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Surviving versus thriving as a translator

by Sarah Dillon

Corinne McKay over at Thoughts on Translation looks at some of the common features she’s identified in high-earning translators in an excellent post called Secrets of six-figure translators.

Personally, I think working for direct clients has the biggest potential impact on earnings for freelance translators, and her point about being a businessperson/translator is spot on. Direct clients certainly make the world of difference for newly established and mid-career translators as they work towards a high degree of specialisation (very likely in a completely unrelated field) and try not to starve in the process. Finding these direct clients is of course another story (and one Chris Durban is eminently able to tell, in my opinion).

On another note, I do love posts like Corinne’s that acknowledge the diversity of a group, weigh up a couple of factors from a range of sources, add some personal insights and then draw something useful from it all. Excellent stuff!

Filed Under: Business of translation Tagged With: business, Client relationships, clients

About Sarah Dillon

Sarah Dillon is an Irish cailín in Brisbane, Australia. She arrived Down Under via Germany, France, Spain, Ireland, and the UK, having originally trained as a professional translator. Sarah has been involved in the start-up phases of several international small businesses as a founder, advisor and director, and has worked for companies such as Apple Computers, Audi AG and Bain and Company. She is currently pursuing a PhD in international entrepreneurship. Read more about Sarah here.

Comments

  1. Kevin Lossner says

    21 November, 2008 at 7:00 am

    @Corinne: Working with European agencies (at least those in Germany and Switzerland) you can often do much better than USD 14-15 cents per word or even EUR 14-15 cents. Of course the end clients pay much better in many cases.
    However, I have noticed an unfortunate tendency of some translators to charge end clients the same rates as they do agencies. Often this is done out of pure ignorance and a lack of understanding of the additional effort that end customer business often involves. When I began translating eight years ago, no one ever suggested to me that the rates were different, and the colleague who mentored me at that time did not differentiate her pricing, so I assumed this was the usual practice. This issue comes up frequently on the ProZ forums, so it’s clear that there is a need to communicate more effectively with translators who are getting started and help them to understand the different models of pricing and service for agencies and freelancers.

    Kevin Lossner´s last blog post… Equivalent rates for translation billing

  2. Corinne McKay says

    18 November, 2008 at 2:34 am

    Thanks, Sarah, I’m glad you enjoyed it! I think you’re completely right about the crucial role of direct clients. Here in the US, most agencies just are not willing/able to pay more than 14-15 cents per word for FIGS (in my experience!), and you have to translate a lot of words to hit 6 figures at those rates. However even if you bump up to 20 cents a word, which I would say is the low end of the direct client market for FIGS, 500,000 words a year gets you to 100K. Thanks for all of your great posts too!

    Corinne McKay´s last blog post… Work less, produce more