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Rene Gedaly wrote:
>
> Does anyone have firsthand knowledge of bidding writing contracts (or
> subcontracting with the primary bidder) for the U.S. government, local or
> federal? Searched archives and found work-for-hire type contracts with doc
> houses. I'm hoping to compare notes with independent writers, successful bidders
> or not.
I've done some programming contracts for various government agencies. I
imagine it can't be much different for technical writing.
I don't particularly recommend trying to go it alone, at least not at
first. It takes a huge amount of your time just to find out what's being
put
up for bid, let alone prepare a proposal. Bid-writing in itself is often
a form of highly specialized writing--for which you don't get paid.
Plus, a surprising number of plum jobs are not put up for bid either
because they are considered discretionary spending, or because the
funding has already been awarded to a general contractor as part of some
larger package. Without inside contacts or a great deal of random cold
calling, there's no way you'll ever find out about these jobs on your
own.
My recommendation would be to find companies that are in the business of
doing business with the government and let them know that you are
interested in subcontracting through them. Then the unpaid work of
tracking down and bidding on contracts is their problem, not yours.
There are even companies that do nothing but bid on government work and
then subcontract /*everything*/. Subcontracting is the approach I took,
and it led to a number of well-paying programming assignments. In a
couple cases, the agencies eventually contracted directly with me on
small
assignments that were covered under discretionary spending.
You can get a lot of information about government contractors and
vendors by checking government websites. Many government bodies maintain
publicly-available lists of all registered vendors and contractors.
That's where I would start looking.
L.
--
Linda K. Sherman <linsherm -at- gte -dot- net>
Freelance Writer: Technical - Business - Government
