PROGRAM JOURNALISM: MARKETING COMPUTER SOFT WARE

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However, fear not . . . plenty of hardworking folks have found that program freelancing is a fine way to supplement a regular income ... even though the big-money sales may be few and far between.

Take Bob Dallman, for instance . . . a high school physics teacher from Indiana who first became intrigued with computers when his school bought four for classroom use. After only a week of instruction from the hardware salesperson, Bob sat down and wrote out four simple programs for student use . . . and before he knew it, he was hooked! He just couldn't get enough borrowed time at the school computers to suit his needs, so Dallman went out and invested $2,200 in a home system for himself.

Then, in order to justify his new obsession, Bob submitted his programs to a software company he saw advertised in a computer magazine. He figured that—just may be—he'd be able to sell one or two . . . but instead, the firm bought them all! And so far (over the course of a year), the teacher has earned about $750 in royalties, with more coming in . . . not bad when you consider that he spent a total of only about 12 hours on writing the four programs.

FOR MEN ONLY?

As another example, consider North Carolina's Linda Brown, who's the wife of an IBM employee and the mother of two daughters. Since she'd been trained in computer programming during a previous job in research, it was only natural that—when the family budget needed boosting—Linda decided to call upon her program-writing skill to help out. She purchased an IBM personal computer . . . and now (just six months later) she's an avid, wellpaid freelancer, working out of her own den!

Ms. Brown's specialty is creating business packages, which she prepares for companies (including a leading soft-drink producer) who commission her to tailor-make programs for their specific needs. Usually, her payment is agreed upon beforehand, as is the case with most contracted work. Once a buyer tells Linda the sort of package required, she figures up how much time she thinks it'll take to do the job . . . and quotes a price. If the company is happy with her estimate, she's off and writing!

Although many programmers can command $30 to $50 an hour for the kind of writing Linda tackles, she's still making a name for herself in what she feels is a male-dominated field, and asks only about $20 per hour for her services. (EDITOR'S NOTE: This is not to imply that most female programmers offer "bargain" rates. It's merely to point out that this one woman has found it necessary to undercut the going fee in order to keep herself in business.) However, even at that rate, Linda figures she's doing just fine . . . since preparing an average company package will take anywhere from three weeks to six months of six-hour days, working five days a week.

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