Free e book for translators

I plan to publish an ebook entitled “Secrets of Success as a Freelance Translator” for free in my blog from october 2 this year. One post will bepublished  in each week. What’s Inside These Pages for You? It  is a bird’s eye view of the translation business from a practical and profitable angle. Over the next few months I shall be writing posts on this topic. You are welcome to make your comments and ask questions. The information is practical because it will address the specific realities of business procedures and profitable because we are talking about a profession, not a past time. All rights belong to ostom, Use of this post is allowed provided this link is present at the end of the article http://getdirectclient.blogspot.com

Steps to take after graduation to develop into a successful freelance translator

Novice Translators in an interesting blog and I found this piece from ther which I reproduce for the benefit of new translators. 1. After completing your studies, it’s best not to present yourself on the market straightaway as a freelance translator, but first to find employment at an all-round translation firm and spend a couple of years there to gain the necessary practical experience. As a salaried employee your income will be less compared to what you might potentially earn in a freelance capacity, but don’t forget that without experience you’re never going to be successful in the first place. In many cases, you will be assigned to a senior translator who revises your translations, monitors your progress, and makes you aware of your strengths and weaknesses. This will enable you to acquire the skills and baggage you need on your way to becoming a professional translator, and will give you the opportunity to experiment with various types of texts and disciplines. 2. If you can’t find a position in paid employment, try to find a post as an (unpaid) trainee. A translation agency may not have the capacity or resources to take on new staff, but it may still be able to offer you an excellent training post to help you gain practical experience in a commercial environment. A traineeship may serve as an effective springboard for a career in the translation business, perhaps even within the same agency that offered the traineeship. 3. After having whetted your skills at a translation agency for a number of years, you may decide that the time has come for you to find your own clients. Ideally, you should move on to a part-time contract so that you have enough time to recruit clients and work for them, and enough money to live on. It is important to make clear arrangements with your boss at this stage, to avoid a conflict of interests. The best strategy is to send your personal details and CVs to a selected group of professional translation firms and translation departments within companies and governmental institutions, explicitly referring to your work experience. Don’t forget to highlight your willingness to do a free test translation. 4. Make sure to register as a self-employed person with the relevant tax authorities and seek their advice if necessary. 5. Once you have managed to find enough freelance work to keep yourself busy for around 20 hours a week, you might consider terminating your employment contract and devoting the extra time to attracting new business. In 20 hours most experienced freelance translators tend to earn around as much as a full-time translator in salaried employment. The full text is available here http://novicetranslators.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-become-successful-freelance.html All rights belong to ostom, Use of this post is allowed provided this link is present at the end of the article http://getdirectclient.blogspot.com

How to set Freelance translation rates?

How to set Freelance translation rates? How to set Freelance translation rates? I am often asked by beginners either fresh from college or from those who have just entered the translation world. It does not matter who you are. But the fact is that you are a beginner. And as a beginner, you need to decide very soon how much you should be charging. The question could be formulated in a different fashion and that is how low can your rate go before it’s not worth doing a translation? You should do some thing else which is more remunerative rather than translation. Here are few suggestions on setting Freelance translation rates 1. Start at just about the minimum for your language pair and economic circumstances (where you live in the world, standard of living etc), then increase gradually as you get more experience and clients. 2. In some countries there are translators associations where they try to establish a minimum rate for translators. You can visit their website or go to their office to enquire about the minimum rate if at all they something like that established. It seems that in Brazil, the translators association has established a minimum rate. It is another thing how many beginner translators can successfully charge that rate to their clients or agencies. But then, it gives a fairly good idea about a starting rate in that country. 3. Another way is use Rate Calculator in ProZ.com site. You can play around with it. Though is quite simple but it does provide a preliminary idea about rates. 4. As a beginner you do not get many chances to receive an assignment, because there are established colleagues, with years of experience and translation degrees. You are pretty much in a difficult situation. And then there are those colleagues who charge so little per word, that your rate seems very high. But as a safe bet, a straight forward suggestion could be –“charge less in the beginning”. Start getting jobs then start increasing your rates for new customers. Keep your old customers happy with old rates. After some period when you have sufficient jobs explain the situation to your old clients and ask for a rise. But a word of caution, you certainly shouldn't charge less than what would constitute a living wage for your efforts. 5. If you can deliver high quality work on time and you have specialist expertise you may charge more even though you may be just a beginner in this market.

Photo Credit visualpanic Overcoming Pricing Issues as a Newcomer A dilemma that is most definitely faced by every rookie that comes into the translation field is to decide upon what rates to quote while taking up projects. The difficulty lies in not knowing whatever the price you have zeroed upon is too high, too low or the right one. So how does one go about fixing a price for the services offered such that it is not too high or too low? One method to know more is to become a member of the various translation websites that are available. Being a member helps you access details about other members in the website and can give you some know-how about the average pricing of the others. There are even some tools on certain websites that will help you calculate the price that you need to quote keeping in mind some important factors while deciding. Some even suggest you to think of a figure that you would like to earn in a month to which certain expenditure like taxes that need to be paid are added. This figure is then compared with the amount of work load that you can complete in a working day of around 8 hours. This comparison can help you arrive at a rate that you need to charge per word to reach your dream figure every month. But, some argue that the above method could not be a right indicator for pricing the services offered as it is valued at expected monthly earnings which may or may not be at realistic levels. Another factor to be remembered while taking up work through translation websites is that many a times there is a chain of outsourcing of work before it reaches you. So chances are high that the price at which you are offered work may be very low. Also, another point to remember is that agencies generally offer work at much lower prices than when you get work from clients directly. So, a good option to get good pricing for your services is to look for direct clients to provide you work. But, this may be easier said than done for which you might need to compromise and not be too rigid in selecting work initially.

My favourite translation blogs

I read a lot of blogs by freelancers in general and translators in particular. Here is one of them. I shall continue to bring more such blogs for you. Do come back to this site. Bookmark and subscrible to it. Masked Translator. The purpose of this blog is to discuss issues in the translation industry and in the practice of translation--issues that are hard to discuss with colleagues, clients or translation agencies because translation is not always a field of directness or honesty.