My brother used to do this - but most tech writing work moved to India right after the dot com implosion. Even $30/hour was too much when superior quality work could be had for $5.
That’s true. It’s not so much about money as it is about vanities and pathologies in big business environments, IMO. They throw money out their windows every day to pursue their personal, social, political practices. I’ve done many contract and temp jobs over the years and have developed a strong stomach for compulsive, perverted propositions and spontaneous hysterical outbursts.
And technical documentation now written in the USA is most often downright funny in displays of pidgin English practices.
But I will install, configure and administer better networks for those who are good, after the coming higher dollar, higher freight fuel and announcements about nuclear weapons in Iran. ...might even write some better software as a bonus. ;-)
Superior quality tech writing from foreign countries? You don't mean in English, do you? I hardly find any instructions, directions, or manuals for anything anymore that I'd call well written. I see a lot of sentences that don't make sense, words used incorrectly, and documentation with pages and pages of corrections. Any more, I try to just use it first, then go back to the documentation to see if I can fill in the gaps with anything I missed.
I tried a few Indian technical writers. They could not write for sh*t. Learned my lesson. Only Americans from now on. Coding? Also Indian coders are now too expensive. I find I get better deals and better results from local college kids now.
My brother used to do this - but most tech writing work moved to India right after the dot com implosion.
Maybe outsourcing tech writing isn't always such a good idea. A contract technical writer at a company I once worked for was arrested for industrial espionage (in a case involving some other companies). It seems like the perfect way to get the inside details of new technology.