Comments on: How long does it take?

By: Wie lange dauert es, bis man seinen aktuellen Job an den Nagel hängen kann | uebersetzenundsoweiter

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 14:12:19 +0000

[...] auch viele angehende und angestellte Übersetzer. Corinne McKay hat zu diesem Thema in ihrem Blog Thoughts on Translation einen interessanten Artikel auf Englisch geschrieben.Sie hat die ersten drei Monate ihrer Laufbahn [...]

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 08:03:05 +0000

I just read this today, thanks for the info.

Maybe you have this information on another post, but I was wondering: Did you get any formal education in regards to translating? How important do you think it is? Will it affect how long it takes to get your translation business going? How long do you think it would take to get a translation certification/degree?

Thanks for your time!

By: Corinne McKay

Corinne McKay — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:46:16 +0000

Thanks to everyone for your comments, it’s really fun reading other people’s startup stories as well. I definitely agree that the length of your startup phase depends on what else you have going on in the background; if you can devote yourself full-time to launching your business, I don’t think it’s unrealistic to think that you could be doing pretty well in six months to a year. Along the lines of Kevin’s comment that if he had to, he could have supported himself from translation during his second year, I think that if I had put my daughter in day care, I could have earned about the ATA average for full-timers during my second year in business. In my case, the deciding factor was that one of the reasons I chose to freelance was to spend more time with my kid, so I really didn’t make the leap to semi-full time until she started school. And I think that attitude really has a lot to do with it too (as Celine commented!). I worked 2-3 hours a night, 5-6 nights a week for about 3 years, but although I’m really not a night person, I really looked at this as a way to be available to clients without taking time away from my family. Thanks for the great comments!

By: Dawn Montague

Dawn Montague — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:13:11 +0000

I was really aggressive in the beginning and sent out about 400 resumes per month – I was really motivated because of a less than ideal situation for starting a freelance business, but that’s another story. After 2 months of intense resume emailing, I had my first few clients. Even though I only made about $10,000 the first year, we survived (along with my husband’s unemployment check – part of the less than ideal situation…).
I have tried to mentor other people whom I already knew were good translators but were not freelancing. They said they wanted to get started, but gave up after several months because they didn’t see the work they wanted. When I think back, I had nothing but time on my hands, so I had the time to be really aggressive with the marketing, whereas others I’ve worked with were trying to deal with another job at the same time. Your post and the comments here would be a good resource for providing a realistic estimate. Thank you!

By: French translator

French translator — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:50:28 +0000

Interesting post, Corinne. Despite the total absence of any business plan, I was earning a regular income after 6 months and after a year, I was earning a good living. I guess endless reserves of enthusiasm made up for my amateurish approach.

By: Frederic Jacquier-Calbet

Frederic Jacquier-Calbet — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:07:44 +0000

I was fortunate, when I started freelance, to benefit from what is called “portage salarial” in France, a system by which you use a third party company to invoice your clients, and this third party then pays you a net salary. I also qualified at the time for unemployment benefit. So this was a good ramp up from a couple a translations a week to full time translating/interpreting, without having to pay heavy social contributions (a French speciality) upfront. Contrary to you I did not know about translation agency databases at the time, so I just contacted the local translation stakeholders through the yellow pages.
Answering “how long does it take?” is always difficult since very commercially agressive people will get to cruising speed quicker, while people with a “life is unfair” attitude may take longer. This is connected to the subject of “how much should I charge ?” too.

By: Kevin Lossner

Kevin Lossner — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 18:59:03 +0000

When I first read your comment about “three years”, I was inclined to disagree, but thinking back on my own experience in detail, I think that is fairly accurate. I tend to forget about the first two years, because I was busy with a full-time job and getting settled in a new country. I started translating to cover what the translation department at my employer couldn’t deal with, and my own moonlighting clientele was built up slowly over several years because I had way too much time on my hands and needed something interesting to do. A friend of mine (now my partner) had been a translator for many years, and I respected the work she did for clients of mine over the years, so I looked closely at how she did business and asked for advice on how to get started. In the first year I think I had three occasional clients, one of them an infamous bad payer. The second year was better and fairly steady; I think I might have been able to make a living off translation in the second year toward the end if I had given it a try. But I was enjoying my day job at that point, and I wasn’t up to the risk. A year later the situation had changed; the dot-com bust had hit the company, more than half the employees were laid off, the fun was gone and I was tired of the commute. My moonlighting constituted a substantial fraction of my income and it was clear that I could make a go of it full time, so I arranged to be laid off and started full time freelancing.
At that point I nearly failed, because my client base, though larger than that of many, was too lop-sided, and more than half of my income came from one source. When that company was bought up along with another client, I took a huge hit, but I learned a lesson about spreading risk and earnings across a broad client base, which has kept me secure since then. It took about a year to achieve that diversity, so in my case I suppose you could say it took four years to have a stable, secure, viable business.

By: langueparole

langueparole — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 09:34:03 +0000

Hi Corinne,
I find your posts always very useful. I’m running a translation agency in Italy (after having been a freelance translator and editor) and at the beginnining of my career I’ve spent nearly six months – and perhaps something more – to find all the informations you’ve gathered in your blog and in your book (I’m reading it these days!)! Regarding this single post, I can confirm what you are saying: to establish a regular translation business a period from six months to 1 year is the first step, the necessary time to discover this “world” and to start working regularly with few agencies and direct clients (more agencies in my experience than direct clients…). Then, during the next two years is really important to invest on networking and marketing, to increase the business. Yes, three years are a common time to establish a regular freelance translation job.

Marina

By: How long until you quit your day job? | The GITS Blog

How long until you quit your day job? | The GITS Blog — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 02:31:12 +0000

[...] Corinne McKay over at Thoughts on Translation has an interesting post about how long it took her to become established as a freelance translator. [...]

By: Loreto Riveiro

Loreto Riveiro — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 14:23:48 +0000

Hi, Corinne

I definitely have to tahnk you for your posts lately, since I am preparing things to start as a freelance, and reading your blog is making such a difference!

Also, I want to extend those thanks to everyone who comments. I think other people’s experience is very interesting, and I’m learning a lot from everybody.

Up to now, I am still at the “preparing” phase: preparing documents, preparing a website, preparing information on who to contact and how… it is scary, but thanks to you I already feel I am in the right path: a lot of work, but very little translation!

Knowing other translator’s have already been there, I feel more confident in this step I am taking, so thank you, thank you, thank you all.

LRA.