How to Make Nettuts+ Your Full-Time Job

Though it’s getting better, there’s no denying the fact that the global economy has been in a slump for some time now. As a result, many businesses have folded or drastically cut down on costs. Well, if you happen to be in need of work, there’s a variety of ways that you can make a healthy income helping us teach, here at Nettuts+. More details after the jump.

$800 - Write Tutorials

As you may know, we post new content daily at Nettuts+. This means, virtually at all times, we’re in need of new, energetic writers to dig into the latest technologies and brain-dump their findings for our readers!

We pay regular writers $200 per article. So, if you sit down for a few hours each week and write one article, you can expect to earn an extra $800 a month, U.S.

$900 – Premium Articles

In addition to Nettuts+, we also offer a Premium program, where we publish exclusive and much more in depth content for the subscribers who help support Tuts+. In general, we pay double for this sort of content.

Again, if you write one Premium tutorial every other week, it’s possible to earn, give or take, an extra $900 per month.

View an example of an in depth, Premium tutorial.

$3500 – Record Courses

Finally, at Tuts+ Premium, we’re bumping up to releasing a minimum of fifteen full courses every month. To handle that kind of publishing schedule requires a great deal of instructors.

A course is a set of screencasts on one subject. If a Nettuts+ tutorial is akin to a magazine article, then a Premium course would be the textbook. Here’s a recent example of one of our courses on Backbone.

If you’re worried about screencasting, don’t: we can teach you! As long as you’re willing to learn how (it’s fairly easy), and feel that you have a solid understanding of how to teach others, this would be a fantastic way to make an additional $3500 each month, as one of our staff instructors.

A Full-Time Gig

Assuming that you take each of the jobs listed above (like I, and some of the other staff writers here do), you’ll make $5200 per month. Don’t think that’s all doable in one month? It absolutely is; in fact, in addition to being the editor of Nettuts+ and a producer for Tuts+ Premium, I do all three of the jobs noted above. You can too – just as long as you enjoy it.

How to Apply

Firstly, it’s important for me to note that, when opportunities like this come up, folks tend to assume that there will be hundreds upon hundreds of applications. That simply isn’t the truth. In reality, I’m expecting less than fifteen usable applications. We’re hiring multiple people, not just one.

If you’d like to apply, here’s what I need:

• Email Me: Send me a short email (jeffrey[at]envato[dot]com), and set the subject to “Application.” Who are you? What’s your area of expertise? Are you on Twitter? A few sentences will do.
• Sample(s): Provide me with a sample of your writing. It can be a link to your personal blog, or an article that you’ve written for a different website.
• Screencast: If you’d also like to record courses for Tuts+ Premium, I’ll need a screencast sample as well. If you’ve never done this before, for now, visit Screenr.com, and record (through your computer’s built in mic is fine) a 3-5 minute screencast on any web development topic of your choice. I care much less about the content, and more about listening to how you explain a particular concept. If you can do that well, we can help with quality/sound improvements! Include a link to this video with your introductory email to me.

And that’s it! We’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Please note that special attention will be given to those who:

• Speak and write English well. This is the single most important piece of your application.
• Know how to explain complicated concepts. Some of the most intelligent developers I know don’t have the first clue as to how to teach effectively. Do you?
• Have prior experience. Do you frequently write on your blog? Have you contributed to Smashing Magazine, or another similar community? If so, you’ll move to the top of our list!
• Have lots of experience! If your skill-set ends with HTML, CSS, and basic JavaScript, you might not be the best fit. We’re looking for developers who have years of experience, and enjoy spending their free time learning about (or deciding) what’s next in the industry!

If you have any questions, let me know below, and I’ll do my best to answer them. Otherwise, if you’re hired, you’ll be spending your days transforming yourself into a better developer, and teaching the latest tricks and techniques to millions of readers every month.