Freelancing

After taking a couple of weeks off over the holidays for some digital detox and skiing in the Colorado mountains, I’ve been back at work since around January 4. I’m finally getting around to assessing how last year went, and looking ahead to what I’d like to accomplish in 2022.

Big-picture thoughts on 2021

My word of the year for 2021 was/is “and.” It was intense and hard in a lot of ways, *and* I accomplished some things that had been on my bucket list for a while. The ongoing COVID situation was really challenging to deal with, *and* I feel grateful for vaccines, and that I managed to sneak in a Europe trip during the three weeks when it looked like COVID was over. Pursuing conference interpreting is a whole new prong of my freelance business with so much to learn, *and* it’s been really healthy for me to venture out of my comfort zone. 2021 was a year of “ands.”

Income

Most basically, I’m happy with how much I earned in 2021: about US $102K, down slightly from the year before, but not bad considering I was in grad school for half the year, and an amount that I’m relatively happy with. I say “relatively happy” because I’d honestly like to aim for more like $140-$150K, because that would be on par with a six-figure corporate job, plus the additional expenses that we incur as freelancers (self-employment tax, paid vacation, professional development, etc.). I’m also relatively happy with the division of my income between translation, interpreting, and teaching/writing. I earned roughly

• 50K from translation for direct clients and agencies
• 10K from translation for individuals
• 9K from interpreting (coincidentally, exactly the same amount I earned from translation during my first year as a freelancer in 2003, which seems like a good omen)
• 20K from online classes I taught
• 10K from Training for Translators classes taught by other instructors (that’s net, after paying the instructor, my webinar assistant, and hosting expenses like Zoom and Thinkific)
• 3K from book royalties and consulting

Ideally, I’d love to make about 60K each from translation and interpreting and maintain my teaching income at around 30K, but that depends on how the interpreting side of my business develops (more on that below).

Conference interpreting: a whole new world

As I’ve written about here, and here, my major project for 2020-2021 was doing a Master’s in Conference Interpreting at Glendon College/York University. Classes finished in April, I took the exit exams at the very end of May, and got my results (pass!) at the very beginning of July. I then took most of July off, and started marketing for conference interpreting work in August. Here’s where I’m at with that, so far:

• I’d really like to apply to the US Department of State, but they haven’t tested anyone since March of 2020 and don’t yet have online testing options. So for now, that’s on hold.
• I’ve applied to about 100 agencies and am continuing to chop away at a long list of potential agency clients; those efforts have started to yield some interesting work.
• I’ve done some pro bono interpreting for a grassroots environmental organization and for an interpreting summit.
• I took and passed the test to interpret in the US immigration courts.
• I’m still interpreting for the Colorado state courts.
• Non-court legal work (mostly depositions) has picked up a lot.

Pluses and minuses so far:

• I love interpreting and I’m really glad that I did the Glendon program. Hands-down, it was the right decision for me.
• It’s definitely an advantage to have a Master’s from an AIIC-compliant program. I find that it opens a lot of doors, and that I get a much more enthusiastic response from most clients than I did when I was a beginner translator in 2002/2003.
• The ongoing COVID situation is a huge shakeup in the interpreting world. I think that at the outset, a lot of people just sat tight, thinking that everything would be back to in-person in six months. Two years later…I think a few factors are in play. These are just my personal opinion and I’m far from a seasoned interpreter, but here goes! 1) I think we’re in a bit of a dead zone where online events are no longer novel, Zoom is no longer exciting, but a lot of people still aren’t comfortable attending in-person events, nor do clients want to sink a bunch of money into an in-person event that might be cancelled at the last minute, and 2) Most online events simply are not as long as in-person events used to be, and some are radically shorter. I’ve had several potential conference interpreting clients tell me, “If you got your MCI in 2019, we could have immediately plugged you into a four-person team of interpreters working three-day in person events. But those events are now half-day online events which only require two people, and we need to keep our regular interpreters busy enough that they stick with us.” At the same time, I’m definitely seeing some clients (like the grassroots environmental organization) use interpreters simply because RSI is an option; in the past, they absolutely did not use interpreters. And finally 3) RSI, and online interpreting marketplaces, seem to be placing some of the same pressures on interpreters that translators have felt for a while: “Everyone else charges a one-hour minimum,” “Clients are refusing to pay for more than one interpreter for a one-hour meeting,” “We know the audio quality isn’t ideal, but just do your best.” For a long time, I think that conference interpreting was more of a bastion of solidarity between interpreters, where working conditions were substantially better than what a lot of translators will agree to, simply because there were no cracks in the conference interpreting wall. And now, I feel like that’s less true.

Highlights of the year

Finishing my conference interpreting Master’s was definitely a milestone, something I’ve wanted to do for a while and that honestly was made possible by the pandemic, when the Glendon program went online. I am still translating as much as ever, but I love interpreting and am having so much fun with it. I also turned 50 this year, and my back-of-the envelope plan is to work full-time for around another 20 years (then maybe semi-retire and translate books?). I wish I had done an MCI sooner, but I feel like I still have enough working years left to make my interpreting degree worth it.

In August, I felt safe enough COVID-wise to return to a co-working office, after working from a small private office for almost a year. My previous and much-loved co-working office went out of business in the pandemic, so I moved to a new office where I’ve been very happy.

In October, I attended the ATA conference in person, which was another highlight of the year. I presented an AST session that went well, and it was so great to see colleagues in 3D again.

I’ve been doing a lot more professional development (as a participant!) in the past few months. After being the one on the presenting end for a long time in the translation world, I’m actually enjoying the “beginner’s mind” aspect of attending interpreting workshops. And I highly recommend the offerings of Techforword and The Interpreting Coach!

What’s ahead for 2022?

Well, there’s a question! Mostly, I’m hoping to continue with my translation work and the Training for Translators side of my business, while expanding the interpreting side beyond court interpreting. I love court interpreting and have no plans to cut back on it, but I’m starting to get some conference work which is what I trained for at Glendon, so I’m excited about that.

I already submitted two proposals for the 2022 ATA conference (Los Angeles, here we come!), and I’m hopeful that this is the year that COVID really starts to wind down. Although, after saying that so many times, who really knows? However I’m excited about the opportunities this year will offer.

Readers, over to you! Any summaries of 2021 or goals for 2022?

As opposed to last summer, many of us may be thinking about taking an actual vacation this summer, meaning that we have to think about how to manage that while still managing our businesses. I love working, but I also love vacation, so I’ve honed a strategy that works for me. The key points are:

• First, make it possible to actually take vacation, from the financial standpoint. I do this by maintaining a business savings account, into which I deposit 40% of every payment from every client. This money goes (mostly) to taxes and other non-negotiable business expenses, but also to “paid vacation,” because I draw money out of that account to pay myself when I take time off.
• Decide whether you’re going to work while on vacation, and if so, how much. I make a point of taking at least one week in the summer and one week in the winter where I don’t have my laptop along. This physically prevents me from working; I can honestly tell clients, “I don’t have my work stuff with me,” and I feel that it’s important for my physical and mental health and for my family relationships. Over the years, I’ve taken up to a month off without a computer (and lived to tell!). And I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world to work for a few hours a day while on vacation; especially if you live in a culture such as the U.S. where most people simply do not take vacation, spending a couple of hours a day on e-mail and other “maintenance” tasks is certainly better than not taking any vacation.
• Be realistic about your clients’ expectations. Things like e-mail response time are very culturally-specific. In the U.S., it’s common for people to put on their auto-responder if they’re going to be unreachable for even half a day (I received two of these auto-responses yesterday!). In some cultures, it’s totally acceptable to respond to an e-mail a week later, and say, “Sorry it took me so long to get back to you, I was on vacation last week.” Just make sure you’re meeting the expectations of the clients you want to work with.
• Tell clients what to do in your absence. If you work mostly with agencies, this shouldn’t be hard: tell your clients your vacation dates as soon as you know them, remind your clients right before you leave, and then let them know that you’re back. Not too hard. With direct clients, it’s more complicated, because you may be the only translator they have for your language pair. Probably the easiest way to handle vacations if you work for direct clients is to schedule your vacations for your clients’ slow times (December and August?) or to take short-enough vacations (one week or less?) that your clients don’t really need a replacement translator. However if you’re going to take off a longer amount of time, or if your clients may really need you, you need a trusted colleague to fill in, and that person’s contact information needs to be on your auto-responder. I’ve done this multiple times with good results; clients appreciate it and I’ve never lost a client by doing this.
• Be realistic about how long you’ll need to catch up. My favorite way to ease back in from a vacation is to give myself a day (i.e. Sunday) to catch up on e-mail and other admin tasks before I start actually translating and interpreting again. Even if you can’t do that, don’t set yourself up for a post-vacation crash by assuming that you can simultaneously catch up and start working a full schedule immediately. Allow at least some time to catch up on backlogged e-mail, at a minimum.

Thanks to reader Jennifer O. for suggesting this topic: retainer agreements and whether they are a good idea for freelancers, or not. Let’s take a look:

First of all, what is a retainer agreement? Retainer agreements allow clients to purchase a fixed amount of your work (which could be hours, words, or something else) at a fixed price, which guarantees them that you’ll reserve time for their projects, and which guarantees you that the client will send you at least as much work as the retainer agreement covers. You could say that I have a retainer agreement with my website manager; for a flat monthly fee, he does things like monitor my traffic, update plugins, etc., and the ongoing monthly agreement means that I know he’ll block out time for that work, and he knows I’ll provide him with a certain amount of income each month.

In the translation industry, retainer agreements aren’t — in my experience — extremely common, but lots of freelancers still wonder about them, and whether retainer agreements could be good for their business. I most commonly hear from freelancers who have an ongoing client proposing a retainer agreement as a way to offer a guaranteed volume of work at a lower rate than they’re currently paying. For example the client may currently be paying 20 cents a word, and offers the freelancer, “If we guarantee you at least 10,000 words a month, could you do that for $1,800?”

Here are my tips for evaluating whether a retainer agreement is a good idea or not:

1. This sounds basic, but…how interested are you in ongoing work from regular clients? This is an important question, and one that many people don’t answer. Are you interested in committing part of your work time to one client on a consistent basis, or do you like to just see what comes your way? Are you already overloaded with well-paying work from regular clients that you enjoy working with? Ask yourself these questions before you go any further, because in my experience, many translation clients are interested in a retainer agreement that is financially advantageous for them: basically they want to pay a lower, or at least slightly lower rate in exchange for a guaranteed volume of work. In some cases, that can be a win-win: you get a “bird in the hand,” and they save some money. But it’s not always appealing: read on for some reasons why.
2. Most importantly, beware of “teaser” retainer agreements, along the lines of “We anticipate having a high volume of work for you, so can you charge us less than your regular rate?” First, this type of client needs to show me the words, or agree to pay my regular rate if this high volume doesn’t materialize. I would first ask this type of client how much volume they anticipate. Let’s say they estimate 10,000 words a month, at 10% less than my regular rate. First, I would evaluate whether this guaranteed volume of work is appealing to me, for economic or non-economic reasons (more on that below). Second, I would require the client to meet a volume benchmark in order to receive the discounted rate, such as, “Offering a 10% discount for 10,000 words a month or more works for me; however if the volume in any given month falls below 10,000 words, I will bill you at my regular rate.”
3. Remember that there are non-economic reasons for entering into retainer agreements. Many, or even most translators would rather work than look for work, and retainer agreements can allow you to do that. If you have several retainer agreements, they can even turn freelancing into something like a regular job where you set the hours. Let’s say that you have a client you really enjoy working with, whose budget is slightly less than you usually charge. Retainer agreements can allow you to work with them, while ensuring that they send you enough work to make the arrangement worth your time.
4. Also remember the worst reason for entering into a retainer agreement: because the client simply doesn’t have the budget for a professional translator, and you’re more loyal to them that you are to the success of your own business. Carol Tice has a great post on her blog, Make a Living Writing, on this very topic. It’s one thing to say, sure, I love working with you and I hate marketing, so I’ll discount my rate slightly, in exchange for a guaranteed volume of work. It’s another thing to say, sure, you don’t have the budget for a professional, so I’ll charge a rate that does not meet my financial goals, but we’ll just call it a retainer agreement so that I feel better about it.
5. Yet another option is a “hedge”or “on call” retainer agreement. I don’t necessarily recommend this, but let’s look at it anyway, for the sake of putting all the options on the table. In this type of agreement, the client would agree to pay you a lump sum, per month, whether they need you or not. Let’s say that a client often needs small projects done at short notice, and let’s say each project takes about an hour, three times a week. But some weeks they have no projects, so they don’t need you at all. You and that client might strike an arrangement where you reserve those three hours in your schedule, but even if the client doesn’t need you, they pay for one hour, in exchange for you keeping the three hours open. Again, not that common, but it could happen.

I hope you find those tips helpful! If you have anything to add, let’s hear it in the comments!