avid Linux person. It's really inexpensive for what it is, and they're just a small shop so they deserve it (I think they only have 3 or 4 full time writers).
Ben, just wanted to say that I especially liked your articles and it pushed me to resubscribe to LWN again. I like the topics you write about, because they really interest me. Good job! I really like AWK, Lua, Go and everything around it, so I'm looking forward to more articles from you.
Interesting read. I remember having to write a RISC-V implementation in BSV as class project Junior year in college. What a ride that was. It truly is a simple design though, implementing x86 would take more than an an undergrad.
I highly recommend subscribing!
P.S. I am a subscriber, but otherwise not in any way affiliated with lwn.net.
We are always looking for writers who can create quality articles and aren't afraid of writing for readers who know more about the subject matter than they do (or anybody else does, for that matter). We're interested in news from the free-software development community; we don't do how-to articles or "five reasons your company should be using DevOps".
The cited rate is our entry rate; we try to bump things up fairly quickly for authors who do good work for us. As others have noted, we care deeply about the material we publish, so there is definitely some time to be spent in the editing process.
All were just posted on the corporate blog for seo, building the brand as experts, etc. One of my posts was reblogged by some major outlets, so definitely worth the cost for my employer.
Blogging is partly a numbers game. Not every piece of content is successful. But if a blog post does rank well/go viral, it can make up its costs 10-100x.
As others have said, producing a good blog post takes time, so the money isn't as good as it initially seems if you aren't doing it for reputation or fun too.
I also recently launched ritza[1] to scale production of this kind of content as it's definitely a growing demand trend. Happy to chat about technical writing with anyone - details in profile.
[0] https://github.com/sixhobbits/technical-writing/blob/master/...
[1] https://ritza.co
Shame we don't have Dr Dobbs anymore.
alex@howacarworks.com
Will you also match LWN by paying $300 and up for accepted articles?
Not sure why you were downvoted, but it might be a good idea to put up a page explaining your goals and perhaps do your own Show HN so more people can see your offer.
My last 2 articles in Medium generated $500 and +$800 (and growing) for a total effort of around ~6 writing hours per article, so I think it is a very viable way to make a living writing 100% online.
The point is that if you don't have an audience/publication, no one will find your article. That's why it is usually better to publish your content under a publication focused in the same topic than your article. If you are lucky, Medium will also promote the article in their newsletter and in Medium homepage and visits will boost.
Then Medium pays you a fee based on the article performance. It is not clear what parameters they consider to calculate the fee, but it seems to be a mix between views and reader time.
The last one was published under Medium paywall in June. $824 until today.
Where do you find quality writers? I can’t imagine it’s Fiverr.
A lot of published work is substandard for two reasons: businesses aren’t willing to pay enough and they have no expertise in editing. Even the best writers benefit from an editor who can knock their work into shape and keep them on the straight and narrow. Publishers know this, but the average marketer or entrepreneur does not, or, if they do know it, they are not willing to pay for high-quality editing (running writing through Grammarly doesn’t count).
Also, cold emailing other writers from sites has yielded high quality stuff.
I guess there is so much content “free” that it’s difficult to compete.
