Opportunities With Software Manuals (Part 1 of 2)

Written on September 26, 2007 – 4:48 pm | by Wordpreneur |

While chatting with my friend, master programmer William Bontrager, the other day about some cool server applications, something he mentioned in passing flicked on the switch of my wordpreneur lightbulb. His statement:

“[S]ome geeks don’t know how to write manuals.”

Some? William’s a very nice guy. But anyone who’s tried to read, let alone follow, what’s being passed off as instructions for software out there — particularly among the smaller outfits, including the shareware and freeware folks — knows that William hit the nail squarely on its proverbial head.

That means opportunity, doesn’t it? In this case, opportunities. I have two ideas on how to capitalize on this.

First, the more traditional idea: Simply offer to rewrite the software’s manual.

Yes, rewrite. Look for existing products with crappy manuals. No shortage of them. Here are a few places where you can start your search:

The neat thing about rewrites is that a lot of the work is already done, courtesy of the original manual.Here’s what I would do if I were just starting out with this idea:

1. Contact the author/publisher of a shareware product I can actually use, offering to barter my manual rewrite service for a full registration to the product and a byline/link in the manual, and maybe even on the software’s website. S/he loses nothing, everything’s a plus, so s/he’ll probably say, “Sure, knock yourself out.”

2. I rewrite the manual, and track how much time and effort it takes me. This will give me an idea what to charge for future paying jobs.

3. Manual’s delivered, software publisher’s happy. End users are happy. I get registered copy of the software and published credit. I’m happy.

Even better: I’ve got real world experience and something for my portfolio, and most probably even a testimonial from this software publisher. I can start trying to sell this to other software publishers. Now I’m really happy.

You don’t even have to start with a big job. Start with a few small software packages (utilties, etc.; barter them all), and you’re off and running.

Obviously, don’t bother prospecting freeware. But wait for the next software manual opportunity idea installment (part 2): It’ll even let you work the freebies.

Go to Part 2 »

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Tips, articles, tutorials, jobs, markets, ideas and more for freelance writers, editors, authors and publishers (on demand, online, ebooks, traditional, etc.) and other "word"-based entrepreneurs. By Eldon Sarte