…with credit to Barbara Stanny, the author of Secrets of Six-Figure Women (which would be a good topic for a post too!)
Lately (and this impression was solidified at the recent ATA conference), I’ve noticed a very positive trend in our industry, that of the freelance translator earning over US $100,000 per year. Right now, I can think of at least five freelance translators I’ve talked to in recent months who have either insinuated or directly said that for 2008 they expect to break the six-figure income mark. Here, we’re talking about a) people who make the bulk of their income directly from translation, not from markups on subcontracting, and b) gross income, not net.
Now, I don’t have a gripe with how much I earn for how much I work; I will earn more than the average for full-time freelancers in the ATA this year, and I work about 35 hours a week during the school year and about 20 hours a week in the summer, with four to six weeks of vacation. However, I think that we can all learn a lot from six-figure translators and their attitudes toward their work. From my unscientific research, here are a few observations on what it takes to earn more than 100K per year as a freelancer.
First, I think that six-figure translators are actually a very diverse bunch. Some charge extremely high rates, some make very efficient use of technology like CAT tools and speech recognition, some work very long hours. So, I think it’s important to realize that there are a number of paths to 100K, it’s not all people working in a certain language or living in a certain place.
Next, I think that in order to reach six figures, there are a couple of non-negotiables: being very, very good at what you do, having a targeted specialization or working in a niche language, charging higher than average rates and being a businessperson/translator, not a translator/businessperson. For example, the average full-time freelancer might translate 400,000-600,000 words per year. If you charge 10 cents a word, you have to translate almost double that amount to reach six figures. But at 20 cents a word, 100K starts to look practically doable. So, although not everyone making six figures is charging very high rates (which I would define as 35-40 cents a word and up, and yes, there are people out there who are commanding those rates!), I would say that if you are not averaging at least 18 cents a word, you would have to work very long hours or very, very efficiently to reach six figures.
Six-figure translators are rarely, if ever, generalists. I think that the exception to this rule is people who work in languages where the pool of translators is small enough that people don’t tend to specialize. Partially, I think that this results from the fact that specialization is the key to attracting direct clients, and very few agencies in the U.S. are willingly going to pay 20+ cents per word for common languages; if you break the 100K mark, you are undoubtedly working either primarily or exclusively for direct clients.
Surprisingly, the six-figure translators I’ve met are not the over-caffeinated stress machines that one might imagine. Rather, they seem to love their work and be happy that they have coincidentally found a way to make what one of them described as “a ton of money” doing it. Six-figure translators also talk about money a lot. While I’m sure that no one is going to attend a translation event and broadcast the fact that they charge five cents a word, I do think that willingness to talk about rates is a good tool for setting/raising your rates; when you meet someone who is as busy as they want to be at double what you’re charging, it is a good incentive to push your own rates up.
Six-figure translators also seem to concentrate on clients who care about the quality of their translations and the level of service they receive, not just about things being on time and on budget (although I’m sure they care about that too!). In her presentation about marketing to direct clients, France-based French to English translator Chris Durban talked a lot about selling “a translation that reflects the quality of the company’s products and services,” which I thought was a great way to distinguish translation as a non-commodity.
So, whether you’re setting your sights on six figures for 2009 or whether you’d just like to earn a little more than you are now, I think that six-figure translators have a lot to teach all of us about the way we run our businesses.
Excellent post, Corinne. I think that one other big factor that comes into play in making over $100,000 in gross income is the strength/weakness of the dollar in any given year. Even with the dollar having regained a great deal of its strength against the euro over the past six months, I can earn a lot more in USD by working for European direct clients rather than U.S. customers.
While I was reading the post, I was very impressed – and of course I tried to figure out who you would be talking about and if I met them
@Abigail, you’re so right! Even with the rising dollar, clients who pay in euros are still a great thing, especially if you can keep the money in euros to spend when you go overseas, thus avoiding currency exchange fees and bad rates.
@Susanne, I bet that you met some six-figure people at the conference! In some cases I’ve extrapolated, my assumption being that anyone who charges 35 cents a word and describes themself as being “swamped” is doing, um, pretty well!
I know many Japanese-to-English translators making over $100,000 per year. Two of them (that I know of) make over $200,000. Japanese could probably be classified as a niche language (which is crazy, considering that Japan has the world’s second-largest economy).
I think you nailed the two main paths to reach those income levels: charge high rates or work very quickly (or best of both worlds – both!
. Both of these require very good expertise in the subject area: the first to provide enough value to command high rates, and the second to minimize the need for research/dictionary work.
Working long hours only pays off for so long — study after study has shown that when knowledge workers (that’s us!) work long hours (more than 40/week), productivity rapidly drops off, and total output is often lower than those working 40 hours.
And I think you’re also right that it’s hard to keep up that income if you don’t like your job.
@Ryan, thanks for your comment! Now I’m wondering why I didn’t learn Japanese instead of French (other than that Japanese wasn’t offered in middle schools in New Jersey in the 80s, that is…). I agree that the situation with Japanese is odd, given that the country is anything but small. Unscientifically, it seems to me that even mid-level Japanese translators are charging 20+ cents per word, and experienced translators with direct clients, probably more than double that amount. And your comment about knowledge worker productivity just gave me an idea for a post, thank you!!
[...] 13, 2008 by Corinne McKay Ryan Ginstrom wrote a great comment on my last post about high-earning translators (among other things, informing us that among Japanese translators, [...]
I went looking for your links about blogs and got sucked into reading this post instead. I think it’s great that your post goes against the general gloom and doom of T&I professionals.
Corinne: I too grew up in NJ, but they had Japanese in high school by the time I was leaving.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Corinne! We are among the (apparently) small group of translators who charge high (and fair) rates. Ergo, we are happy when we work, because we don’t feel like we are being taken advantage of, as we would feel if we, say, charged half. We don’t really work crazy hours, but we do accept the occasional 24-hour turnaround, at a substantial premium, of course.
I am glad that you are addressing this as well — join the movement, everyone! My twin Dagy and I strongly agree that the “secret” behind our success has been working (thus far) with 100% direct clients, who are less price sensitive, don’t treat you as an exchangeable peon, and are grateful to work with professionals. This morning, we got a project from one of our favorite direct clients here in Las Vegas, and they accepted our usual rate (there is no “best” rate — there’s just one rate) without hesitation.
Here’s to charging higher rates and to making 100 K a year, everyone! I also think that price transparency is a good thing. Our rates are not a secret: there’s a rate sheet on our web site.
@Nicole, thanks for your comment. We bloggers specialize in sucking people in, thanks for joining us!
@Judy, I think you’re so right about the value of direct clients; when one works primarily or exclusively with agencies, unless those agencies pay really, really well, it’s nearly impossible to move up to six figures. Good work to you and Dagy!
@Judy
It’s really cool that you post your rates on your site. Those rates are on the high end but not unheard of for Japanese-to-English work from agencies in Japan. Japanese to English probably takes longer than going between European languages, though. I know I still work faster going from Spanish to English, even though my Japanese is a lot better than my Spanish now.
[...] Secrets of six-figure translators : What am I doing wrong? [...]
Hi Corinne,
An extremely interesting blog topic! I work from English to Finnish but I have never even heard of anyone in my language pair charging USD 0.35 per word. In my experience, it should be possible to make six figures when working with a rare language, specialized niche and no competition. That is certainly my goal for 2009, and it does not involve 70-hour weeks either. CAT tools are invaluable helpers, though, and setting your rates and sticking to them.
Hmm, must consider raising my rates next year.
Tapani