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Ghost writer vs senior technical writer

The differences between ghost writers and senior technical writers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 1-2 years to become both a ghost writer and a senior technical writer. Additionally, a senior technical writer has an average salary of $70,820, which is higher than the $62,531 average annual salary of a ghost writer.

The top three skills for a ghost writer include blog posts, web content and SEO. The most important skills for a senior technical writer are technical documentation, subject matter experts, and API.

Ghost writer vs senior technical writer overview

Ghost WriterSenior Technical Writer
Yearly salary$62,531$70,820
Hourly rate$30.06$34.05
Growth rate6%6%
Number of jobs10,19280,897
Job satisfaction-4
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 70%Bachelor's Degree, 72%
Average age4646
Years of experience22

Ghost writer vs senior technical writer salary

Ghost writers and senior technical writers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Ghost WriterSenior Technical Writer
Average salary$62,531$70,820
Salary rangeBetween $39,000 And $98,000Between $54,000 And $92,000
Highest paying City-San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state-California
Best paying company-PayPal
Best paying industry-Technology

Differences between ghost writer and senior technical writer education

There are a few differences between a ghost writer and a senior technical writer in terms of educational background:

Ghost WriterSenior Technical Writer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 70%Bachelor's Degree, 72%
Most common majorEnglishEnglish
Most common collegeMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyUniversity of Houston

Ghost writer vs senior technical writer demographics

Here are the differences between ghost writers' and senior technical writers' demographics:

Ghost WriterSenior Technical Writer
Average age4646
Gender ratioMale, 33.6% Female, 66.4%Male, 51.8% Female, 48.2%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 6.7% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 7.9% Asian, 8.8% White, 71.3% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%Black or African American, 6.6% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 7.8% Asian, 8.7% White, 71.5% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%
LGBT Percentage11%11%

Differences between ghost writer and senior technical writer duties and responsibilities

Ghost writer example responsibilities.

  • Manage a team of RFP writers and work with a cross-functional team to meet RFP requirements and establish deadlines.
  • Rewrite author's manuscript into a twenty-plus chapter, fact-base fiction novel.
  • Research and draft return on investment (ROI) kitchen and basement remodeling articles utilizing SEO best practices.
  • Work closely with developers to integrate UI standards into the application and to build intuitive navigation and functionality.
  • Coordinate efforts between web developers, SharePoint site administrators and product support representatives to build and support an active online community.

Senior technical writer example responsibilities.

  • Manage and participate in logistics programs, and commercial and DOD technical manual complements.
  • Manage team activities for internal and client documentation development that supports the SDLC methodology.
  • Lead team to deliver the first simultaneous release of the product stack across UNIX platforms.
  • Manage multiple SharePoint sites for active documentation projects and resulting archives to meet customer version control and compliance requirements.
  • Identify and initiate wholesale computer upgrade to accommodate new CMS while allocating and managing staff resources devote to developing the software.
  • Design and develop standalone and context-sensitive help with RoboHelp HTML, enhancing application usability.
  • Show more

Ghost writer vs senior technical writer skills

Common ghost writer skills
  • Blog Posts, 18%
  • Web Content, 16%
  • SEO, 14%
  • Fiction, 9%
  • Ghost Writing, 9%
  • Press Releases, 6%
Common senior technical writer skills
  • Technical Documentation, 7%
  • Subject Matter Experts, 6%
  • API, 4%
  • Java, 4%
  • PowerPoint, 4%
  • XML, 4%

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