Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters

Freelancing


Corinne McKay

Maybe you need a co-working office?

Everything “co” seems to be hot these days (co-living, car sharing, and so on), and after working in a “co” office for three years, I thought I’d share some thoughts and tips.

About three years ago, after 10 years of working from home, I hit the wall. My daughter (the main reason I started working from home in the first place) had started middle school, many of my friends who used to work part-time or not at all had gone back to full-time work, and I was unhappy and not getting a lot done during the day. Go out into the kitchen to get a drink of water…only to be confronted by a heap of dirty dishes. Get an e-mail asking if I could chaperone the school field trip…and end up feeling guilty about having to work instead. So, I decided that the problem wasn’t working from home, it was me plus working from home, so something had to change.

Three years in, my three-word summary is: I love it. I really don’t plan to ever work from home again on a permanent basis, although I do work primarily from home in the summers when my daughter is out of school. My income has gone up a lot; I gave myself a parameter that I had to make up the office rent in increased income and I exceed that goal, and I find that I’m much more able to focus on work when I’m at work. I’m much happier with my work situation, and I also find that when I get home, I’m much more able to focus on things other than work, which I had a very hard time doing before.

For my first two and a half years of co-working, I worked in an office in a historic school building, where the other co-workers were mostly middle-aged word nerds. When that office closed, I moved to a new office which has more of a tech/startup vibe and I’m one of the oldest people there, but I like both offices in their own way. At the first office I paid $350 a month and at the new office I pay $330, which includes my own desk, coffee, meeting space, etc. I leave my large monitor, full-size keyboard, etc. at the office and carry my laptop back and forth on my bike. The office also has a printer, copier, etc. so I’m pretty much set in terms of office equipment.

The only main caveat I would give is that working in a co-working office requires either a fairly high ambient noise tolerance or a willingness to wear headphones a lot (I alternate between the two). People are on the phone, or chatting, or whatever…there just always seems to be some kind of conversation going on. I find that kind of enjoyable, but it’s something to think about.

I’ve also heard from readers who want to try co-working but can’t find an office near them. The easiest option would be to just DIY: go work from a cafe or the library when you need to get out of the house. Another interesting option would be to form some kind of co-working club: get a couple of freelancers (or 20 freelancers…whatever!) together and meet up to work together. One day a week, or one day a month, or whenever you want; meet at the library or a cafe, or someone’s house, or a space like a church basement that you could use inexpensively.

Also, don’t discount the option of co-working on the road. Last summer my daughter did a day camp in Denver, which is about a 40 minute drive from our house. I couldn’t get excited about the idea of either doing two round trips a day, or camping out in a cafe for 7 hours, so I rented a desk for a week at Creative Density, a really fun co-working space in Denver (and they separate their rooms by noise level…yay!). So that’s an interesting option too!


Corinne McKay

What's worth outsourcing or paying for?

At the recent Colorado Translators Association mid-year conference, a few of us got to talking about tasks that we outsource and services that we pay for. This got me thinking about what types of services we freelancers a) can and b) should be outsourcing or paying for.

It’s important to realize that having the proper tools and services for your business costs money. Running a freelance business entails a lot less overhead than running, say, a restaurant, but if you try to operate on zero overhead, your business will suffer. I’ll give you a list of services that I either outsource or pay for, and then I’m interested to hear what you have to say too.

A task is ripe for outsourcing/paying money for if:

  • You hate it, are terrible at it, and therefore avoid it (mine: accounting)
  • It provides you with information that would be time-consuming or impossible to obtain on your own (mine: Payment Practices)
  • It generates way more income than what you pay for the service (mine: E-Junkie)
  • You can hire someone who is much better at the task than you are (mine: graphic design and screencast videos)
  • It saves you a lot of time and hassle (mine: Adobe PDF conversion service)
  • It lets you bring in an additional revenue stream ( mine: MailChimp e-mail list)
  • It protects your business against disaster (mine: SugarSync online backup service)

The tasks and services that I currently outsource, and their approximate costs, are listed below. Note that these are not affiliate links, just services I love.

  • Accounting: my accountant does my quarterly payroll taxes and year-end corporate tax return. About $1,000 per year.
  • Subscription to Payment Practices so that I can vet agencies before I work with them. About $20 per year.
  • Subscription to SugarSync to fully back up my laptop hard drive every time I connect to the Internet, in case my laptop is lost/stolen/falls out of my bike bag and gets run over by a bus. About $75 per year.
  • Basic membership to E-Junkie, so that I can sell PDF copies of my book directly from my website with automatic downloads. $5 per month.
  • Graphic designer to do website banners, book covers, etc. Cost depends on the project, about $600 per year.
  • Instructional designer to make screencast videos for my online courses. About $500 per course.
  • Adobe’s online PDF conversion service, which works really well on really lousy PDFs. About $25 per year.
  • MailChimp mailing list service so that I can send out my weekly e-newsletter. $25 per month.

I also have various other paid pieces of software: an MP3 recording service for Skype calls, a scanner program so that I can still use my really old scanner, etc.

All of these services add up to a fairly substantial cost; but I also think that far too many translators think that “if it costs money, I’m not buying it,” which is a short-sighted way to run a business. If there’s a tool that helps you work better, or that frees up your time so that you can do what you’re good at while someone else does what they’re good at, I think it’s almost always worth buying.

It’s also important to think about the consequences of not having a particular tool or service. I don’t work with that many agencies, but since a Payment Practices membership costs less than a minimum charge, it’s clearly a good investment. In 13 years of freelancing, I’ve never had a major computer failure, partially because I’m pretty scrupulous about upgrading my main work computer every two to three years, but for $75 a year, I’m not risking what would happen if my laptop were stolen from my co-working office, or if I spilled coffee all over it. Those situations fall into the category of “penny wise, pound foolish” and every freelancer should avoid that!

Readers: over to you…what do you outsource or pay for?


Corinne McKay

Working with individuals: why do so many translators avoid it?

The individual client market–working directly with people who need anything from a birth certificate to a book translated–is a legitimate segment of the direct client market. But still, lots of translators avoid it. Let’s take a closer look.

I do quite a bit of work for/with individual clients; mostly certified translations of official documents, but I’ve also translated business plans, real estate purchase and sale documents, and yes, even a book, for individual clients. I like this kind of work because (in no particular order):

  • It’s gratifying; people need the service and appreciate it. Sometimes they really, really appreciate it–I once received a lovely bottle of wine from an individual client who needed a translation in a pinch!
  • It’s usually very straightforward. For certified translations, I charge a flat fee per page, I do not negotiate that rate at all, and I do not do the translation until the person pays via PayPal. So there’s zero quoting or haggling, and zero risk of non-payment.
  • It’s lucrative as compared to the time investment. These small, one-off projects are generally projects that agencies don’t want, or for which agencies would have to impose a very high minimum charge in order to justify their overhead. As a freelancer, you can also create templates for the kinds of documents that you translate over and over again, to further streamline the process.
  • Not that many freelancers are interested in the individual client market, so you can generate quite a bit of business simply by putting up a dedicated web page for this kind of service.

My sense is that most freelancers avoid the individual client market for two reasons: they’re afraid of not getting paid, and they don’t want to spend a lot of time negotiating a rate and turnaround time for a $100 job. I would argue that the solution is simple: require that individuals pay in advance, and don’t negotiate. If they don’t want to pay your rate, they can look for another translator; or if they don’t want to pay in advance, they can look for another translator. And for the record, even the individual for whom I translated a book did pay in full, in advance.

I do agree that when you work with individuals:

  • You have to have some patience with people who know nothing about translation. Can you also translate my Lithuanian driver’s license? Can you convert my grades from the French to the US system? Can you just leave out the classes that I failed? You can’t blame people for asking, so you have to be willing to explain these things.
  • A fair number of people will ask if you can “just certify” the translation that they already did. “I already translated it, so how much would it cost to just put your certified translator stamp on it?” My response to this is always “The certification statement requires me to certify that I translated the document, so for liability reasons, I cannot certify a document that I didn’t translate myself.”
  • You need a way to take payments online, and that costs money. Lots of people love to gripe and moan about PayPal, and I agree that their fees are annoying on large amounts. But I’m willing to pay $3.50 to collect $100 from someone, and I’ve never had issues with things like chargebacks (where the client complains to PayPal and then gets a refund). Additionally, lots of people already have a PayPal account, so it’s easy for them to send you money. You could also try Square, Stripe, etc. My sense is that the fees for all of the online payment services is about the same.

Readers, any other thoughts on this?


Corinne McKay

An atypical dilemma: "I need less work"

Here’s a question I received from a colleague: “You’re always writing about how to find new clients and get more work. I have the opposite problem: I have work coming out of my ears and I’m trying to cut back.” OK! Thoughts on Translation is committed to addressing issues at all points on the freelance spectrum, so let’s give this one a try.

This actually is not the first time I’ve heard this question, primarily from translators in their 60s and 70s who still want to work, but not full-time and not under stressful conditions. But it also applies to some translators with young kids, or people with other jobs. Definitely worth a look.

If you’re in the “I need less work” boat, first you have to accept that maybe 1% of freelancers have just the right amount of work. The other 99% of us have to choose between a little too little work and a little too much work. And because I hate worrying about money, my preference is to have a little too much work, then take longish vacations where I don’t work at all. But if you’re bound and determined to cut down on your work flow, first ask yourself:

  • What do you want and not want out of your work situation? For example I’d say the typical person in this category says, “I want some income, I want some professional activity in my life, but I don’t want to be stressed out and I want a significant amount of free time.” Even if your answer is radically different, make sure to answer that question. What’s your priority? What do you not want to deal with?
  • How much of a factor is money? If you’re on the semi-retired end of the spectrum, money might be less of a factor; you might have the luxury of working for clients you really like, rather than the clients who pay the most. If you have young kids, it may be the opposite situation: money is paramount, because you need to earn a semi-full-time income while working around your family’s schedule.
  • How much of a factor is job satisfaction? Again, this varies from individual to individual. Perhaps you’re that semi-retired translator who’s working primarily or even exclusively because you enjoy it; perhaps you’re that new parent thinking “$%&^& satisfaction…the point is to make money.”

Then, pick a strategy. Of course, the path of least resistance is to raise your rates. A lot. Own it; tell clients, “If you’re looking for an inexpensive option, it’s not me,” or “I only work with the very high end of the market,” or “Call me when you have a bigger budget.” That should do the trick pretty quickly, but it may also eliminate clients you want to keep working with, especially if job satisfaction is a priority for you. So you could also try:

–Putting some parameters on your availability or your working conditions. You don’t work on Fridays, or you don’t work with clients who require you to work in their online TM portal, or you don’t work with clients who send out work offers via mass e-mail.

–Taking longer vacations so that you’re working less overall. I’ll be honest: I’ve tried the “I need to work less” system a few times (I’m going to take Friday afternoons off, I’m not checking e-mail after 5, I’m not finishing stuff up in the evenings, etc.), and it’s never really worked. So my preferred solution is to take longer vacations where I may be checking e-mail, but I am not actively working. By timing these to coincide with most of my clients’ slow periods (Christmas/New Years, July and August), I don’t know that I actually lose a lot of income, but I definitely gain sanity. Each year I take about six weeks completely off, which is pretty normal outside the US but almost unheard of within the US. So that’s my recommendation if you’re in a decent financial position: give yourself a month off this summer and do some digital detox.

–Doing the “does this spark joy” test on every project. If you get that knot in your stomach, turn it down, or stop working with that client. Only work on projects that make you feel excited about working.

Readers, over to you! Any thoughts on this?


Corinne McKay

If you can't out-think the competition, out-work the competition

A brief thought here, before Thoughts on Translation goes on hiatus for Spring Break! It’s a crossover thought from another area of my life, playing the lute (my mid-life crisis obsession!).

I don’t have a ton of musical talent; actually way, way less than a ton. I can carry a tune and clap to the beat of the music, but that’s about where it ends. But in the two and a half years that I’ve been playing the lute, I’ve found a compensatory mechanism: practicing more than most people do. Having trouble with the rhythm in a tricky piece? Practice more. Can’t play the hard part fast enough to keep up with the rest of the group? Practice more. Can’t play chords without sounding like a dying cat? Practice more. Practice doesn’t totally overcome a lack of talent, but it’s a good all-purpose solution. You up your practicing from 15 minutes a day to 20, to 45, to 75, and suddenly things get a little easier.

Let’s apply this to translation. When I started translating, I had a Master’s in French, some translation experience (internships, pro bono), but essentially no contacts in the industry, and no experience running a business. So, when experienced translators said, “You could apply to lots of translation companies…like 75 or 100,” I figured that 400 was a better target. If experienced translators said, “You could try asking potential clients for informational interviews,” I started asking any potential client in Colorado for an informational interview. I pretended that I would “be in their area” as an excuse to have coffee with them and ask about their business. If people suggested, “Add a personal touch,” I started sending a handwritten thank you note to everyone who responded (in any manner) to my inquiries. My sense was that if I couldn’t out-think the competition, I could at least out-work the competition, and that might turn out better in the end.

I’m not saying there’s no place for talent, or working smarter instead of harder, or for strategizing and optimizing. In our industry for example, if your language skills are poor, there’s no way to compensate for that: you just have to improve your language skills. But assuming that your basic skill set (the language equivalent of carrying a tune and clapping to the beat of the music) is solid, I’m inclined to follow NBA player Kevin Durant‘s advice, “Hard work beats talent, when talent fails to work hard.”