What’s your current direct client research process? Direct client marketing can feel like pushing a cement mixer up a hill, in the dark. Stop me if this sounds familiar: “I need some new direct clients” “What kind of clients might need me?” “Where would I find those clients?” “Who would I contact?” “How would I
When I talk to freelancers about how their businesses are going (what’s going well and what needs to change), I often ask the same four questions: Do you have enough work in general? Are you earning enough money? Do you enjoy your work? Are you working too hard for the amount that you’re earning? As
Over the past several years, I’ve sold the translation rights to my book How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator, to freelancers working into Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Italian. It’s always fun to see the book come out in new languages. Congratulations to English>Italian translators Chiara Rizzo and Barbara Ronca for the latest
Off-topic here, or perhaps not, since translators and interpreters do tend to travel a lot! This applies only to US residents, so feel free to ignore it if you’re outside the US. Since I joined the ATA Board in 2012, I’ve been meaning to apply for TSA PreCheck. By the time I got around to
In this episode of Speaking of Translation, Eve and Corinne discuss how to learn from and share information with colleagues, in a way that is both helpful and appropriate. How can newbies learn from colleagues without being invasive? What is (and is not) appropriate to ask from colleagues? How can colleagues learn from each other
If you want to inspire fierce emotions in a group of translators, ask this question: is it better to bill by the word, by the hour, or by the project, and is the per-word pricing model on its way out? Per-word pricing has historically been the norm in our profession. Per-word pricing has a few
File under: food for thought. A colleague and former student e-mailed me this morning and asked how many words a year I translate, and whether I track it. I haven’t tracked it–until now–and I guessed 300,000 words. My reasoning was: conventional wisdom holds that “the average” (whatever that means) full-time translator produces about 500,000 words
Next up in my online course series is French to English financial translation, with expert financial translator and former commercial banker Judy Lyons. Judy taught the financial module of last year’s French to English Translation Workshop course, to rave reviews. I’m excited that she’s back to teach this course exclusively for beginning and aspiring financial
Failing to get paid for a translation you provided to a client is always a risk; I think it’s unlikely that anyone goes through an entire freelance career without at least a couple of non-payment situations. In 16+ years of freelancing, I’ve been stiffed twice: once by an individual who dropped off the face of
This is a guest post by Jo Rourke, a Spanish and Portuguese to English translator and copywriter based in the UK. When LSP.expert (a web-based tool for managing projects, clients, and finances) contacted me about running a review of their software, I asked them to contact someone who is an actual user of it (rather
