I can't recommend any books off the top of my head, but I will say that the best way to get your foot in the door is to contact your area non-profits and offer to assist their grant writer with the process. In this economy, volunteering is the way to go to get hands-on experience.
I've done a little technical writing and know some people locally who make their living at it. They tell me it's an interesting market right now - on one hand, a trend is that some companies who had a tech writer on staff are seeing it as expendable and toasting the position (usually in belt-tightening, it's professional staff development, and staff training and documentation that are among the first areas to go), but on the other hand the software industry is reasonably active with a lot of specialty niche software in use in industries or new software (like ERP software) taking over to try and save the company money over the span of a few years compared to battling outdated software/hardware/processes. If you can do contract or even part-time/permanent work with a company where their technical culture is shifting radically and they recognize a need for guide documentation for it, it could be great! Just all depends on the company and where they're at
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technical writing/grant writing requires either previous experience in that field, or a degree/training in that field (as far as I've found) I've got a degree in tech writing and I can't get a job doing that. so. without that kind of training, I don't think you're likely to make it. sorry
I'm a long served, freelance, unemployed tech author, which kind of answers your query; I got into it with a biology degree. So there are holes in the warp stream.
I'd recommend this website to get a feel and scope of the current situation: www.theitjobboard.com and www.jobserve.comJust to say that tech writing is not really Writing anyway; I don't know that you would enjoy it. The premise is basically to reduce everything (and there's a lot of precision content) down to the smallest yet accurate listing of what goes on inside the box
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I'd recommend this website to get a feel and scope of the current situation: www.theitjobboard.com and www.jobserve.comJust to say that tech writing is not really Writing anyway; I don't know that you would enjoy it. The premise is basically to reduce everything (and there's a lot of precision content) down to the smallest yet accurate listing of what goes on inside the box ( ... )
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