Michelle Vranizan Rafter's blog has a great post entitled "Freelancers' Strategies for Prospering in Bad Times." Although my sense is that most translators are not feeling the hit of the economic downturn, this post has some very useful information for growing your freelance business under any … [Read more...] about Strategies for sustaining a freelance business
An interesting post on open source machine translation
Serdar Yegulaip wrote an interesting post entitled "Talk to Me, Openly" that is up on InformationWeek's site, dealing with open source machine translation. While there are a number of very active open source translation memory projects out there, with OmegaT being one of the most popular among … [Read more...] about An interesting post on open source machine translation
Euro vs euros: why translators need each other
Every once in a while, I get a glimpse of some of the ways in which translators (and probably other obsessive "word people" too!) are different from the rest of the population, and thus why we need to stick together. Earlier this week, a French translation listserve that I belong to engaged in a … [Read more...] about Euro vs euros: why translators need each other
Using objective data to set your translation rates
Possibly the most anxiety-provoking aspect of launching or running your translation business is deciding how much to charge. Charge too much and you'll be priced out of the market; charge too little and you'll be working overtime just to make ends meet. The easiest way to remove the anxiety from … [Read more...] about Using objective data to set your translation rates
Dear Client…
Interestingly enough, I've been asked more than once, "How does a freelance translator fire a client?" Although "part ways with" might be a better term than "fire," this phenomenon definitely exists, and is a customer relations issue that translators have to deal with. I think that there are a few … [Read more...] about Dear Client…