Dear newbie translator: I know. The first year (or two or three) as a freelancer is/are really hard, and it’s easy to get discouraged. So for those days when you feel really down, here are a few things I want to tell you.
- As Dan Savage says about growing up gay, It Gets Better. The first few years as a freelancer are like the first few years of raising a child (which I’ve also done) or maybe like military boot camp (which I haven’t): if you feel totally wrung out but at the same time you’re sure that this is what you’re meant to be doing, you’re on the right track.
- It may get better all at once. I distinctly remember that at some point during my third year of freelancing, all of a sudden I realized that the vast majority of the time, I had enough work. Just like that.
- Experienced translators stress out too. It’s not just you. If you asked 100 translators whether they panic when a week goes by with no work, I bet that 98 of them would admit that they do, and the other 2 are crossing their fingers behind their backs. But in the end, the tide of work always rises again.
- There is well-paying work out there if you actively seek it out. But most people don’t. They wait for the sweet projects to find them, and in the meantime they complain.
- You work a lot harder than I do. Seriously. My work flow mainly consists of triage: deciding which project offers I want to accept and which I want to decline, and how much I want to charge. Meanwhile, you’re actively looking for new clients and new projects almost all the time. Mostly, I get to translate interesting projects that pay well or even very well. So if you can do what you’re doing now, you can surely do what you’ll be doing in 10 years.
- You’re a lot braver than I am. Again, seriously. When I go to a conference, I usually know most of the people there. Sometimes I’m even the one coordinating the conference. I’m not sweating through the buffet line, wondering who I could sit with, or if I should just eat lunch in the bathroom. Meanwhile, you’re walking in to the opening reception of the ATA conference and wondering which of these 1,500 people would like to have a conversation with you. I give you a lot of credit for that courage.
- You’re hungry, and I’m a little lazy (or something like that). When a client who’s not one of my regulars calls on a Friday afternoon with a Monday deadline, or has an icky handwritten document that will make my eyes go bleary, or needs a list of 1,000 five-digit numbers proofread, I don’t care so much about the money. The annoyance and stress just aren’t worth it. I’d rather shut the computer down on Friday afternoon and go biking or kayaking with my family and stick with the work I enjoy. But you? You’re there, bailing the client out and winning huge kudos for it. And that’s why in the end, you’ll be OK.
Corrine, thank you for being so supportive to “newbie” translators. I love your book and recommend it left and right, along with your blog. Thanks for the honesty about stress and fear. I’ve been freelancing for almost 2 years now, and I become so tense during the “famines” that I have trouble sleeping.But like you, I’d like to encourage other translators new to freelancing: if I can do it, so can you. Despite starting this month with a very slow week, it turned out to be my most profitable yet (and I’ve just gotten a new project to start off August with a kick). Moral of the story: do good work, keep trying, and good things will eventually happen. And then you’ll have another “famine” and fear will resurface–but not for long.
Oh Corinne, What a wonderful, wonderful post. Yes, for those times when you’ve disappointed yourself and you wonder about quitting this project and working yourself into the ground, for what. Thank you!
Thanks!
Thanks!
What a lovely post! Thanks, Corinne!
We’ve all been there and done that. I couldn’t have said it better!
Thank you! This comes at exactly the right time, since, no joke, I was sitting here reading the section of your book on resumes and have about six tabs open in my browser to different agencies’ websites. Thank you for the reassurance that this will eventually lead somewhere!
And also, thanks for the inadvertent reassurance that it’s okay to think about hiding to eat in the bathroom at a conference- and the notion that it’s brave to conquer that fear and go talk to new people anyway.
Corinne, you hit this one out of the ballpark–again! Don’t be surprised if I ask permission to use it in my intro class, and if you get asked to “reprint” for the newcomers blog.
Thanks for this. I sent it to a friend who’s just starting out.
Beautiful post! I so needed to hear/read these words today!
I temporarily left the Freelancer’s fields a while back, and now I am trying (hard, very hard) to return. I had a big, well-paid and interesting project as soon as I decided to go back to freelance work, and after I finished it and since then… nothing. I keep trying and seeking for new projects, everyday! And today was one of those days… Especially today I asked myself “am I doing the right thing?” I read your post and after reading it I thought… yes, I definitely am! Thank you 🙂
Every single point is so true! This is my third year freelancing and I feel like things have gotten much better and easier. I’m not quite there yet, but I think I’m on the right track! 🙂
Corinne,
I just wanted to thank you so much for this. I’m not even starting out yet – still working up to it with an internship which will hopefully ease the passage slightly – but I already find myself panicking about how on earth I’m going to manage. This advice calmed me considerably, and I’ll definitely bookmark it to come back to next time I wake up in a cold sweat!
Do you think your advice applies to all specialisms? I saw you do quite a lot of legal and technical work, and while I’ve worked on quite a lot of quality assurance manuals and corporate law documents, I think I’d like to veer closer to academic research and maybe even some non-fiction too. Do you find that the work that saves you after a ‘famine’ is usually legal, technical, or another more ‘common’ specialism? Would you say that translators need a ‘money-maker’ specialism in order to find regular work?
Thank you so much again for such a reassuring post. The economy is a very scary place to try and navigate at the moment, and it helps immeasurably to be reminded that many before us have treaded this path and reached a place of stability.
Thanks for the encouragement!
Fabulous as always! I will share this post with my students at UC-San Diego, as the new Intro to Translation class just started today. Perfect timing. Welcome back to the world of work, you hard-core cyclist!
What a beautiful post Corinne. Thank you.
Corinne, your post reminds me of two things that have been on my mind for just these situations:
– for newcomers to the profession: keep a list of admin, marketing, reading up on your specialism and other “activities” to dig into during down time. And if you do hit a slow period, start working through this list one by one. It will help keep you focused (and ward off panic attacks)
– for oldtimers (including in particular association officials and volunteers) at language industry events: keep your eye out for newcomers and — rather than clustering exclusively with your buddies & fellow organizers — make an effort to make these first-time attendees feel welcome.
Actually, I have seen this again and again in constituted groups (most recently at a political event whose organizers’ official line is that they really would like to attract new blood — they *need* new people — but who then proceeded to ignore everybody new and chatter amongst themselves. It was almost comical how unwelcome they made the rest of us feel; we were clearly “outsiders”.). Something as basic as “Hi, I’m (name), what’s your language combination?” can get the ball rolling. (On both sides, of course, although it will probably be harder for a newbie.) ATA’s habit of special stickers on name tags indicating “first time attendee” or similar at their conferences are a step in the right direction. But the second (essential) step is that general attendees pick up on this — notice the stickers and break the ice.
Hey Corinne, This is a great post. I am a seasoned translator, but I find your words so encouraging and full of hope for all the newbies out there wishing to become professional translators. Your post should become the Newbies Manifesto 🙂
Newbies, unite! (: Thanks so much for the kind words, just finished the degree about a month ago and I am already panicking about not finding a single project (even knowing this situation will last for at least two years). But as you wrote, even if I am completely aware that the path is a hard and dusty one, I am also completely sure that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, so I will not despair.
Sorry to be a stick-in-the-mud, but I have to stick my oar in here. I have to say I find this article a bit utopian, I have actually given up translation, but just saw this and decided to read it out of curiosity. (I was about to remove ECPD Webinars from my Newsfeed). I began translation ABSOLUTELY sure this was for me, gave every ounce of energy I had into it, attended CPD events, made contacts, even became editor of the ScotNet journal in order to raise my profile. I had a list of glowing references from clients and a large number of endorsements on LinkedIn. Most importantly I was told by senior translators in the ITI that I was doing everything right, and that it would come good. It didn’t. And I tried it twice – once from 2007 – 2009 and again from 2012 to earlier this year. On both occasions I had to bail out and take the first job I could – any job – just to earn some money. I can now say with some cynicism that I can earn significantly more money working in an unpromoted position in a supermarket than I ever did in translation! This is not what I wanted to do with a languages degree, but sometimes you just have to hold your nose and get on with it while you think of something else. I have heard all the advice from the experts about not giving up, developing a specialism, charging what you are worth, attending CPD events both real and virtual, developing an online presence, All completely in vain. A retired German professor at the University of Aberdeen warned me not to do it when she heard I was going to embark on a career in translation. “There’s no money in it” was her comment, and she was adamant. I was absolutely determined to prove her wrong, because I was so determined to succeed. This was what I wanted to do, after all! After two attempts at it, I see what she meant, and I’m afraid that would be my advice to anyone else starting off. Sorry to be so cynical.
Hi Alastair,
How many prospects did you contact in your two periods of attempts? Did you send out at least several hundred copies of your CV, all addressed to a specific person (those addressed to “Dear Sir or Madam” don’t count)? Did you establish your own (not too low) rates, or are you one of those translators who complain about the “agencies’ rates”? Did you network with other translators going to industry events and joining translation associations?
It is significant that you rely on the advice of a retired professor (“no money in it”), but seem to discount the experience of actual translators.
I’ve been a full-time translator for almost thirty years. I can assure you there is money to be earned in our profession… and this even if your customers are mostly translation companies.
@ Riccardo, I said that I was determined to prove this retired Professor wrong. In other words, I did NOT take her at her word, but I now know exactly what she meant! Yes I did send out hundreds of applications to named individuals in agencies, and yes, I made as many contacts as possible via internet fora, at CPD events etc.. I also joined the CIL as a fully qualified member. Within the ITI itself I joined regional and subject networks, as well as countless subject and translator related groups on LinkedIn. In terms of price, whenever I set what I considered was a reasonable rate, I was told it was too high. I even had the experience of being told by an agency that I had worked for over a period of two years that the end clients were not paying as much and so therefore they had to pass the cuts on to the freelancers. I also have heard it said by other translators that it is much harder to enter now than it was thirty years ago. A friend of mine who started about 5 years ago said he could not have afforded to start had he not already paid off his mortgage and if he didn’t have his teacher’s pension to fall back on.
Your post has a rather patronising tone to it, and from what I can see I don’t think you read mine properly. I stand by what I said and would actively discourage anyone from going down this route. Shame really. I never thought I’d see myself saying that, especially as I love languages so much.
Alastair, I’m curious. From your message, I’m assuming you work(ed) from German to English. What was your specialty field?
Law and finance
When I say that, I am referring to the (very) limited amount of work I did receive, and for which I receive glowing references.
@ Alastair, Sorry if you find my post patronising. It was not my intention. But starting in translation was not all that easy thirty years ago, either: it took me about three years before I could consider myself “established”. I can see from Corinne’s original post that the same was true for her, probably about fifteen to twenty years later. I believe that is still true now. I know of people who managed it in less time, and others for whom the time necessary was even longer… but I would still consider three years the average time necessary to getting established.
I’m not sure how people can say it is harder to start now than it was way back then: just as I cannot know first-hand what it is like to start now, people who are trying to start now cannot know first-hand what it was like back then.
In a sense, though, I have started over three times already: first as a freelance translator in Italy, back in 1985, then as a staff translator in the US in 1994, and finally again as an independent translator in 2004 in the US. I certainly had an advantage in 2004: partners with whom I could share my work, and much more experience to show on my curriculum – but it was still starting from scratch: contacting leads, negotiating with prospects, finding new customers.
Since I don’t know the details of what you did and how, I cannot guess why it didn’t work for you: maybe the two years at a time you devoted to your search for translation customers was not enough, or maybe it was something else.
When you say that “whenever I set what I considered was a reasonable rate, I was told it was too high” – did that happen with direct clients, or with translation agencies? If so which kind of translation agencies? I can certainly see The Big Word, Trasperfect and Lionbridge behaving that way (seems standard procedure with them), less so more reputable (and better) agencies. Same, in spades, as regards your experience with an agency that wanted to cut your rates with the excuse that their customer was pushing for lower prices.
Alistair: Demand for German-to-English financial and legal translation work is very healthy, but it’s really important to specialise within those areas (“financial” or “legal” can’t themselves be considered specialisations nowadays, they’re far too broad). A look at your website tells me that much of the demand for your areas of legal translation is probably specific to Germany, and you would probably need to be located in Germany (or otherwise in close proximity to the market) to be able to benefit properly from that demand.
You also say you handle finance, but you appear to give very little information about the specific areas of finance you handle and the expertise you have in those areas. For information, there is a desperate need for first-class German-to-English financial translators, but they do have to bring a lot to the table in terms of expertise and flexibility.
Have you considered/are you in a position to move to Germany and work as a staff translator there for a few years to learn the ropes? My experience is that becoming a really good financial translator takes between 5 and 8 years of really hard graft, working under the supervision of real experts – though I’m afraid over 90% of those who try never make the grade.
Obviously I have no idea what you’re charging, but feel free to e-mail me if you want to discuss this further. I would also suggest that becoming involved in association work before you’ve actually established yourself as a translator may be rather ambitious/premature. Clients rarely give a toss about what you do in your spare time, I’m afraid. And to put it bluntly, one really has to earn sufficient money first before one can afford the luxury of devoting time to association work (which may well bring benefits, as well as the downside risk of becoming mired in the steamy, backstabbing world that translator politics can be in some countries).
There’s certainly money to be made in being a translator. But, to be brutally honest, not many people make it that far. It may well be true that it’s more difficult to make a success out of translating now than it was 20 or 30 years ago, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible by any means, and there are enough successful recent entrants to the profession to support that claim. That’s probably not much comfort for you, I can imagine, given your experience, but I must also ask whether you have in fact received sound advice from the “senior translators” you consulted. A discussion for another occasion, I think.
Hi Corinne, first of all thank you for this post it came at a really good time and comforted me in my path, making me realize all that I still have to do but also all that I have accomplished in a year. I started last summer with your book open next to me. It helped me avoid a few scams and build a stronger profile. Thank you very much for your advices and for sharing your experience.
Hi Corinne,
Great post, as usual – I’ll make sure to bookmark it and to suggest that new translators read it.
I would add something:
You say “You work a lot harder than I do… you’re actively looking for new clients and new projects almost all the time”.
The problem is that most new translators are not really working hard at attracting new customers, or if they are, they are not working well.
They send out a couple of dozen messages with their cv (all rigorously addressed to “Dear Sir or Madam”), don’t receive any answer, and get discouraged.
They send out messages in which they indicate an already very low rate, and, afraid that their rate might appear too high, in the same message they promise that all rates can be discounted further.
The real problem, I think, is that most new translators’ contact with other translators is through the echo-chamber of sites such as ProZ, where they mostly meet only other beginners, and where their view of what realistic rates and work conditions are is badly skewed by the bottom of the barrel projects that appear in the jobs section.
Funny that you should mention the “Dear Sir or Madam” stuff, Riccardo.
This very day I received one of those letters from a young French graduate of a translation program here in France. She’s been out on the market since June, I guess.
I have no idea who she is; she seems quite earnest (which is better than cynical, for sure).
But she works into French in fields that don’t correspond to what I do.
Where did she get my email address? Maybe the SFT directory, but in any case there was no attempt to explain what she thought she was going to do for me/with me. A pdf in “nice” studenty (not professional) English was attached. Well, OK (but what’s the point?).
A mailing like that (which presumably went to a ton of people other than me, if she couldn’t be bothered to differentiate in the salutation) is a serious waste of time. And the instructors who teach on courses that churn out young graduates who are so clueless about marketing are guilty of educational malpractice in my book. Note that the European Union’s EMT and Optimale programs *specify* that participating universities’ translation courses must give students input on “the market”, including how to break into it.
Either this young woman was asleep in class or that didn’t happen. I imagine her frustation — perhaps panic — but this is really not how to do it.
@Alastair Naughton
I’m sorry you’ve not had the best experience with translation. To be fair though there’s no shortage of posts for newbies full of doom and gloom telling them they’d be better off stacking shelves in a supermarket; it’s nice to finally see one with a bit more optimism from Corinne.
The truth is that there are so many variables and everyone is different so all you can do is share your personal experiences and let people take from them what they will. Translation is no different from any other entrepreneurial endeavour really – success isn’t guaranteed.
I recognized quite a lot of Corinne’s post and a lot of it does boil down to getting out what you put in, all the corny stuff you’ve no doubt heard and read, I’d only add that Tyche (Greek goddess of Luck) also sometimes has a role to play – it might be being in the right place at the right time, being in the wrong place at the right time (serendipity), impressing the right people, making the right friends/contacts….but then I suppose there are those that say you make your own luck.
I also recognized the panic that comes with a week long dry patch. You find yourself checking your emails and trying to use telepathy to will your clients to remember you 🙂
I find that whenever there’s a week like that, the following week punishes you for your lack of faith with enough work to make you weep.
Striking the right balance can be hard in these posts, they do run the risk of sounding either too utopian or a bit too dystopian, but it is refreshing to see translation painted in a more optimistic light.
Thank you very much for your advice!
Great post, and I believe it’s utopias that we all need, no matter what you’re talking about. Dystopias are not as likely to spur people into action. I also believe that part of Corinne’s message is to be tenacious, hang in there, don’t give up – you can apply this to many other issues as well. In today’s world, it’s definitely not easy to retain this mindset of not giving up.
I have been wondering whether the fairly high demand for part-time workers in Finland is unique to this country. In my view, part-time positions offer a great way to start your freelancer career. You get some money guaranteed, and enough hours to fit in whatever work you’re able to get. At first I had a full-time job and I had translation jobs on the side, after hours (meaning 10-11 hours some days, perhaps once a week). Then I moved to working part-time, giving more time for translation work and that’s when things started to happen: I had earned some credibility and experience through my ‘side jobs’, and now I had more courage and opportunities for translation work.
As you start to get more work, it can of course become a problem when the part-time position has fixed hours and you need flexibility for translation. But for beginners, it could be less intimidating in the beginning than doing nothing else but translation (assuming you even get much work). Moreover, I really did not have the flexibility problem until I started to get enough work to consider myself a full-time freelancer. You may have to be willing to work long hours in this ‘model’, but it’s not forever. You just have to be careful not to get stuck in this way of life.
And being a freelancer translator definitely earns me more money than a low-level supermarket job! The payments are not as punctual and guaranteed, but in the long perspective, I do earn more. And my rates are not (yet) that high. There are numerous jobs where I could earn the same average amount and which require several years of education. Only as a freelancer translator I have much more flexibility with my hours and the work is what I actually enjoy doing. It doesn’t even feel like work at times!
I’d like to second Alastair’s comments. Businesses fail all the time for any number of reasons, many far beyond the entrepreneur’s control. But as freelancers we put enormous pressure on ourselves to make it work regardless, that failure is unacceptable, that it would work if we only did X and Y. There does come a point, however, as there has for me after 4 years of exhausting all the conventional and unconventional advice out there, that you decide it’s just not worth the effort. So I’m taking all the glowing references and excellent relationships I’ve made over the past few years and using them to find full time language-related work. A tough decision, but the best one for me. The interesting thing is that, as soon as I admitted to my colleagues that just freelancing wasn’t working, a lot of people said, “Actually, I tried freelancing for a year, it was too hard, so I went back to uni to do a translation MA…” or “I tried it for two years but it didn’t work, so I went back in-house”. I think Corinne’s post is exactly the kind of confidence boost I needed when I started out, a decision I still don’t regret, but after meeting so many excellent translators who’ve gone back and forth from freelancing to full time, or have to juggle several jobs to make ends meet, I have to say that it doesn’t always get better for everyone.
Thanks for this post Corinne!
Hi Corinne,
I love your site! It’s been giving me a lot of great information, as I am just starting to look into the translation field. I was wondering if you have any advice on whether to do a certification program or a master’s program for translation. Would you recommend one over the other? Sorry if you’ve written a post about this before, I tried a search but didn’t find anything.
Thanks!
Courtney
Hi Corinne
thank you very much for this blog it revived in me the passion for translation again although I was a little bit discouraged. Thanks to the discussion posted here I could say I have a clear idea about what to do
Thanks again to you Corinne and to everybody shared insights about freelance translation
I would like to thank Corinne for the post and everyone for taking part in the discussion. As a fulltime English teacher (and only part time interpreter) working with translators and interpreters to be I find the post and the discussion very encouraging. Hope my students who have just graduated will also be inspired in the hard times they are going through.
Thank you, Corinne. This week has been rather rough and your post was really helpful to me.
Corinne,
It’s really great when experienced translators and interpreters work hard to elevate the industry and also to help others grow in their careers. That’s what you do with this blog, and the encouragement here is nice for newbies and veterans alike.
For any newbies (or veterans) in the medical interpreting field, download practice dialogues in Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese at http://www.practiceinterpreting.com
With more interpreting practice, we can raise the industry’s interpreting level and help provide better services to our clients.
Corine,
I’m at that exactly point of my carrer as a translator: the beginning, starting to offer my servicesI
The first step is the most difficult.
Thanks for this post.