June 14, 2010 by Corinne McKay
Here in Colorado, school has been out for a couple of weeks. Elsewhere in the U.S., summer vacation is fast approaching. If you’re a freelancing mom or dad, it’s both the best of times and the worst of times! Each morning in the summer, I wake up and have a little gratitude moment: I’m grateful for a job that is so flexible; I’m grateful for a husband who supports both my work and my parenting; I’m grateful for a child who enjoys spending time with me; I’m grateful that I have a wonderful group of friends with kids of similar ages; I’m grateful that I enjoy what I do for work. On the flip side, if it’s hard to fit a semi-full-time job into the regular school schedule, it’s really hard to fit a semi-full-time job into the summer, no-school schedule. What’s a freelancing mom or dad to do?
As I see it, there are a few basic options: pay for child care in the form of a babysitter or summer camp, try to work while your kids are at home with you, work less or take the summer off, trade or barter child care or find a source of free child care, or patch together some combination of these strategies. As with all things parenting-related, I think that the ideal solution depends on how much you need or want to work, how many kids you have and how you get along with them, what financial resources you have available and how your spouse or partner (if you have one) can pitch in.
Here at the world headquarters of Thoughts on Translation, we tend to use the patchwork strategy and so far it has worked out well. Out of a 10 week summer break, we’ll be away for 3 weeks, my daughter will go to half-day or full-day camp for 5 weeks and we’ll have 2 free weeks at home. I feel that this gives me a good balance of uninterrupted work time and extra time to spend with my daughter and our friends, but I can also see that I’ll be working at night a lot more than I normally do. In addition, I think that the patchwork strategy works best if you only have one child. For example, the total tab for our 5 weeks of day camp was $1,500. Not bad as a percentage of my income, but if you are enrolling 2+ kids, the enrollment fees start to add up.
In mulling over how to plan our summer, here are a few creative solutions that I came up with; feel free to add your own!
- Enlist your kids in the planning. This summer my daughter wanted more unstructured time, so we struck a deal that when she’s not at camp, she will read or listen to an audio book for at least an hour a day while I’m working.
- Steal an hour here and an hour there. If your kids sleep later in the summer, get up as early as possible and work then. Maybe there’s an hour between when your spouse gets home and when you eat dinner; maybe you can get a netbook or small laptop and take it to the pool, park, playdates, etc. I have an Asus Eee netbook and I make a habit of always having it with me in the summer in case I get some unexpected work time.
- Get your spouse on board. Maybe your spouse can arrive early at work and then leave early, so that you can have some extra work time in the afternoons.
- Barter child care. You’re not the only one in the freelancing parent boat; maybe you could even form a child care co-op with other freelancing moms and dads. Maybe you have a friend who’s a stay at home mom or dad and wouldn’t mind watching your child (either for pay or as a trade or favor) some of the time.
- Use a less expensive babysitter while you work at home. For example, we know several neighborhood middle-schoolers who will babysit for $3-$5 per hour while a parent is home. This is a significant savings over the $10-$15 per hour that “full-fledged” babysitters in our area charge.
When my daughter was really little, a wise older woman in the supermarket line said to me, “When they’re that age, the days are long and the years are short.” I find that in the summer, that advice is still true; the days often go slowly, but when school starts I’m always amazed at how fast summer vacation went. So, the last piece of advice for freelancing moms and dads with a long, hot summer ahead? Enjoy it!!
Posted in Freelancing, Productivity, Working from home | 10 Comments »
June 11, 2010 by Corinne McKay
Here are links to a few blog posts that I enjoyed reading this week:
- Jill Sommer on Freelancing means the freedom to say no. I think it’s all too common that freelancers, especially women freelancers, feel that they can never object to a client’s terms or requests. Thanks for this reminder, Jill!
- Sadly, Paula Dieli is putting her excellent blog Essential Project Management on hiatus as she has accepted a new job (not as a project manager!). We’ll certainly miss her here in the translation blogosphere.
- Kevin Lossner on Choosing an agency or an independent translator, which is a commentary on José Henrique Lamensdorf’s excellent post here.
- Judy and Dagmar Jenner on Disposable e-mail addresses. I loved this tip; I have a webmail address that I use for purposes like online shopping, but the self-destructing temporary e-mail address is even better!
Posted in Links | 3 Comments »
June 9, 2010 by Corinne McKay
During the month of June, you can purchase my book “How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator” from the publisher (Lulu) for $17.95 instead of the usual cover price of $19.95. Just use this link to Lulu’s site and then enter the coupon code SUMMERREAD305 when you check out. Fine print: you can only use the code once per buyer account and you can’t combine it with any other coupon codes. From the link above you can also look at a preview of the book before you decide if you want to buy it (the preview includes the table of contents so you can see exactly what’s covered). And big thanks to the 3,500+ people who have purchased a copy since I published this book in 2006 (stay tuned for the second edition!).
Posted in Announcements | 2 Comments »
June 9, 2010 by Corinne McKay
Thoughts on Translation is back from a relaxing camping vacation in the deserts of Western Colorado. This vacation was completely unplugged; I didn’t take my laptop or netbook and only turned my cell phone on once a day to check my office messages. In other words, a real vacation! I highly recommend doing this at least once a year if you’re at the computer the rest of the time. Now on to more substantive issues…
A while back, I wrote a post about sticker shock: dealing with clients who are blindsided about how much professional translation services cost. Recently, I spoke with the owner of a small agency who brought up a different but related topic: how to react when a professional service costs less than you expect. In a nutshell…this agency owner works with clients in a very targeted industry that not many translators specialize in. When she landed a new client in this specialization, she needed to expand her pool of qualified translators quickly, so she posted the job on ProZ. In her words, “Not to save money in particular, but in order to widen the pool of potential translators.” This agency owner pays her current translators very fair rates, what I would consider the high end of the U.S.-based agency market (I’m guessing you can tell where this is headed!), and in her ProZ posting, she did not specify any rate at all, but left it up to the translators to state their rates.
So, the applications started coming in, and because of the way the agency owner worded her posting, the applicants were few in number and very well qualified for the job. However, their rates were generally between 25% and 60% less than what she had planned on paying. For example if she had been planning on paying 30 cents a word (this isn’t the actual figure, just an example), these highly qualified translators generally bid between 12 and 20 cents a word. In the end, the agency owner did not pick the cheapest translators, but also did not suggest to the selected translators that they raise their rates. I realize that this anecdote also brings up the issue of competitive bidding in general, translators who charge less than they are worth, and probably various other issues too. However, specifically related to the under-budget issue, what would you have done? Would you have told these translators that they were bidding half of what you were willing to pay, or would you have accepted the rates that they offered?
Posted in Buying translations, Freelancing, Money, Rates | 9 Comments »
May 28, 2010 by Corinne McKay
Although, as I mentioned before, I have mixed feelings about online popularity contests, I’m flattered and grateful that Thoughts on Translation is officially the 79th most popular language blog as rated by the recent Lexiophiles contest. And I thought winning the 8th grade French award was exciting! From that link you can view the overall top 100 language blogs as well as the top 10 blogs in each category; special congratulations to the 10 blogs that won top honors in the Language Professionals section!
Posted in Announcements | 4 Comments »
May 24, 2010 by Corinne McKay
When you receive an “out of the blue” request for a quote from a potential translation client, what’s the best next step? Is it more advantageous to call the client, e-mail them, ask for more information or send them a rate sheet…or something else entirely? The beauty of impromptu inquiries from potential clients is that you, the translator, are in the position of power. Rather than attempting to sell the potential client on the value of your services, the potential client is coming to you. So, it’s important to decide how to convert this inquiry into a new client. Let’s take a look at some potential courses of action.
First, read the potential client’s e-mail carefully; note the information that they provide and don’t provide, because this will give you some clues as to the client’s level of seriousness and their knowledge of what translation involves. Look at the client’s website and/or Google them to get a sense of their business. Then, decide how to respond to the potential client; for example you might:
- Call them or ask them to call you. I’m really not a phone person, but I do think that a phone call makes a good impression. You can get a sense of the client’s personality and they can get a sense of yours, you can chat about the project, what translations they’ve had done in the past and what they are looking for in this translation. My only hesitation with phoning a potential client is that I like to get the important project details (i.e. rate, turnaround time, other terms of service) in writing. So, if you take this tactic I think it’s important to follow up with a brief e-mail, for example, “Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me this morning. Just to confirm the details of our conversation, I will be translating the document we discussed at a rate of X cents per source word and I will deliver it to you by 5PM Eastern time on Friday. I accept payment by check or wire transfer and the full payment is due within 30 days of the date on which I deliver the translation.”
- E-mail them and ask for more information. It’s unlikely that the client’s initial e-mail included all of the information that you need, so you might e-mail them and ask some of the questions listed above. Thank them for contacting you and let them know that in order to provide them with a detailed quote, you’ll need to get some more information.
- E-mail them your basic information about rates and terms of service. In part, I think that your response to potential clients should be guided by how much you need or want the work. Responding with some prepared information, for example “I’m attaching my 2010 rate sheet which includes my per-word and hourly rates as well as my standard terms of service, feel free to look these over and then let me know if I can provide you with a detailed quote” may not be the most personal way to respond to an inquiry, but it saves your time and immediately weeds out clients whose budget is much less than what you charge.
Whichever strategy you choose, make sure to lay the groundwork for a successful translator/client relationship. For example:
- Respond promptly to all inquiries from potential clients. Even if you don’t want to provide a quote on the project, respond and let the potential client know that.
- Clarify your payment terms and methods; decide whether you want first-time clients to pay all or part of the project fee in advance.
- Ask the client to confirm the rate, deadline and payment terms in writing. This can be as simple as a very short e-mail or can take the form of a service agreement or purchase order, but make sure that you and the client agree in writing on these important details.
- Ask the client for their accounts payable person’s contact information. For example, “Please let me know the e-mail address and phone number of the person to whom I should send my invoice, and let me know who I should contact if I have a question about the payment.”
Any other tips for responding successfully to inquiries?
Posted in Clients, Marketing, Money, Rates | 6 Comments »
May 14, 2010 by Corinne McKay
I have mixed feelings about online popularity contests, but I’m flattered that Thoughts on Translation has been included in the 2010 Lexiophiles’ Top 100 Language Blogs competition. The finalists are a real who’s who of translation blogging, so whether your #1 read is Thoughts on Translation or another language blog, pop on over to Lexiophiles and vote! And I promise not to spam you with more requests for votes, you’ll only hear this once.
Posted in Announcements | 3 Comments »
May 10, 2010 by Corinne McKay
Whether to work with direct clients, translation agencies or both is a personal and business decision. I work with both types of clients and I feel that this mix keeps my work volume and income up while giving me a wide range of projects to choose from. Paula Dieli’s blog has an insightful interview with Peter Berends, the primary translator recruiter at LUZ, Inc. (a medical translation company). It’s well worth a read if you’re looking for agency clients. Here are some additional tips, and feel free to add your own!
- Target your marketing. As Peter comments in the interview, there’s no bigger turnoff than a generic, carbon-copied e-mail asking for work. The more personalized your e-mail is, the better. For example, something like “Your agency’s focus on the translation of annual reports caught my eye; during the 2010 annual report season I translated all or part of five companies’ annual reports and I would love to help you with similar types of projects” is much more attention-grabbing than “Dear Sir or Madam, I would like to offer you my services.”
- Don’t lump all agencies together. Yes, in general agencies pay less than direct clients and also add a middle layer between the translator and the client (which can be a plus or a minus depending on the project and the client). However, top-quality agencies pay respectably and can save you some of the administrative overhead that comes with working for direct clients. Just as in every other business sector, there are agencies that operate on the Wal-Mart model and agencies that operate on the Mercedes-Benz model.
- Charge real money and earn it. I think that a lot of translators eschew the agency market because they think it’s all 8 cents a word and 5,000 words for tomorrow. Insider tip: it’s not. I think that quality-conscious agencies know that quality-conscious translators save them money because their work needs less editing and they help keep the agency’s own clients coming back. Give some metrics of your quality: you proofread a hard copy of every translation (no missing text, no untranslated text); you compile a list of queries and send them all at once, allowing time to get the queries resolved before the deadline (no endless stream of e-mails to the already-busy PM, no file submitted right at the deadline with queries still outstanding); you always meet or beat your deadlines (no stressed-out PM having to make excuses to the end client).
- Focus on high-margin projects. For example if you actively seek out projects on which you can produce 500 finished words per hour and you charge 15 cents per word, you’re earning $75 per hour. I think that it’s also fine to let your agency clients know that you are most interested in medium to large projects, for example $500 or more. High-margin projects can also come in unexpected places, as I described in a previous post about translating official documents. Each invoice might be small, but on most official document translations I make at least 50 cents per word.
- Use the objective data that is available to you. Don’t market to agencies as if you’re throwing spaghetti against a wall; pick some agencies that mesh with your business goals and market just to them. For example, search the Payment Practices database for agencies that are rated highly by other translators.
- In general, target small and medium agencies. Not every big agency is a sweatshop, but I think that in general, large agencies are geared toward the high volume, low margin market. In addition, you’re more likely to find small and medium agencies that work primarily or exclusively in your specializations.
Posted in Marketing | 13 Comments »
May 7, 2010 by Corinne McKay
The Société Française des Traducteurs recently announced the program for the fifth session of its Université d’été de la traduction financière, a three-day conference for financial and corporate translators (or translators who would like to specialize in those areas). This year’s session will be held in Luxembourg and the lineup of presenters looks nothing short of amazing, with a wide variety of sessions on offer. There are financial education sessions in both French and English, translation-specific sessions for both language combinations and even a guest appearance by Robin Bonthrone, focusing on German to English financial translation. Thoughts on Translation needs a report from this conference if any readers are attending!
Posted in Announcements, Professional associations | 1 Comment »
