Chris Sells's post about What Makes A Book Successful? prompted me to create this separate entry about authors who debate writing an article on a topic that has been covered many times already.

My advice to the author is at least pitch it to the publication, especially if it's an online publication. If the topic is hot or the publication predicts it could be hot, they will buy the article.

Tutorials and How Tos aren't as timely as daily news items, so there is still value in being slightly late to the game. I can't tell you how many times I see articles on sites that have been published elsewhere up to a year earlier. An ASP.NET 2.0 article now could still be relevant a year from now.

Many readers visit their favorite sites before they search for articles, so having a fresh one on the home page while other sites have theirs buried in the archives will still get you readers. Conversely, many reader hit the search engines first so having the article archived somewhere in the site may also drive readers.

I'd even argue that always being first to the game actually may hurt a publication because the article will only be read by early adopters and the code could become somewhat stale. Entering later may prove to be better timing.