Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters

Freelancing


Corinne McKay

Everyone's talking about work/life balance

It must be something about the holiday season that makes bloggers’ thoughts turn to the work/life balance or lack thereof. Here are some excellent posts from around the blogosphere:

  • Jill Sommer’s post ‘Tis the season for no work/life balance points out what many of us are experiencing: clients who have tons of work for us at the end of the year. I have vowed not to complain about having too much work until the unemployment rate falls back to a reasonable number, but I agree with Jill. Especially if you have clients in countries where the holiday vacation season lasts from about December 15 until January 6, it’s a very busy time to be a freelancer!
  • Penelope Trunk, one of my favorite non-translation bloggers, has a great post entitled Maybe no moms are working moms, focusing specifically on the work/life balance issues that moms face. Much of this post rings true for me; I think that many of the moms at my daughter’s school think that because I come in to frost gingerbread houses and shelve library books, I’m a stay-at-home-mom. However, I do think that some of the issue is location-dependent. Here in Boulder where the cafés are full at all hours of the work day and signs in store windows read “Mondays and powder days: closed,” working 30 hours a week from home as a freelancer is definitely considered “having a job.” This post made me realize that because I live in a community where I have a lot of freelancing mom friends, I don’t really identify with the “scared, lost and lonely” stereotype in Penelope’s post. So here’s one solution to the work/life dilemma: move to a town where people don’t work that much!
  • Over at Get Rich Slowly, J.D. Roth posted In Praise of Work-Life Balance, discussing his current situation and the freedom that it affords him. One key tip here: once you hit the sweet spot of work/life balance, resist the urge to add more commitments. J.D. describes his decision to indefinitely delay a planned project because he can’t add another task to his list right now. In the past, I’ve implemented a similar strategy and declined all new (non-paying) requests for my time for two weeks, or a month, or however long I need to feel sane!

Feel free to add your own work/life tips, and have a great holiday season!


Corinne McKay

Webinar question: Should I incorporate?

This is post #2 in my ongoing series of questions from the webinar on “Getting started as a freelance translator” that I presented for the American Translators Association earlier this month.

A participant asks: As a self-employed freelance translator, should I operate as an LLC, an S-corp or a sole proprietorship?
Short answer: If you freelance full-time, I think it’s worth incorporating. As long as you don’t mind the extra paperwork, incorporating has some significant tax and liability advantages.

Longer answer: First, I’m not an accountant or an attorney. Second, I have an S-corp so I’m more informed about S-corps than about LLCs and C-corps. Third, I can’t speak to tax issues in countries other than the U.S. That being said:

  • Running your freelance business as a sole proprietor is really simple; just report your freelance income on IRS Schedule C, pay self-employment tax on it and you’re pretty much set. Running a corporation is a little more complicated: you may have to file monthly or quarterly payroll taxes and a separate end-of-year corporate tax return. You will have to pay to register your corporation every year and the IRS may be less lenient with you than with a sole proprietor if you mess up your taxes. If you don’t want to be bothered with any extra paperwork or filing requirements, stick with sole proprietorship.
  • The hassle factor of incorporating depends on the state in which you live, since corporations are registered at the state level. Here in Colorado, incorporating is very simple and cheap but you do have to renew your corporate registration every year. Check your state’s Secretary of State website for the requirements where you live.
  • The tax advantages of incorporating can be significant. When you work as a sole proprietor, you pay self-employment tax (currently 15.30%) on everything you earn, minus your business expenses. This is in addition to the normal Federal rate that you would pay if you worked for an employer, so it’s a big hit. Some corporate structures allow you to take some of your earnings as “wages” which are subject to self-employment tax and some of your earnings as “profit” which is not subject to self-employment tax. My understanding is that this applies to S-corps and C-corps but not LLCs unless the LLC files taxes as an S-corp. So for example if you gross $70,000 and take $40,000 as wages and $30,000 as profit, you have the potential to save $4,590 in self-employment tax (15.3% x 30,000). Even if you do quarterly payroll taxes (mine take about an hour per quarter) and pay an accountant to file your corporate tax return, this is a big win.
  • Liability: I have never heard of a lawsuit against a freelance translator, but the U.S. is the most litigious country in the world so it’s certainly not out of the question. Incorporating separates your business and personal assets; if you’re sued, the plaintiff can only go after your business’ assets and not your house, car or personal bank accounts. If you’re a sole proprietor, your personal assets are theoretically fair game if you are sued for a business issue.
  • Incorporating seems to make you less likely to be audited by the IRS. It’s a bit hard to pin down the exact statistics, but articles such as this one by respected tax professional Barbara Weltman suggest that audit rates for S-corps are dramatically lower than those for sole proprietors. Weltman states that the total S-corp audit rate is 0.4% and the audit rate for Schedule C filers earning between $100,000 and $200,000 per year is 3.9%.


Corinne McKay

Some interesting links

As Thoughts on Translation wraps up for the holiday week (U.S. Thanksgiving is Thursday), here are some websites and blog posts that you might enjoy looking at:

  • Eve Bodeux is giving away some SmartPlay language-learning products for kids on her blog; see the end of the post for how to enter.
  • Writer Michelle Rafter has a fantastic blog post (applicable to translators too!) called When it comes to writing, economize. As someone who has a tendency to ramble, I printed out Michelle’s tips and posted them above my desk.
  • Is there any German, Spanish, French or Portuguese translator out there who’s not yet using the terminology site Linguee? I’m not quite sure how to pronounce this website’s name (Lingwee? Ling-oo-ee?) but I have come to love its features. Linguee searches huge amounts of bilingual texts on the web, then displays sentences that contain the source term you enter and the target term that other translators have used.
  • There’s an interesting discussion on Jill Sommer’s blog about ATA certification and why so few people vote in the ATA elections .
  • And finally on a non-translation note, here’s a Get Rich Slowly post on inexpensive Christmas gifts and another one on DIY gifts. And here’s my own suggestion: I like the “memory drawing” idea described in the second post, but I am totally (totally; believe me) un-artistic.  I recently stumbled upon the idea of using Wordle word clouds to make gifts for friends. You can type in whatever words remind you of that person, i.e. “runner, mom, Brownie~leader, lawyer, likes~her~coffee~with~a~splash~of~cream” (put the tildas between multiple-word phrases that you want to appear as one “word” in the cloud) and then create a word cloud that you can frame, give as a card, etc.


Corinne McKay

What to send clients and colleagues for the holidays

Since we’re on the topic, it’s also time to think about your end-of-year greetings/thank you plans for your clients and colleagues. Obviously these plans will vary depending on your country, customs, budget and time limits, but here are a few suggestions for spreading some cheer, gratitude and name recognition.

Holiday greeting basics:

  • Send something. OK; I know this sounds pitifully basic…but I think that even if you only have time to pick up a box of cards at Target and sign them, you should at least do that. I’ve heard a few clients comment (in a good-natured way!) that they notice who sends something at the end of the year and who doesn’t; and you know which of those groups you want to be in!
  • That being said, go for a card that is high-quality and has a fairly universal image and message. Unless your clients are members of a specific religion or cultural group, it’s best to pick a holiday card with a semi-generic “season’s greetings” message and an image that isn’t associated with a specific holiday. In our industry I think that the “around the world” motif (i.e. a globe with a dove, flags of various countries, “peace” in multiple languages, you get the picture…) is a little overused but can work if you find the right card. I think that two good choices are charity-themed cards (such as those from Unicef) or locally-themed cards (this year I ordered Colorado mountain scene cards for my clients and colleagues).
  • Avoid pre-printed mailing labels. Address your cards by hand; remove any trappings of mass-production from your holiday greeting efforts.
  • Don’t forget your colleagues, especially those who refer work to you. For many of us, these people are some of our most powerful marketing tools. See below for ideas on how to really single them out!

Holiday greetings, beyond the basics:

  • Personalize. If you have time, write something specific about that client or colleague. How you really appreciate their friendliness and attention to detail; how flattered you were to be selected to translate their annual report; how their trust and referrals have really helped your business grow. If you’re a business or agency, think about having all of your employees sign the cards; I always enjoy it when my agency clients do this.
  • Send gifts to your top clients and your top-referring colleagues. These don’t have to be extravagant. Something like special chocolates, tea, a wreath or better yet, products that are made in your local area! Personally I would go with something unique that you select and send rather than something ordered from an office gifts catalog.
  • Specifically thank your “multipliers.” Thanks to Grant Hamilton of Anglocom for teaching me this term! Especially if you work with direct clients, you probably have an advocate within the company who loves your work and encourages her/his superiors to use your services. Think about sending two cards or gifts: one to the company as a whole and one to your multiplier.
  • Here’s a wacky one: a holiday letter to your clients. Here in the US, it’s common for people to send a letter with their holiday cards, telling about what happened over the course of the last year. These letters are sometimes maligned for their braggy, “don’t you wish you were as happy as we are???” tone, but personally I enjoy reading them. Obviously you want to write a separate holiday letter for your clients; one that details your professional progress such as conferences, awards, large projects, publications, etc. and also thanks your clients for their trust and confidence in you over the past year. I don’t know…this one came to me while I was jogging this morning. Any thoughts?
  • And then there’s in-person visits at which you can present your holiday gift, thank the client for their business and find out how their year went. I think this is a high-investment, high-value strategy. I know of one medium-sized agency that visits nearly every one of their local clients during the holidays. Huge time outlay? You bet! Huge returns? Probably; especially if the competition is sending a low-quality card with a pre-printed mailing label.


Corinne McKay

Thoughts on 2011

If you’re a freelancer, it’s time to start thinking about your business-related tasks for wrapping up 2010 and starting 2011 on a positive note. A few thoughts:

  • Are you going to raise your rates? If so, think about how to raise them effectively. Are you going to raise your rates for new clients and keep existing clients at the same rate, or raise them across the board? Are you going to approach your regular clients in advance of the rate raise and see if they’re amenable, or inform them of the rate raise and see what happens? Keep in mind: it’s easier to raise your rates a little bit each year rather than trying to impose a drastic increase every few years; some agency clients may have a rate ceiling and it’s up to you if you want to work for that rate or not; in my opinion, the more objective you are about rates (by using a rate sheet or similar tool), the better.
  • What are your tax prep plans? Are you going to prepare your taxes yourself, stick with your current accountant or use a new accountant? Whichever option you choose, start early. My accountant has gotten me in the habit of closing out my books as soon as the year ends and preparing my taxes as soon as possible after that. This saves a lot of sleepless nights and hand-wringing in April!
  • How about year-end retirement (or other) contributions? Depending on the financial instrument, you may have until April 15 to make these contributions; but plan them now! Making a year-end contribution to your 401K or similar account can be a great way to save on taxes (make sure to check with a tax professional to make sure you’re doing this legally!), but make sure you budget accordingly.
  • And as for your goals? Force yourself to cast an objective eye on 2010. Be honest with yourself. What goals did you meet, exceed or fall short of? Most importantly, how can you make a step-by-step plan for reaching your goals in 2011?