TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
We develop property management and accounting software for large property
management companies. These clients manage millions of square feet of office
space, retail space, residential units, etc.
Occasionally we get requests from clients for our docs to be provided to
them in Word format so they can customize them for their particular
workflow. I am resistant to this for several reasons:
1. It's very time consuming to convert our FrameMaker projects to Word.
2. In the past, we end up fielding a lot of how-to Word questions when the
clients start to work on the docs.
3.I have problem with our hard work being butchered by amateurs and then it
reflecting badly on us.
4. We are no longer under control of our proprietary information.
5. It basically renders our copyright meaningless.
6. And I think most importantly, I don't think we should give our hard
earned work away for free. Yeah, the printed and online docs are part of the
purchase price. But the design, planning, information gathering,
development, and writing involved in developing a doc project isn't.
I am suggesting to my company we do one of the following:
1. Explain that we don't provided our copyrighted material for editing. But,
we do offer a service of customizing the documentation to suit a client's
needs and charge them accordingly. As long as we can get the staffing we
need, it works out nice for us as we would actually be generating revenue.
2. If we absolutely want to provide the client with a editable version of
our docs, then charge them per page. And charge a lot.
Ideas? Suggestions? Criticisms?
Steve Shepard
Technical Communications Manager
Yardi Systems, Inc.
819 Reddick Ave.
Santa Barbara, CA 93103
805.966.3822
steves -at- yardi -dot- com
www.yardi.com
Collect Royalties, Not Rejection Letters! Tell us your rejection story when you
submit your manuscript to iUniverse Nov. 6 -Dec. 15 and get five free copies of
your book. What are you waiting for? http://www.iuniverse.com/media/techwr
Your monthly sponsorship message here reaches more than
5000 technical writers, providing 2,500,000+ monthly impressions.
Contact Eric (ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com) for details and availability.
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
