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The Society for Technical Communication publishes a survey of salaries. For
a start, go to http://stc-va.org/fstcbooks.htm
<http://stc-va.org/fstcbooks.htm> and download the 1999 survey. That will
give you a general idea for salaries.
In the bay area the highest salaries are paid in Silicon Valley. As you
proceed north, salaries decrease. I work (and live) about an hour north of
San Francisco, and there is a significant difference (not just thousands but
tens of thousands) between what tech writers make up here when compared to
Silicon Valley. The salaried wage slave around here gets around $30-45K,
depending who you work for. I haven't heard about anything higher, but that
doesn't mean it ain't so.
You'll have to do some more research to determine salaries for the
geographic region you want to work in.
