How is this year going so far?

How is this year going so far? 

Last year in the freelance world was kind of crazy (that’s the technical term). Translation really felt the fallout from ChatGPT, with many, many agencies moving to AI-generated first drafts with human editors. That resulted in a lot less work, or a lot less interesting and lucrative work, for a lot of translators, meaning that a lot of translators looked for in-house jobs or left the language professions entirely. Other freelancers were scrambling for different kinds of work, all of a sudden getting a lot more interested in direct clients, interpreting, “pure” writing, and other services that aren’t so affected by AI. Let’s take a look at how all of this is shaking out, in my world and in what I’m hearing from other people. 

In my opinion, March-April is a good time to do an initial assessment of how the year is going. You have enough data to see some trends, but still enough time to course-correct if things aren’t going well. Mostly, I hope that this analysis helps you to do your own! 

For me, things are good, and somewhat different 

As I wrote about and talked about in January, 2025 was my highest-earning year in 20+ years of freelancing. And yet, I achieved at least some of that by doing the things I tell other people not to do, namely working a bit too much, and having a scarcity mindset about interpreting (“I have to take anything and everything or I’ll have no work”). 

Things this year, I’m happy to report, are looking better in both of those departments. I set a goal of taking more time for yoga and music on weekdays (I almost never work on weekends, but that’s when I tend to do big outdoor things like skiing, hiking, and mountain biking) and I’ve been able to follow through on that. I’ve been going to yoga an average of three times a week, my lute duet partner and I performed at a small community event, and I played in a cello choir through Denver Adult Strings Camp. I feel a lot more rested and more balanced, and I don’t have the “hatchet over my neck” feeling as if I have to be working every single second during the week. 

I’ve read six books on paper so far this year (mini reviews to come in December!) and listened to six audiobooks, after deciding that my mental health needed a break from political podcasts. I’ve also branched out with my own professional development, taking Lizzie Davey’s class Create Better Content (not an affiliate deal) and speaking on AI-era diversification at the virtual conference of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Finally, I’ve given myself time to do some “just for fun” writing and translation, including a couple of new “frustrated travel writer” blog posts about why I decided to get a United Quest credit card and how I spent part of the last two summers climbing 14 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks. 

The question is whether this improved balance affects my income. That’s still to be determined. This year to date, I’ve earned $41k after deducting payments to my online course guest instructors. That’s less than the $49k I had earned at this time last year, but I’m still on track to earn around $140k, which is fine with me given that I feel like I’m working a lot less. 

Details about my workflow

Admittedly, I need to get (much) better about time tracking. I really am a data person, but time tracking is the one thing that I just can’t force myself to do. I realize that the vague feeling that I’ve had more free time is not really valid, but it’s all I’ve got right now. I’ve also:

• Landed a new retainer client for corporate writing: this is a translation company where I ghostwrite the CEO’s LinkedIn, write the company newsletter, make white papers into blog posts, etc. I like this work and it meets my income goals. 
• Landed a new interpreting direct client, through a referral. This is somewhat unique because I interpret mostly for agencies, but I really like the client and the work.
• Did a couple of fairly large translation projects for my direct law firm clients. This reinforces my opinion that legal translation has been either completely eaten by AI, or the lawyers don’t care about AI, and not much in between. 

What I’m hearing from other people

I’m always at risk of being overly and illogically positive. That seems like a good characteristic, but it can cause me to think that things are fine, when they’re very much not fine. However I do feel that a lot of the AI fallout, in the translation world at least, has fallen. I personally don’t feel that AI is a bubble (sadly). I think that it saves too much time and money, particularly for clients with tight budgets and low quality standards (sorry, true, in my opinion) to go back in the tube. 

But I do feel that a) maybe we’re through the worst of the AI slash-and-burn; clients who are going to go all in on AI have already gone there, b) maybe clients in the language business are becoming more discerning about how and when they use AI, and c) definitely, in my experience, there’s good work to be had in getting clients out of the AI slop. 

This winter, I spoke at a really interesting event for translation students at Kent State University, where a lot of these factors were very apparent. Kent’s programs are a lot smaller than they used to be, and yet the students who are there are pretty fired up about their prospects. A number of them stressed that the job formerly known as translation is now going by a variety of names: 

• “Language lead” is likely to be mostly translation 
• “Linguistic data analysis” involves a lot of translation 
• “Language QA,” also a lot of translation 
• “Bilingual content specialist,” basically a translator 

As always, most people don’t really embrace change, especially in a job that they really love(d) and that has changed a lot in the past few years. But I do think that there’s still a lot of good work out there, you just have to look for it in different ways. I’ve also talked to more than a handful of good translators who have completely shifted gears, to an in-house job that uses their language skills but isn’t totally focused on translation. Personally, I give this a thumbs-up. It’s way better to adapt than to pine for what used to be! 

With that, onward into the rest of Q2 of this year. If you want to tell me how things are going for you, just leave a comment!