Thank you so much to whichever reader(s) nominated Thoughts on Translation in the “best blog about translation” category of this year’s ProZ community choice awards. If you are on ProZ and feel like voting, there’s a full slate of categories in both translation and interpreting. Congratulations to all the nominees!
Announcements
Free webinar Wednesday: Three ways to find your first translation clients
This Wednesday (April 12), I’ll be giving a free webinar through SDL’s professional development series, on Three ways to find your first translation clients. Inspired by my blog post on the same topic, I’ll describe how to:
- work the local market
- apply to translation agencies that base their hiring only on their own tests
- cultivate a micro-niche
These strategies are intended mostly for new translators who need a way around the chicken and egg dilemma of, “Clients don’t want to hire me without experience, but how do I get experience if clients won’t hire me?” It’s free, and is not a sales pitch. Hope to see some of you there!
Beyond the Basics of Freelancing: starts Monday
“In my opinion, the greatest occupational hazard of being a freelance translator is the “triple threat” of unfamiliarity with business practices, ways to get clients, and discouragement. This course provided me with actionable strategies to grow my translation business and was a huge motivator. It’s been worth every penny of the registration fee and then some. Thank you so much!”
“Beyond the Basics of Freelancing has helped me shore up and solidify my current working practices while giving me the confidence to take my business to the next level. I benefited greatly from the personal exchanges with Corinne and other seasoned freelancers. Highly recommended!”
These are some comments I received from participants in my online course, Beyond the Basics of Freelancing. The next session starts Monday, and it’s a great opportunity to get going on your goals for 2017. Registration is $380 ($365 for ATA members), and includes:
- 12 online videos with the core course materials
- Individual feedback on weekly homework assignments (your resume or professional profile, marketing plan, rates/billable hours sheet and online presence)
- 8 live question and answer sessions (recordings provided if you can’t attend live)
- Daily tasks to help you break your goals down into manageable steps
- E-mail support from me throughout the course; you can ask whatever you want!
If you’d like to join the group, you can read the full course description or register here.
Coming soon: more guest posts, and a podcast
I’m very happy with how 2016 went here at Thoughts on Translation, and thank you so much to everyone who read and commented on my posts this past year. The site’s readership is up to about 1,000 views a day, and in 2016 I managed to publish about one substantive post per week. It was also exciting to win the “best translation blog” category in the ProZ Community Choice awards.
Still, it’s important to keep things fresh. Thoughts on Translation will turn nine (!!) in February, and the site now includes 709 posts, most of which I’ve written myself. So I’m planning on two new initiatives for 2017:
- More guest posts (the first two are in the works, stay tuned for more). I’m hoping that these will offer a greater variety of perspectives on our industry, instead of 709 more posts from my perspective.
- A podcast, hosted by me. This will be basic (no interviews, just me talking about a translation-related topic), but it will offer an additional option for anyone who’s sick of reading at the end of the translation workday.
One other change is that from here on out, I will be paying an honorarium for guest posts. I think it’s important to be up-front about this. Thoughts on Translation is most of all an online community of language professionals, but it’s also the main marketing platform for my online courses, books, and consulting services. And I don’t want other people to feel that they’re contributing to that for free.
I’m excited about these changes, and I’m looking forward to your feedback when they go live!
Last-minute coaching group spot
Greetings everyone, and happy 2017! I hope that it is a happy, healthy, and (why not?) lucrative one for everyone who reads Thoughts on Translation! Here in Colorado, we had two and a half weeks of school vacation, followed by one day of school, then a snow day, then one day of school. And in there I also went to visit the hotel where we’re holding next year’s ATA conference. So I’m declaring today the actual first day of the new year.
One important announcement to start the year: the inaugural session of my small-group coaching and accountability program starts today (Monday, January 9). The group has been full for a while, but one participant had to cancel unexpectedly. So, I have one spot left if you’d like to join today.
The group is limited to 10 people and involves daily participation for four weeks. Everyone gets two one-hour individual coaching sessions with me (phone or Skype), then we’ll do two live question and answer sessions every week with the whole group. You’ll pick a primary goal to work toward, and then you’ll complete and track your daily actions toward that goal. Perhaps you want to find your first direct client, or apply to higher-quality agencies, or start a blog aimed at your target clients. This is a group for people who are in the “I know what I need to do, I just need to make myself do it” situation. The cost is $530 ($515 for ATA members) and also includes e-mail support from me during the class.
If you’d like to join the session that starts today, please send me an e-mail at corinne@translatewrite.com and I’ll give you the payment details. Anyone who’s taken one of my previous courses is an ideal candidate for this class, but I can also consider experienced/motivated translators who are new to my classes.
Thanks and happy new year!