Re: [Long] Making Money in Technical Writing & Roger Peterson

["Linda K. Sherman" <linsherm -at- CONCENTRIC -dot- NET>]

Peter Kent wrote:
>

> First, the idea that the title is plagiarised is quite strange: The main
> titles are, after all, completely different.

It doesn't matter. Titles aren't protected by copyright or trademark.
You could have called it "Tech Writing for Dummies" and the "for
Dummies" people couldn't do much except rattle their spears at you in
indignation.

> As for the text itself, these are very different books. Bly has 13 pages
> about Technical Writing, and another 131 on other types of writing that I
> don't cover (Direct Mail, Ads, Audio-Visual, and so on). That leaves 130
> pages, much of which covers subjects I don't touch: writing ads, premiums,
> newsletters, extending credit, and so on. He doesn't discuss -- or barely
> touches -- technical-service agencies, writing computer books, the
> Internet, taxes, incorporation, the pros and cons of freelancing, buying
> benefits, Sales techniques, interviews, calculating how much you earn, and
> so on.

Doesn't matter either. Subject matter is not protected by copyright. The
question is whether you copied parts of someone else's work
word-for-word (or nearly so) without attribution and/or in violation of
"fair use" principles. If content were protected by copyright, romance
writers and Civil War historians would be suing each other right and
left.

Bottom line: the world is full of "professional" writers who don't know
anything about copyright or trademark law. And they need to learn, not
only so they don't go around making possibly libelous remarks about
other people's work, but so that they know if they're committing
plagiarism or being plagiarised themselves.

>
> When you exclude Bly's sections of the book about types of writing that I
> don't discuss, you're left with around 40,000 words, much of it on subjects
> I don't spend much time with. My book, though, is over 135,000 words.
> Plagiarism? That's quite bizzare!
>
> From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000==
> =====
> (3)   A few of you have discovered that telling others how to make $$$ can
> be profitable,  and are now     working on  a "how-to-make-big-bucks" book
> of your own.
> From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000==
> =====
>
> I've heard this comment before; it doesn't bother me too much, because it's
> inevitable. I will say this, though. Writing this book was not a
> particularly profitable endevour for me.

Yeah, people seem to think that writing trade books is going to pay for
a 50-foot yacht and a home with an ocean view in San Francisco. The fact
is, it's about the lowest-paying form of "tech" writing you can do, and
the main reason for doing it is to get your name out to people who are
willing to pay you better to write something else. I got all of $1500
once for writing a few chapters in a computer book. It wasn't worth it,
frankly.

L.
--
Linda K. Sherman <linsherm -at- concentric -dot- net>
Welsh-related and other stuff to be found at
http://www.concentric.net/~linsherm