Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters

Freelancing


Corinne McKay

Thoughts on managing your e-mail

In the age of Information Overload, it seems to get harder and harder to maintain any semblance of control over the volumes of e-mail we receive. But, there’s hope, and there are strategies…let’s take a look at a few, and feel free to add your own in the comments.

Let’s start with e-mail management techniques I use and find helpful

  • Mercilessly unsubscribe and filter. I have trouble ignoring an e-mail once it lands in my Inbox, so I need technology to help me prioritize. My goal: limit the Inbox to time-sensitive messages. So, as soon as I get added to a mailing list I don’t want to be on, I unsubscribe. Right then, without guilt. Perhaps more importantly, I set up filters to send non-time-sensitive e-mail to somewhere other than my Inbox. For example I don’t want to unsubscribe from my neighborhood e-mail list, or my ATA division e-mail lists, but I don’t necessarily want to read those messages the second they come in. So I set up a “skip the Inbox” filter to immediately put those e-mails in specially-labeled folders. This saves a ton of time and distractions.
  • Shut off as many notifications as you can. If you’re present on social media sites, you are likely to get a lot of notifications from them: someone followed you on Twitter, someone replied to your Facebook post, someone on LinkedIn has a work anniversary, etc. These sites (especially LinkedIn, in my experience) generate so many notifications that it’s worth spending 10 minutes to dig into the Settings labyrinth and shut them off.
  • Make peace with brevity. I’m a wordy person. I talk a lot, I write a lot. But between my own translation work, my teaching and consulting work and my ATA-related work, I get a ton of e-mail. I’ve forced myself to accept that a polite but very brief response (“Great! Thank you so much for letting me know.” “Wednesday at 1 PM works best for me; talk to you then.” “I’m not interested in this right now, but thanks for thinking of me!”) is OK. I’d like to say more, but this kind of response does the trick in a pinch.
  • Accept that reading and answering e-mail takes a lot of your time. When I started freelancing 13 years go, “let me just clear out the Inbox before I shut down for the day” was still an option. But that option (for me, and I’m guessing for many of you) is long gone. When I do a little benchmarking to find out how long I spend on various work-related tasks, I find that I spend one to two hours reading and answering e-mail on an average day. Of course, some of this involves actually doing work over e-mail–for example critiquing a student’s resume and cover e-mail. But the point being that even on a day when I “just take care of e-mail,” that’s a good number of hours.
  • Hit the low-hanging fruit first. When I open my Inbox on an average morning, I have probably 15-30 unread e-mails waiting (and that’s the time-sensitive ones that make it into my Inbox; not marketing stuff or e-newsletters). By scanning the preview lines, I can tell which ones can be knocked off with a quick response (pick a meeting time, how much do you charge to translate a marriage certificate, where is the 2018 ATA conference). So I do those first, then go back to the ones that require more thought.
  • Don’t let e-mail rule you, but don’t let it get away from you either. I try not to be enslaved to my e-mail; I don’t think that someone’s going to die if they don’t get a response from me within five minutes. I have a smartphone but I don’t spend a ton of time answering e-mail when I’m not actually working. However, failing to respond to e-mail generates more e-mail (did you get my message, we’re waiting on you to schedule the meeting, should I ask another translator to work on this if you’re too busy). So in a way, letting e-mail pile up can exponentially increase the amount of time it takes to manage it.

Now let’s move on to e-mail management techniques I don’t use, but that I think are a good idea

  • Only answer e-mail at set times. The top of the hour, four times a day, etc. If you work on long-deadline projects like books, this could be a great idea.
  • Have totally separate work and personal e-mail addresses. Only check the work e-mail during the work day, only check personal at night and on weekends. I just find that my work and personal friends are so commingled that this doesn’t work.
  • Practice a one-touch rule. Once you open an e-mail, don’t close it and let it sit there: respond to it, delete it, file it, or mark it as unread. I like to mull things over, so this doesn’t really work for me, but it’s certainly efficient.
  • Create an auto-responder that eliminates the expectation of an immediate response. I recently e-mailed someone whose auto-response basically says “I’ve received your message and I’ll get back to you within the next few days. If this is really urgent, call me.” Personally I don’t have the guts to do that, but I thought it was an interesting technique!
  • Purge e-mail more than a month (two months, etc.) old. Another technique I don’t have the guts for but ultimately kind of admire; if someone’s e-mail has sat in your inbox for six weeks, a) you’ll probably never respond, or b) it’s probably no longer relevant, or c) the sender probably forgot about it. Pick a date, click the tickbox next to every message older than that, and get rid of them. The blackbelt form of this would be “e-mail bankruptcy,” where you delete everything and start from zero. If you’re in really dire e-mail straits (I recently talked to someone whose Inbox contains over a thousand unread e-mails), a radical step like this is worth some thoughts.
  • Have an e-mail-free portion of your day. I can’t do this in the morning because I’m already eight hours behind my French and Swiss clients, but sometimes I do it in the afternoon when most of my clients are already out of the office. Shut down your e-mail and just work for two hours, and watch how much you get done.

Readers, over to you!


Corinne McKay

Tips for translators in small languages

There are languages like Spanish (tons of work, lots of translators), and languages like French and German (good amount of work, not a surplus of translators), and then there are languages like Tagalog, Nepali, Bulgarian, Amharic, Icelandic, and so on. What are some pathways to a viable freelance business if you do one of those languages of lesser diffusion?

  • Assess the demand. You only need enough work for one person, but in some languages, that may be a struggle. Consider adding additional services like interpreting, editing, voiceover, etc. You may have to be a little more open to offbeat jobs than someone who translates German or Japanese.
  • Expect to be asked to translate anything and everything in your language. You don’t have to say yes; never take on anything that’s outside your capabilities. But expect that clients will think of you as “the Haitian Creole translator,” not “the Haitian Creole pharmaceutical translator.”
  • If you want to work with agencies, blanket the field. Get a membership to Payment Practices (not an affiliate deal) and sort out the highly-rated agencies; for example those rated 4.0 or higher in the two factors that PP rates. Then start cranking out the applications; aim for three to five per day. Every agency that could potentially use you, anywhere in the world, should have your resume on file.
  • If you want to work with direct clients, look for trade ties between your non-English country and the US, the UK, or other English-speaking countries. Most countries have some sort of economic development authority, foreign direct investment authority, or similar entity. Look there for ideas, then contact companies related to those industries that might need you.
  • Consider translating into English with a native English-speaking proofreader. Normally I don’t recommend going anywhere near translations into your non-native language. But for small-diffusion languages into English, I think it can work, and sometimes it’s the only option. First, there just aren’t that many native English speakers who translate from Lingala or Khmer. Second, lots of these niche countries are fairly major tourist destinations for English speakers, very few of whom speak a word of the local language. So you might find work translating for, say, resorts in Indonesia or the Philippines or Thailand that want to attract English-speakers.

Readers, especially those of you who translate in these smaller-diffusion languages…any thoughts on this?


Corinne McKay

Wrapping up 2015: five questions to ask yourself

I’m wrapping up my work for 2015, which is always a good chance to take stock of the hits and misses of the past year. This is something I think every freelancer should do: no matter how long you’ve been freelancing, you need to keep moving toward your long-term goals (or risk stagnation!). Following are some questions I think every freelancer should ask, and I’ll answer them here; feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments. And thanks very much to everyone who read and supported my blog this year. It’s up to about 1,200 view on an average day, and over 8,000 subscribers, which is exciting!

Five questions every freelancer should ask at the end of the year:

Question 1: Are you happy with how much you earned, as compared to how much you worked?
My 2015 answer: yes, but with some asterisks. When I was a newly-minted freelancer, I finished several years (definitely 2003 and 2004) feeling that I had worked way (way!) too hard for the amount of money I had made. Now, after 13 years of freelancing, I’m very happy with how much I earn, but my problem is that I want to do everything; and “everything” is way (way!) too much to fit into my available time and energy. Income-wise, I have a range of income that I consider “enough.” And as long as I earn within that range, I’m satisfied. It gives me a similar level of financial security to someone with a traditional job; it allows me to invest in my business by attending conferences, buying new office equipment and participating in professional development.  It allows me to take enough time off that I feel excited to come back to work after a vacation. It’s enough. My problem is that there’s a bottomless pit of interesting projects that I’d like to take on, and I have to limit myself to what I can realistically do an excellent job on.

Question 2: What were the highlights?
Happily, this year had many highlights. To sum it up in one sentence, I translated three books (just submitted the third manuscript on Friday!), published the third edition of How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator, and was elected President-Elect of ATA. Definitely some items crossed off the bucket list there; and best of all, I felt happy and energized during nearly every moment of all of those projects. Several of my clients also landed big projects of their own this year, and those were very rewarding to be involved in.

Question 3: Any low points?
As mentioned above, my main problem in life is that I want to do everything. Add that to my subsidiary problem in life, which is that I want everyone to be happy all the time, and that definitely results in some disappointments, because in reality, I can’t do everything, and everyone around me is not going to be happy all the time. The mantra I continually repeat to myself is, “It’s enough…It’s enough…It’s enough,” along with “You can’t do everything…You can’t do everything…You can’t do everything”

And there are always challenges and dilemmas. I’m currently earning about 1/3 of my income from agencies and individuals, 1/3 from direct clients and 1/3 from my online courses, book royalties and consulting; let’s call those “information products.” The challenge/dilemma is that there’s a huge market for information products for translators; enough that I would venture a guess that if I wanted to quit translating and only develop information products for translators, I could. And I *love* teaching and writing. However, I still want to be a translator, not someone who simply pontificates from afar about what other translators should do. It’s a dilemma.

Question 4: Did you do something that challenged you?
This is a resounding “yes” this year. I hate the thought of stagnation, so I really try to do something challenging every year. Branching out into translating books, something I’ve been working on for many years, has been both hugely challenging and hugely rewarding. In addition to the murder mystery I translated for a self-published author, I translated two mountaineering biographies for an outdoor book publisher (more on those when they’re published); I’m an avid mountain sports person in my spare time, so this allowed me to combine something that I’m personally very interested in with my translation skills.

Question 5: Long-term outlook?
I’m a big believer in setting goals for the the short term and the long term, and the very long term. In the short-ish term, I’m excited about the new online courses I’ll be teaching this winter and spring, and I’m excited to start marketing the new edition of my book once it’s in the major distribution channels. This year, I’ve also had a growing sense that in the long term, I’d like to move toward work that is still as demanding as what I do now, but that is less immediately deadline-driven. In concrete terms, if I had to envision what I’d like to be doing in seven or ten years, I’d like to focus on translating books and teaching, so that I can be more location-independent and more flexible with my schedule. But right now, to sum it up in two words, I’m happy!

Thanks again readers, and over to you!


Corinne McKay

Sub-optimal rates: "better than nothing," or not?

“The rate isn’t ideal, but it’s better than nothing.” “It’s not what I’d like to be earning, but you have to start somewhere.” “I wasn’t thrilled about the rate, but working is better than not working.” Stop me if you’ve heard this before… But the real question is: is this a valid way of looking at your freelance rates?

Ideally, here’s the situation you want to be in: you don’t even deal with low-paying clients, because you don’t need to. You are busy all the time at your regular rates, and if clients won’t pay those rates, you simply don’t work with them. Or, when you take on lower-paying work (let’s say a book translation, or work for a non-profit that you find meaningful), it’s for a reason: just because you enjoy it, or because you want to contribute to the organization’s mission, or bring a certain author’s work to a different culture, or something like that.

But when you’re looking for more work, or for any work at all, it’s a different story. Then, an experienced translator’s advice to stick to your standard rates and never offer discounts can feel a bit condescending. When, if ever, is a sub-optimal rate better than nothing?

  • Bottom line: rarely. You tell yourself “it’s better than nothing,” but low rates can become a treadmill that’s difficult to dismount. You’re making a few cents a word, so you have to translate 12 hours a day just to keep the lights on. That leaves approximately zero time to market yourself to better-paying clients, or do some networking, or attend conferences where you might meet better-paying clients, or upgrade your skills and marketing presence.
  • When you’re working within a lot of constraints. In most ways, huge agencies are not ideal clients; but they do have some advantages. One of those is that you can generally turn them down many times without fear of losing them as a client, or you can give them windows of time within which you can work. So, if you’re trying to start a freelance business while going to school, or raising kids, or working another job, a huge agency that pays sub-optimal rates might allow you to do that.
  • When you put some parameters on the low-rate work. Working at sub-optimal rates for decades will a) suck the life out of you and b) destroy any love you have for this job. Really, it will. But if you decide that the low-rate work fits your purposes while you… (finish school, sock away enough money to quit your day job, etc.), and if that time period is relatively short, like a couple of years or less, I think it’s more doable.

When is a sub-optimal rate absolutely not worth it?

  • When you’re doing it out of desperation. Desperation is rarely a good precursor of good business decisions. If you’re in sketchy financial shape, you’re probably better off looking for a stable part-time job rather than taking low-rate freelance work. Take the part-time job and then translate pro bono for clients who work for causes you believe in: in the end, you’ll feel much better about yourself. Out-of-the-box tip: look for a job where you could do some translating while you work. For example, I once worked in a fancy office building that needed a receptionist, but there was actually very little work to do. The owner’s technique (because it was hard to keep people in that job long-term), was to deliberately recruit students from the writing program at the local university, with the stipulation that if they committed to staying for a full school year, they could work on their own writing while they sat at the desk.
  • When you could cut fat from your spending budget and avoid the low-rate work. I’ve beaten the freelance frugality drum here and here. Blackbelt frugality isn’t for everyone (although I did get quite a few compliments on the haircuts that my husband gave me in the early 2000s!), but to me, it’s certainly preferable to doing soul-crushing work.
  • When you have the skills to work for better-paying clients, but you never go out and look for them. As I’ve said before, but it bears repeating, there is *so much* interesting, well-paying translation work out there. But, it’s not going to flop into your inbox with a bow on it; you need to be out there (in person, online or both) being in the places where the good clients can find you, or going and knocking on the good clients’ doors and pitching your services. Otherwise, you’re running in neutral in the low-rate market.
  • When you’re telling yourself that the low-paying clients will love you so much, they’ll agree to a big rate increase at some point. Harsh but true: most times, they won’t. Once a client knows that you’re willing to work at a certain rate, you can’t blame them for refusing to pay more. No matter how much a client likes you, most agencies, especially big agencies, have a fairly rigid rate ceiling above which they absolutely will not go, no matter how much they like you. When you want to make more money, you just have to move on.

Readers: any other thoughts on this? And if you’re thinking, “This sounds great, but how do I find work at decent rates?,” you might enjoy this post: To break out of the low-rate market, change these three things.


Corinne McKay

An easy sit/stand desk option

Standing desks are hot right now (with various sources telling us that sitting is the new smoking). If you’d like to try one, the most customizable option is a motorized sit-stand desk. Karen Tkaczyk uses one, and she demonstrated it in this blog post. Another option is a VariDesk that sits on top of a standard desk.

I recently moved to a new co-working office and the desks have a really easy sit-stand option, where the desk surface is permanently set at standing height and you use a tall chair or stool, moving yourself (rather than the desk surface) when you want to change positions. Here’s my desk:
desk

At first I was a bit skeptical about the stool, but it’s actually working out really well. It’s just uncomfortable enough that I get up for a few minutes every hour and go get some tea or run a quick errand; it’s not hellishly uncomfortable (and it forces me to sit up straight), but it’s also not the kind of thing you snuggle into for a four-hour stretch.

I think that my new desk is an Ikea Linnmon/Finnvard, which, at US $109, is certainly an affordable option. Just make sure to get a nice hard stool to go with it!