It was never my dream to become a technical writer for government. However, government clients like the Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and Montana State University have taught me a valuable skillset and provided me with steady bread and butter for seven years, allowing time for personal writing projects.

You don’t need an advanced degree or decades of experience.

I graduated simply with a BA in Communication Studies. Working in marketing and communications for companies with tech-enabled products and services (think devices that require software or electronics components), I learned how to write content to appeal to a niche technical audience. I mostly focused on military and medical technology.

These projects introduced me to TechLink, a DoD and VA partnership intermediary affiliated with my local university. Partnership intermediaries like TechLink help DoD and VA transfer their intellectual property to private companies that can then turn the ideas into tangible products. If your eyes are glazing over, grab a coffee. While it’s an acronym-heavy world, once you take advantage of these opportunities, you will never be a starving writer!

With the knowledge I acquired, I started my own business to enable myself to accept contracts providing these technical writing services to TechLink. Some of my tasks include writing:

Marketing materials with a technical slant

I write website and social media copy, email newsletters, fact sheets, and long-form guides for an audience of tech startups and entrepreneurs. If you’re interested in emerging technology and love explaining how stuff works, you could be a good fit.

Technology briefs

I review patents, extract relevant information, and translate the benefits into lay terms. Patents can be tricky to digest—imagine a cross between a legal contract and a medical textbook, sometimes illustrated with what appears to be a four-year-old’s hand-drawn doodle. However, I also get to learn about new inventions and emerging technology which makes me proud of American ingenuity. See this example of a tech brief about a thermal imaging system.

Partnership success stories

I interview entrepreneurs, inventors, and industry and military leaders, to learn about their technology, collaboration, and resulting commercial success. Check out this example of a company licensing an Air Force patent to develop a life-saving software tool inspired by Amazon.

Where do you start?

You’ll need specific government registrations, certificates, and insurance, and meet certain encryption and security standards. It can feel like an overwhelming amount of paperwork to start, but it’s been well worth it for me. The Small Business Administration (SBA) explains the basic requirements, and USA.gov offers a helpful guide on how to get started. Government contracting is one area of my business where the networking, patience, and effort required, have rewarded me with an outstanding return on investment.

These are some ways I’ve gained government-affiliated clients:

•    Offer your services to Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) applicants and recipients. SBIR is a government program awarding grants to small companies for research and product development. For example, SBIR-funded research enabled the advancement of LASIK eye surgery and the Roomba vacuum. These startups or entrepreneurs often need help creating proposals, reports, and investor pitches. SBIR awardee data, including contact information, is publicly available on SBIR.gov.

•    Approach economic development organizations with your writing services. They’re usually well-connected with industry clusters, government organizations, and universities. You can find listings for your state through the US. Economic Development Administration.

•    Consider becoming a subcontractor to another company that already holds government contracts. That means less hassle for you because the general contractor must maintain all the government registrations and certifications. You can find a database of companies that received a contract (and its scope of work) on Sam.gov.

The work pays exceptionally well and has kept me busy for years.

Depending on specific services and project scope, I make $80 – $95/hr. Once I proved my skills, word spread. Multiple departments can use your services under the same contract or amend the agreement to request additional services. Multi-year contracts are the norm, and renewing or amending the contract only takes a signature without jumping through all the initial hoops again.

While it’s true that government contracting requires a lot of patience and effort, for me, it has outperformed every other client in profitability and longevity.

Bio:
Juliane Bergmann is a technical writer for Montana State University, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. As a book coach, ghostwriter, and editor, she’s guided nine first-time authors through the ideation and creation of their non-fiction books spanning memoir, entrepreneurship, business development, psychedelics, healthcare, IT, immigration, coaching, and leadership.

Juliane’s work has appeared in: Mamalode, The Writing Cooperative, CRY Magazine, A Parent Is Born, The Bozeman Daily Chronicle, and The Scarlett Letter. She was named a semi-finalist in the 2021 Medium Writing Challenge for her essay How To Become A More Selfish Parent. Juliane offers free writing resources at https://julianebergmann.ghost.io/