…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
Well Corinne, I believe that everything depends on such important variables as, for example, the region where you live at or the language pairs in which one works.
In my case: I live in Latin America and my language pair is EN to SP. It is impossible to fight against colleagues who accept rates like $0.02 per source word: believe or not, it’s true!
So, lucky those living in more fortunate regions and / or working in an unusual language pair.
Looking elsewhere on the Internet? I can say that it is very, very close to ‘mission impossible’.
EmGi/PERU
I really enjoyed this post. It proved to be Very helpful to me and I am sure to all the commentators here! Keep writing. Thanks…
Japanese Translation
[...] surveys are slanted toward the low end of the market. Back in 2008, I wrote a blog post on Secrets of Six-Figure Translators, and since then I’ve talked to many more freelancers who’ve either stated or conveyed [...]
Dear Corinne,
I only just came across your post and wanted to comment on one point you make. You say that “if you break the 100K mark, you are undoubtedly working either primarily or exclusively for direct clients.”
I am lucky to be one of the “100K translators”. My income is the only household income and I am feeding a family of 4. And…. I work exclusively for agencies! I don’t want to work with direct clients and am deliverately only working with European agencies. If you select your agencies carefully, you fill find many that are willing to pay €0.14 or even €0.20 per word and in my opinion working with them is a lot less stressful than working with direct clients, and certainly less time-consuming.
So, I just wanted to point out that your assumption is not necessarily true and that you can also make more than 100K working only for agencies if you choose them wisely.
Best regards,
Nicole
Lucky you Nicole (and Corinne) who are able to manage and remain at those levels so sensational!
Let’s see … How about sharing some of that good fortune, say, by providing some of those good customers you have, for my language pair?: EN – SP?.
You can trust me, I am VERY good at my language pair and you will not regret.
Of course, if this does not harm you and are willing to help.
You can find me at: intospanishnow dot com
Nothing lost if I try, right? Nothing ventured, Nothing gained, they say …
EmGi/PERU
Dear Corrine,
Great post. I don’t get to see enough written from translation professionals about how to increase their business and lifestyle. The vast majority of information I come across is always centered around being a better translator and not better at the business of translation.
I liken it to physicians. The doctors I know are primarily concerned with being better doctors and have little interest in running a medical practice. In my experience they are all very concerned with their income and yet don’t see that one cannot happen without the other.
I owned a 7 figure LSP for years and would often wonder why translators are sometimes their own worst enemies. Many factors will get you over the 6 figure fence. Some factors may prove that this vaulted goal is impossible. As stated by Emilio above with the majority of language pairs you simply cannot compete and expect to demand high enough rates to earn six figures without working 100+ hours week. Add in technological changes – crowdsourcing for instance – and you had better start working on your business and not just in it.
I wrote further on this subject a while ago at http://globalsitesecrets.com/4secretstomoretranslations/
if you want more of my perspective.
Great conversation though. A round of applause for more discussion on the business of translation. I look forward to more of your posts.
Thank you,
Russell
twitter.com/gssguy
Thanks for your comment Russell! I do agree that most independent professionals are trained in how to do their job, not in how to run a business or work more efficiently. As far as I know, lawyers and dentists and accountants aren’t trained in how to run a freelance business, so it’s not just us! And thanks for pointing out the need to work on one’s business given recent developments in our industry. When I talk to beginners who are very anxious about machine translation, crowdsourcing, offshoring, whatever the latest paranoia is, I always tell them “There are more than enough people scrambling to fill the low end of the market, so let them have it. If you really want to do this, the only place to aim is up!”
Corinne,
Great post as usual. I think merely *talking* about this can do wonders. In France many freelance translators have opted for the “micro-entreprise” system, where your gross revenue is capped at 32K EUR, which I always find kind of depressing (why clip your own wings? it’s like admitting that you could never earn more before you even get your business up and running).
And translators in that range are incredulous when you say you are in the six-figure range. It took me about 7 years to get there (first 3 years working for agencies only, then repositioning and effectively restarting my business with direct clients for years 3-6).
By openly talking about the fact that there are substantial numbers of established freelancers with diverse profiles and business models acheiving six-figure incomes, hopefully that will raise the bar (and raise the hopes of) everyone else out there.
The goal is a comfortable lifestyle, interesting work, and job satisfaction!
Of course, since hitting the six-figure mark I’ve expanded the business with two partners and am now broke again, but having a lot of fun with this new adventure
Sara, thanks for your comments. And congratulations on the success of the new venture! I think you’ve pointed out something really critical: that when you earn a healthy income, you have the level of flexibility that lets you try new things (new business venture, more interesting work that doesn’t pay as much, etc). I think that a major issue with charging low rates is that there is no slack in the system; you have to be working every minute of every day just to reach your target income. And then what happens if you get sick and can’t work for a while, or you lose a major client on short notice, or you have a great idea for an expanded partnership
Thanks for making that point, very important!
[...] are no two ways about it: freelance translating can be extremely lucrative. In fact, earning six-figures (in dollars for those of us with the not-so-hard currency) is not merely pie in the sky. As [...]
Hi Corinne,
Thanks a lot for the article! It’s really inspired me to set my goals even higher (I’ve been freelance for about 18 months).
I think the tone of your article also encompasses a personal aspect of the most successful translators: ambitious goals, a positive, proactive approach to increasing their business and demanding rates that they deserve. I know plenty of intelligent and skilled linguists who don’t dare dream of six figures and are timid about the whole marketing process so aim low and accept less than they know they are worth.
I’m based in the UK and work with Japanese to English. Most good agencies and direct clients I’ve dealt with offer between £0.055~£0.11 ($0.09~18) per word and, apparently, specialisations like patents can draw in £0.20 ($0.32) per word. I’m currently specialising in Economics and Business to increase the volume of work I can get. I think because it is a relatively unusual pair it is possible to make a living as a Japanese generalist, but you’d spend more time researching and studying than you would translating. Having a marketable specialisation is definitely key.
Thanks again!
Dan