So, we finally reached to the last day of the Bootcamp. This session focused on navigating different freelance writing opportunities for developers in the form of an "Ask Me Anything (AMA)" with our host Dani Passos and speaker for the day, James Q Quick.

Introduction

James Q Quick is a JavaScript developer, Keynote Speaker, Teacher, Content Creator, and YouTuber.

He began with his introduction and past experience of how he had initially never put thought into being a Tech Evangelist, but eventually got pulled into it, thereby realising it's a great way to build personal brand, gain exposure and money.

This blog will majorly focus on the Q&A session, a brief summary of answer to each question that was asked during the entire session.

Q&A

First, James kicked off the AMA by talking about job prospects in the field of writing, or more precisely, freelance writing.

There are tons of companies looking forward to bring in technical writers to do freelancing, and sponsored content. He also advised to look into different Guest Author Programs in different companies which he himself had initially taken part in.

Next followed the pool of questions from which selective questions were answered by James (in no particular order):

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Explore a lot before you stick to a niche. Choose what excites you and keeps you motivated towards pursuing this prospect. You can find niches that are currently in trend, or burning hot in the tech market. Then try to find a common ground between both.

These are the perks you get:

• This way you can garner more audience through the trending niches.

• You get the enthusiasm subconsciously to invest more time and effort into this, as this is something you do want to learn.

For example, analyse trending topics such as TypeScript and generate content about that. However, it has a downside that when you stick to a certain type of topic for too long then you start missing out on all the other crucial concepts or topics (that may not be trending). Plus, there is no guarantee that a particular topic that is trending now, will do so forever. So, don't generalize for too long and be adaptive.

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Build personal brand and portfolio full of high quality articles. But before that, ensure that the articles are of high quality by getting them reviewed. If more people see you engaging in communities, and even actively contributing, then by virtue of that, visibility is increased. Therefore Networking, Engagement and Promising Portfolio are equally important for attracting new clients.

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James gives a list of tools that he personally uses:

• FrontMatter CMS plugin to help manage your static sites.

• Trackers to keep track of ideas for content using Notion, so you can refer to them while you're out of inspiration.

• AI Tools to leverage your knowledge and inspiration or even suggest outlines or bullet points for a particular topic.

• Video editing tools like Video Tap using which you can summarise or transcribe a YouTube video into a blog post version within a couple of clicks.

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Incorrect way to use AI is by generating content and simply posting it without you analysing it first or adding your personal touch / input. The correct way is to utilise the AI to suggest outlines, witty titles, quotes and more to make your blog stand out from the tons of content being consumed on media on a daily basis.

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Several technical writing positions exist. Developer Advocate are dedicated to creating video content, attending conference talks, etc. While the Content Team is focused in written content such as documentation, blogs, sample or demos etc. For each role of similar type such as Dev Advocate, Dev Rel or anything of that sort, it is important that you are able to deliver technical concepts, translate them to audience of different types(with or without technical background). Grab opportunities by pitching your own idea of how you can improve a certain documentation or tutorial and contribute to it actively.

You can generate any template (like the one given below) using the aforementioned AI tools in order to pitch your idea of how to improve a particular documentation or tutorial:

" I found this gap in the documentation due to which beginners were not able to follow through the implementation. I aim to fill that gap by providing much improved content for the same in this PR. This will create a better developer experience, which in turn will make people like your product more and hence generate a lot of revenue."

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James goes on to explain his own story in lines of the following answer.

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You can go on to leverage the audience by providing value through content and then monetising it to build a business as well. Benefits include flexibility and owning your own content, contributing to impactful technologies, etc. It's not easy to predict if this career prospect is suitable for you, so you can only consider it to be a Full-time opportunity only after consistently putting out content for years.

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As a complete beginner, publish first and iterate on it later. When you start focusing on quantity in the beginning, you'll stay consistent and jot down loads of content, and then gradually you can focus on improving the content, filtering and editing it with each iteration.

If you start focusing on quality in the beginning, then you might want to procrastinate more in order to achieve that perfect blog. Again, perfection is only a mere concept.

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Always follow your heart and do things that you are truly enthusiastic about. Don’t look at your work as a job or you'll miss out on the fun. Instead, find something that you're interested in and excited about and the procrastination will automatically run away. Learn to identify signals when you feel you are getting burnt out. Reevaluate every time you feel so, and change the domain for a while.

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Writer's block can be dealt with by pivoting to other tasks for certain time. Step back and pay attention to things that you really enjoy and then you might find inspiration. If you're bored from solely posting content, give yourself a break, go back to coding and technical aspect and then come back to content writing with fresh perspectives and ability to translate new ideas into your blogs.

Talking about series, it is absolutely fine to break down a long form content into short pieces and aggregate them under a single series. Also, it is fine to put content that already exists.

Remember, there are more number of content consumers than there is the amount of content.

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Role of technical writing is growing in the future. Especially when we are in the times of judging a product by its documentation. Sponsored blogs and technical articles on a particular product are also a marketing funnel for the organisation. AI definitely influences it but not completely replaces it, it definitely augments your existing skills.

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Pay attention to the content you're consuming. People usually scan for bullet points than paragraphs. Block quotes can emphasize on important points.

Conclusion

This Bootcamp by Hashnode has been an eye-opener when it comes to technical writing and leveraging social media to boost the engagement.

Thanks to the organizers and speakers!