If you really want to get a translator’s blood pumping, bring up the low-rate translation market: high-volume projects at really low rates on very tight deadlines, often for large/huge agencies. Some translators feel that the low-rate market provides a legitimate entry point into the industry, while others feel that it’s exploitative and unfair. So, let’s dig in here: what’s up with the low-rate market and what’s the solution?
First, this issue is by no means specific to our industry. Browse the web and you’ll find posts on how massage therapists feel about Massage Envy, how tax preparers feel about H&R Block and how freelance writers feel about content mills. These stories have a lot in common with the low-rate translation market: a tough way to make a living, but a foot in the door of a desirable industry.
In my family, we have a tongue-in-cheek motto: “First, assess blame.” So first, let’s assess some blame. Why does the low rate market exist? I don’t have a definitive answer, but I have some theories:
- Bottom line: because at least some translators are willing to work for those rates. I feel like this isn’t a blame game, it’s just a fact. If no translators would work for what Walmart-style agencies pay, the agencies would have to pay more, end of story.
- Because it depends on your definition of “low pay.” With the explosion in the demand for translators, there are lots of people entering the profession straight out of school, or straight out of a relatively low-paying job. In my online courses, I’ve worked with beginning translators who’ve never had a job that paid more than $15 an hour, or who are currently working a full-time job that pays 35K per year. So, if that’s your barometer, charging five cents per word and translating 500 words an hour might actually boost your income from where it is now.
- Because of the chicken and the egg. I’ve had many students in my courses who just need a way to get the 3-5 years’ experience that many higher-quality agencies require. How to get experience when you have limited experience? Often, the path of least resistance is to apply to agencies that base their hiring largely on their own tests rather than on your level of experience. I’m not saying that’s a great solution, just that it’s a potential solution.
- Because finding better clients takes work. That’s true at every level of the market, whether you’re trying to go from the low-rate agency market to the better-paying agency market, or from agencies to direct clients.
- Because in some ways, huge agencies make a translator’s life pretty easy. My advice about working with huge agencies used to be summed up in three words: “don’t do it.” Too much stress, too little pay, no personal relationship, and the feeling that you’re just a grudgingly tolerated cog in the machine. But over the years I’ve had numerous students who started out working with huge, low-paying agencies and (wait for it…) loved it. They could pick and choose the work they wanted to take, without fear of losing the agency as a client (because every project offer came as a mass e-mail to a huge group of people). They could tell the agency on Monday morning, “I can take 12,000 words this week” and then set their own schedule to get it done. They did basically no marketing; a few students even told me that they sent out one resume to one large agency and then worked full-time only for them. Again, not to say that there are no downsides, but that type of situation can reduce a freelancer’s administrative overhead nearly to zero, which is appealing to some people.
So, let’s say you’re working in the low-rate market now, and you’d like to get out. What are some potential avenues of escape?
- Avoid places where zillions of translators congregate. Job boards create price-based competition; that’s just the reality of supply and demand. Going and looking for better clients is the only way out.
- Be a better translator. It’s not all about marketing, it’s about offering a service that high-paying clients see as being worth their money. So pursue professional development, join professional associations, ask for feedback on every translation, take graduate courses, read like crazy in your specializations, and so on.
- Avoid financial panic. One problem with low-rate work is that it becomes difficult to get off the treadmill: you have to work such long hours that you have no time to market for better-paying work, so you burn out. To avoid this, find a way of putting some slack in your finances; this could involve cutting your living expenses, forcing yourself to put 10% of every invoice into an “escape fund,” or seeing if a spouse or partner would be willing to contribute extra income to your family finances while you look for better-paying work.
- Work the local market: this is a technique that many translators don’t use, because it’s time-consuming and requires interacting with strangers! When I first started freelancing, I met in person with every potential client who would let me in the door, even the ones who said, “We don’t have anything for you right now.” Within a year, nearly all of them had sent me some kind of work (and sometimes even a lot of work), probably because I popped into their head when they thought of French to English translators. So, although it’s a big time suck, force yourself to get out of the office and do informational interviews whenever you can.
- Surround yourself with successful translators. There’s definitely an inspirational rub-off effect when you hang out with people who are where you want to be in a few years. Avoid the self-pitying crowd: complaining isn’t the way to attract better clients. Instead, fill your head with stories of people who work in the market you want to be in.
Readers, any thoughts on this?
patriciafierroc says
Reblogged this on patriciafierroc.
mariosphere says
Sensible tips, Corinne. Towards the end, I have tried the ‘get out of the office and meet’ advice throughout my career. Because I’m an introvert, I found better results by pursuing one-on-one visits to an agency’s offices and write customized letters to prospects. I just don’t like going after complete strangers.
Other things I’ve done to put my name in the minds of prospects is customized advertising; that’s a very long-term strategy, I agree, but I trust it will pay dividends in the end.
Different strokes and all that.
Adam Fuss says
Corinne, great piece.
Like you, I’ve got mixed feelings about the big, low-paying agencies.
One benefit that you didn’t mention but that I’ve definitely experienced is that they are often much better about paying quickly (or at least on time) without any reminders from me whatsoever. Although I love my direct clients, who often pay much more, chasing down payments from them can be exhausting.
The ability to ignore (in some cases) or decline projects is huge. With direct clients, I always feel guilty about not being available, which can put a damper on vacation and other personal plans that may come up. With my big agency clients, I don’t worry about not working for them for a while.
Finally, working with big established agencies mitigates business risk. When you’re working with a direct client, you always run the risk that they’ll stop needing your services or go out of business. With an agency, you’re essentially working for dozens or hundreds of direct clients (indirectly), so if they lose one or two, you’re not likely to feel the impact as much, if at all.
My experience has been that I’m happiest with a mix of direct and agency clients.
Andrew Morris says
Excellent advice as ever Corinne. Particularly appreciate your last point. Thatâs what we try and do every day on our Standing Out forum: create positive examples for people to emulate. Self-pity is the most futile and destructive of all emotionsâŠ
aanuncio says
To the extent that translators are language workers and not language consultants, they have only themselves to blame for low prices.
The difference between a language worker and a language consultant is that language consultants bring clients into the translation process as active participants, whereas language workers focus solely on moving the end product to the finish line. Language workers rarely take the time to put together a decent set of job specifications. Language consultants, on the other hand, help clients understand what constitutes a good translation based on a careful assessment of the client’s needs and goals.
My suggestion to translators who want a better income: become a language consultant.
mvesseur says
Well written article, thanks. Any Joe Blow can declare himself to be a translator, so what do we expect? Inexperienced and/or unqualified “translators” are going to try to get work by going cheap. Does that affect me? Obviously not. Listen. I thought I could teach English as an 18-year-old student for 10 dollars an hour. Did it hurt the local language schools? No! It’s a whole different level of service. The steady stream of miserable Facebook and forum threads on the subject of cheap rates is just tedious and undermines our confidence. Just let it go already.
Nigel Wheatley says
A lot of very good points and advice here. One piece of advice I would add for people starting out and trying to get experience is to choose a rate as a function of how much they (realistically) want to earn, not on some idea of “what rates should be” or “what agencies will pay”. This keeps rates as a conscious and personal choice, which is empowering.
I would also not be as dismissive of the big “job boards” as you appear to be. A lot of really quite specialized agencies look for translators on there, either by actually posting jobs or by using the directories: it is not just limited to the bargain-basement end of the profession. (and I’m not just saying that because I occasionally post jobs on one such site! I have also found clients through the same site)
Finally, I’d just like to emphasize a point you mention in passing several times: not all agencies are the same, either in terms of the rates they are willing/able to pay or in terms of the clientâtranslator relationship. Depending on the field of translation you are working in, you can progress your business quite far without ever dealing with a direct client, simply by moving to better and more specialzed agencies. As so often in this profession, it is not a case of “one size fits all”.
Dennis Brown says
We have to accept that there is huge demand for low cost, lesser quality translations. So if certain companies are meeting that demand, is that really a problem? Presumably their clients and consumers are getting exactly what they want, so that is a positive surely. Of course it requires translators to work for low rates, but for now plenty are willing to do just that, for a range of reasons. As you rightly point out, not all of them see the situation as a problem. This is just the reality for one particular segment of our market right now, but hey, we donât have to play in that sandpit.
The thing is, you can command higher rates if youâre a genuinely excellent translator, but its hard to if youâre not. In 20+ years of running a small, quality focused agency I can tell you most translators arenât as good as they think they are. Your second tip Corinne âBe a better translatorâ is key for me, particularly the feedback on every translation. For the less experienced, maybe work with a colleague to critique every piece of work you do and look for how to improve. If youâre genuinely a cut above most others in quality thereâs plenty of clients and agencies that will value that quality and pay accordingly.
A lot of good advice and comments here.
Ălvaro DĂĄvila says
Hello Dennis, thank you for your feedback. It’s interesting to read it from a business owner perspective. In my case, I believe I have improved a lot on my translation skills, and I even think I getting above the average, but I still can’t make people know that. I’ve been working permanently with one agency, but I still can’t find another permanent client. I generally feel so invisible that its frustrating. I tried changing my public rates, showing my specialization (IT and Business English to Spanish translation) but I constantly have the feeling of “with so many others around it’s difficult to be seen”.
On the other hand, I’ve heard that the demand for translation services can’t be fully satisfied today. How can that be possible when there are so many translators struggling for work? What would be your view on that?
Thank you!
Just in case, and for business sake, my email is adavilatr@gmail.com. I’m always looking to find new business partners.
Best,
Ălvaro
Jonathan Beagley says
Great article! I’m just starting as a translator/interpreter after a master’s course, and I love your advice.
One thing that I’ve heard, however, is that, like you said, it can be difficult to get out of the low-end translation market. I know a few great translators, but they can’t break out of the low-end translation market because for so long they’ve been asking for low rates. These are the same people who have told me (and my fellow cohort of master’s students) to never accept low rates. The market here in Australia is a bit different because our rates are generally quite high due to the higher cost of living, so working for international agencies almost always means working for less.
What I’m interested in, however, is: what do you mean by “low” rates? I’m willing to concede that USD$0.05 could still be worthwhile–particularly if you have high output. That being said, I’ve seen some jobs on ProZ that were closer to USD$0.01. At what point does low become too low?
mbara says
Sometimes I think agencies get a bad rap and it is often undeserved. Sure, there are some abusive agencies out there but most of my work comes through agencies and I’m quite happy that way. Now I can focus on translating and not have to worry about things like finding clients, sending out payment reminder letters, etc. I send out one invoice a month to them and they pay me on a regular basis. Sure, every once in a while I send out feelers to find new agencies, but the ones I work for keep me busy. I do have a few direct clients but I don’t get the volume of work from them that I do for an agency and yet I still have to spend the same amount of time generating their invoices at the end of the month.
Deborah Peerdeman says
I love this article. It’s helpful for me as a starting translator as you provide a few very concrete tips on what to do to attract the right clients. Nigel’s comment about rates was also very helpful. I wonder if there are more introvert translators out there who hate marketing, but nevertheless persevered in attracting their own clients. I would love to learn from them, as I find it very difficult to ‘put myself out there’. As Mariosphere said I’m also not very much into meeting strangers. It’s very good to read that experienced translators try to help the less-experienced ones.
Ine says
Dear Corinne,
Wonderfully put and all true for the field of business translation, though I miss one (vital) blame-assessing-factor: when government policy and laws actively promote the survival of the lowest bidding – as is the case in more than one country. (The solution would be unifying and lobbying and even going to court, not a problem you can tackle on your own.) And I miss another (equally vital) thing: the field of literary translation, which simply does not answer to the same natural laws as business translation. I’m very curious as to what your thoughts on that topic would be in terms of blame assessing and solutions?
Best regards,
Ine
Natalie Soper says
Great article, Corinne. I am a newbie freelance translator myself, and I was advised by my another translator friend to not accept jobs under a certain amount: it’s just not worth the bother! Still, I do feel the financial panic some days, and am sometimes torn between accepting a couple of cheap jobs just to build up my experience, or sticking to my principles and concentrate on forging quality relationships! It’s always going to be a dilemma for translators just starting out in the industry – and like you said, it all depends on the quality of life you’re used to! Excellent point about avoiding the complainers though – it’s important to stay positive đ
Christelle Maignan - Freelance Translator and Coach says
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, Corinne. I agree that working for agencies isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some of my best clients are agencies and I’ve been working for them for 10 years now. I like the fact that they’re finding work for me. It’s also an appealing option for freelancers who want to work part-time because of other commitments.
Ted Wozniak says
Great article Corinne! I’ll add one more reason for the existence of the high-volume, low-price market. Because that’s what the clients want. There are a lot of translations out there that are only done because they have to be. Nobody reads them, at least not carefully or the client doesn’t care about them for some other reason. So those translations have no value to the client and naturally, they will only pay what they absolutely must.
Then there is a kind of subset of the above. The translation is required and it does matter – sort of. But for some reason there is no time to get a quality translation. Law firms are often guilty of not planning for translation. They receive (or produce) a 50-page brief on Friday and need the translation first thing Monday morning. They have no choice but to use a Veg-O-Matic agency who will slice and dice the project and send 5 pages to 10 translators, then push the results through their Playdough extrusion machine and send it back to the client. Neither the client or the agency cares about the quality, just the speed.
marjon1952 says
Corinne’s blog is always a must-read! Thanks for providing great advice, for old-timers and newbies alike.
I got a chuckle about Ted’s comments about law firms – soooo true! I do a fair amount work for law firms – direct clients and through agencies. Law firms are notorious for waking up one morning and saying “holy cow!” – I should have had these foreign language docs translated YESTERDAY! And then go the “Veg-O-Matic” and “Playdough extrusion machine” route with agencies. I love my agency clients, but always cringe when I know the work will be rushed through, PM’s will have an impossible time synchronizing (certainly when they have no familiarity with the source language), and the quality will likely be poor.
And to the wonderful person who commented about the U.S. government agency pressure on agencies to deliver YESTERDAY: amen! And the downward pressure on US gov rates (at least as agencies love to tell you, when they try to reduce your long-standing rates). In recent years, I have noticed that translation deadlines for agencies like the U.S. Department of Justice have become more urgent and assignments have unrealistic deadlines.
Regards,
Marjon van den Bosch
aanuncio says
In my experience, which is mostly limited to Mexican clients, the “sort-of” subset you mention is by far the largest part of the market. I think I’ll scream the next time I hear an agency tell me that their client is really demanding and really quality-oriented only to receive a source text that no one bothered to proofread.
TranslationCraft says
Thanks for your advice, but I must say this post offers a rather one-sided analysis. Why are you “assessing blame” only on the translators, nothing on the big agencies? More important, what happened to the bigger picture, the political-economic context? *That’s* where you have to focus to understand the downward pressure on rates. Without taking context into account, you commit the logical fallacy of division, not to mention a slew of other analytical shortcomings.
Tina says
Thanks for this post, Corinne! I think that we have to stop placing blame for the existence of the low-paying translation market altogether as there is noone to blame – it’s the result of market segmentation as is the case in every industry. There are clients who are looking for low-cost translation and their needs are being met.
On a personal level, it’s a different story of course. I have also started out in this segment of the market but have improved both my skills and my income within the first 3 months of going freelance. I see no harm in getting a foot into the door this way as long as you keep improving. Even then I always strived to deliver the best possible product, regardless of rate – this is how you keep honing your skills and gain confidence. You can also try out some areas of specialisation without a huge amount of pressure. I agree with your point that you can end up with a lot of work very quickly and no time for the important development of your business. I needed the money and it also felt a lot better working a lot and gaining experience than waiting for an agency to pay my rate while not actually doing much translation. I used to work a lot of weekends and long hours as every other person starting out in business, but I also learned how to market myself and quickly found better paying clients, some of who I still work with now, 5 years on. I would not be afraid of this market segment to start out, just make sure you improve both your translation and business skills on a daily basis.
Ward says
I’m trying not to get involved in this discussion because for the most part it is pointless but here is my take on it after reading the article and I am going to mention something that this article, like most articles of this type overlooks. WHERE YOU ARE AND WHERE YOU ARE FROM.
I am native English speaker and I’ve been in this game for 16 years. As a degreed engineer, I specialize in technical/engineering work because that’s what lights my fire gets me all hot and sweaty. I love technical work. The other thing is that I have lived in Brazil for the last 21 years.
So just a few comments regarding some points in the article:
1) “Job boards create price-based competition;”
Not always the case at all. I am sought out because of my specialization and skills and the fact that I am a native speaker, not just because the agency is looking for the cheapest price. Most of my work specifies a native speaker. Often, agencies will receive a job and they just don’t have anyone on their database with the skills required. So they go to places like Proz.
I’ve been a paying Proz member for 9 years and yes, Proz has a whole mess of problems and madness, but I get great work either through the job posts OR (the thing that many people overlook about Proz) I often get agencies and end user clients contacting me directly through the the Proz email system. And when this is the case, I always get the gig. Also Proz allows me the diversity of work that I enjoy within my areas. Working for any single agency or even direct client can not do that for me. I also find that after doing one job for an agency, they will always come back to me for any future work in my area.
2)”If no translators would work for what Walmart-style agencies pay, the agencies would have to pay more, end of story.”
This is never going to happen. The market will always seek out the lowest prices. It’s called globalization folks, get used to it.
3)The elephant in the closet that nobody talks about: WHERE YOU ARE AND WHERE YOU ARE FROM.
Now for me in Brazil, the cost of living is not the same as the US or Europe or my beloved Australia. It is way way WAY cheaper to live here. In a global world there are more and more people in my situation. People with our skills can work anywhere. I know quite a few native English speaker translators living here in Brazil and the fact is that yes, we can undercut a European or an American or an Australian (living in those countries) with the same skills. Everybody seems to think that is a mortal sin but the fact is that I know what I need to make each month and I choose my rates accordingly.
The Brazilian Real which was at 1:1.8 against the US dollar for a several years is now at an amazing 1:3, Yipee. This is heaven for those of us who live here and only work in foreign markets (95% of my work is NOT for Brazilian agencies because they pay peanuts). So I am able to adjust my rates to suit. I don’t work for peanuts but I can definitely undercut those who don’t live here by a cent or two to get the gig and I will continue to do so. Again, this is globalization at work.
The whole point I am making here folks is that this is not going to change, there is no solution. It is going to get worse (for you guys) and so what I tell people is this: The harsh reality is that if you can not make the numbers work for you, it’s time to find a different occupation and stop blaming everything else around you. It’s as simple as that because everybody out there who is complaining about rates may as well slam their heads into a brick wall for all the good it will do.
Just for the record, my base rate is between US$0.08 and US$0.10. With that I can feed my family and drink lots of cold Brazilian beer. I don’t give volume discounts and I am happy to walk away from a job is I can’t get US$0.08 as a min.
anea says
Hi Ward,
I totally agree with your comments. I am also a native English-speaking translator living in Brazil. I would like to connect with you and discuss more if you can. My e-mail is nzongang@gmail.com,
Thanks
Jen Brickner says
Well, Ward, on the flip side… I’m a native English translator living in Romania and I do not base my rates based on the cost of living here at all. I personally feel that that would be undermining my fellow translators in my language pair based in Western Europe, and don’t believe that translation should be subject to local market forces in that way since it is location-independent. I also wouldn’t want to risk my clients not wanting to accept a dramatic rate rise were I to decide to move to Western Europe for awhile, for example. I understand your reasoning, but I charge as though I were living in my source country regardless. I will say, however, that I do probably work much, much less than I would if I were living in a country with a higher standard of living, which I see as the big benefit if this situation in the end (basically, I have no problem turning something down if I don’t want to do it or if I just feel like taking a day off). At the same time, I can see how things like time zone pressure might apply in Brazil (not sure about that), whereas here, the time zone typically works in my favour. I would imagine that conventions probably vary widely across source/target languages, though… I know from experience that many colleagues in my language pair in the US feel that they need to charge lower rates for various reasons, including the difficulty of contacting them during Western European business hours, so I can see the logic there. But I don’t think it’s particularly fair to colleagues to charge less for a high-quality product simply because your overhead is less, and it sort of seems a bit like you might be cheating yourself out of returns as well… Not judging, just my two cents as someone in a similar situation doing the opposite… I don’t work for Romanian agencies, either, by the way, for the same reason you don’t work for Brazilian ones.
Tapani Ronni says
Ward: why on earth would you want to adjust your rates if the exchange rate moves in your favor? I would just keep the same rates and pocket the extra money.If you lower your rates it could be harder to raise them later if the exchange rate moves in the other direction.
Ward says
If I sense that by lowering my rate by a cent ensures I get the work Tapani, I will. If you saw the difference in exchange rates here compared to 18 months ago, I am earning a nearly twice as much as I was then so I can afford to do this. Believe me, I am pocketing good money.
And I never cut rates with agencies I already work with but because of the specialized work I do and the odd language pair, it is common for me to work for an agency on a big project only once and then I never hear from the again so this is the type of work I can discount if needed to get the gig.
Dmitry Kornyukhov says
Hey Ward! Do you work with agencies mostly or do you also approach direct clients? Have you tried marketing and adding value to your services so you could charge more? You could probably charge more in that case and do less work = more time to spend with your family and enjoy cold Brazilian beers đ Just saying…
People will always undercut each other. Because, well, people have families and they do everything they can to provide for those families.
What I don’t understand is that why instead of building your image and improving your online presence people prefer the easy way – undercutting their colleagues.
Because of fear? Hunger? Uncertainty?
You see, it shouldn’t matter where you from. The only thing that should matter is where your clients are from. If they’re from US then you should charge them the rates that are acceptable by US standards not by your standards.
THAT’S what I call globalization.
And you’re just selling yourself short.
Parmesh says
Great article Corrine! Thank you.
Judy Jenner (@language_news) says
Very wise and thoughtful summary, dear Corinne. I agree with you 100%, especially on the point of surrounding yourself with positive, successful translators. I always like to say that there’s no whining in translation, although of course some venting is OK. But you just have to focus on staying positive and finding the clients who value translation services. They are definitely out there. What we ultimately need is more solidarity among providers, and I think we can get there. Ours is an unregulated market with no barriers to entry, and as such, there will unfortunately always be those who offer and accept low rates.
Dmitry Kornyukhov says
“Avoid places where zillions of translators congregate” – couldn’t agree more! But, alas, every single translator will fall into that trap and only a few will be able to jump off that train wreck before it’s too late. The worst part is that: there are only a few translators on those platforms and the remaining “zillions” have neither the skills nor abilities to be translators.
Ward says
Dmitry. I mostly work with agencies because no direct client or single agency could give me the volume of the specialized type of work I do.
And you are wrong. IT DOES MATTER WHERE YOU ARE FROM.
How many “made in China” products do you buy because they are cheaper that the same thing made in your country ?? Same thing. Globalization will always seek the lowest prices but around US$0.10 per word is not undercutting anybody except the snobs.
Why do you think the Euro is in trouble Dmitry ? Differing labor rates and pay scales will ALWAYS make any common currency unfair to some.
I am not selling myself short in any way at all. You are clearly very young by the look of your pic. A couple of decades of experience may change your mind because sadly, your understanding of globalization is lacking. And I am not saying that to insult. It is a simple fact.
Jen Brickner says
Again, Ward, I have to disagree with you. Just because I live in Romania doesn’t mean I’m going to start charging Romanian rates – or even a discount, for that matter – on German to English translation. To do so would be cheating myself, cheating my respected colleagues, and undermining the entire industry. At least in German to English, where most professionals are based in Western countries and I’m just the crazy person that happens to live here because I happen to like it… Maybe it’s different in your language pair. I don’t know, I’ll try not to judge, but I would never do that to my colleagues.
Corinne McKay says
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