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How to Become a Tech Writer

Every writer’s dream is to get published in major publications. However, getting published in the cut-throat tech publications is not necessarily an easy task; you need to write compelling content and have a strategy. That sounds easier than it is, but here are some tips on how to get published in tech publications.

Have a Roadmap

Writing is like any other business venture. You need a well-laid strategy. Before writing and submitting articles, have a plan for your work. You need to determine why you are writing and what your end goal is. By identifying your target audience, you will be able to write relevant content, hence getting your work published in tech publications. Having concise goals will help you save time and resources.

The First 3 Tips Are: Research, Research, Research!

The tech world is quite dynamic. What trended yesterday might be far from trending today. Therefore, you always need to research current issues. A tech publication will drop your work as soon as they realize that you didn’t do your due diligence. Tech publications also have strict guidelines that you must abide by.

To stand a better chance, do some research on the publication’s audience. What do their other articles look like? What is their tone? From there, you can align your work to fit their needs.

Connect with Your Audience

The essential thing as a writer is connecting with your audience. While you should strive to come across as knowledgeable, ensure that you don’t sound intimidating. The work of a technology copy should be clear, understandable and valuable to the target audience while maintaining the voice of the brand. Also, ensure that you seem reliable and trustworthy.

To do so, ensure that data follows all your statements and opinions. Tech publications are keen on data and statistics. Besides, ensure that you use data from reliable sources or unbiased research.

Always Proofread… More than Once!

Even if you have been in the writing industry for years, you can never be too careful. For your work to be published by a tech publication, you must strive for perfection. Any tech publication will drop your work if it is poorly drafted, or plagiarized. Besides submitting authentic work, you should ensure that your work looks impressive, and is an exciting read. For instance, choose your words carefully. Avoid using weak descriptions, and avoid redundancy.

Keeping your sentences concise will help keep the reader hooked. Also, focus on keeping the sentences simple. When writing for tech publications, using jargon might be inevitable. However, only use jargon when you are sure that your audience is familiar with the words. Otherwise, using big names might turn off readers. If you find yourself googling a word’s meaning, you should probably avoid using it.

Although it is a tech publication, you should still pay close attention to grammar. Read through your work before publication, to ensure that all punctuation marks are in place, and all spellings are right.

Where to Find Ideas

One of the great things about the field of tech writing is that ideas are all around you. Are you looking at a handful of apps that all do the same thing? Download them all, try them out, and write a guide to help others pick one. When your parents call you because they can’t figure out how to send emojis, you’ve just been handed another article idea: “How to Explain Emojis to Your Parents.” Maybe, during your day job, your boss asks you to find out if your company could benefit from setting up a chatbot. As you’re researching and reading the literature (maybe it’s a Facebook messenger guide you’re reading), you should be thinking somewhere in the back of your mind: I could turn this into an article! Technology is all around you. Therefore, ideas for writing in the tech field are all around you. With practice, you’ll develop a radar for this type of thing.

The tech arena is quite broad, and there is so much to write about. Hopefully you love technology; it has been said that when you love something, it doesn’t feel so much like work. Do you love apps? Write about them. Are you into web development? Write about web development. If artificial intelligence is your thing, write about it. That way, you can create a strong, confident voice, which will hopefully help you become a published tech writer.

Sam Roberts