Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters

Freelancing


Corinne McKay

Reader asks: “Is this whole freelance thing worth it?”

“Is this whole freelance thing worth it?” It’s a somewhat pessimistic question, but one that I hear with some frequency from readers and students. Corollaries include “I worry about machine translation putting us out of business.” “I’m 57 and only plan on working for another 8-10 years.” “I’m working too hard for the amount of money I’m making.” “I thought I wouldn’t need to market this much.” “Between self-employment tax and paying my own benefits, I have to charge so much more than I thought.”

I’ve been there, grasshopper. When I started freelancing in 2002, I had the “is this worth it” conversation with myself about three times a day. Fourteen years in, here’s my take on some of these concerns.

On the negative side, just to get it out of the way:

  • I don’t lose sleep over machine translation. When computers are writing great books, I’ll worry. In terms of the effect on my business right now, I don’t worry. And for the record, I’m not an MT hater. I use Google Translate myself (when is that museum in Italy open and closed?). But I do think that at some point, we’ll feel MT eating into the lower end of the translation market. And inevitably, that will have some disruptive effect on the rest of the industry. Again, this is not keeping me awake, but I think we’ll feel it at some point.
  • Freelancing is really, really not for everyone. And if it’s not for you, it’s OK. It’s not a defect. You can have a salaried job and still be smart, and driven, and even entrepreneurial.
  • As independent work becomes more of a viable career option, more people are doing it. That causes its own disruptions. When I started freelancing in the early aughts, “I’m a freelancer” was about half a step above “I’m basically unemployed and don’t want to say it.” But in 2016, that’s not the case. Lots more people see freelancing as perhaps more stable than traditional employment. As compared with my early freelance days, I see more competition at the high end of the market, and more of a struggle to make a living at the low end. Personally I think that most “word professions” have followed a similar trajectory. Freelance writers deal with this too: lots more people pitching to the high-end clients, and “are you serious???” rates at the low end.
  • You probably have to earn more than you think. If you want to be a “forever” freelancer, you need a similar level of financial security to someone with a traditional job. That means a few things. It means you’re re-investing in your business (conferences, courses, computer upgrades, memberships). It means you’re saving for retirement. You have a rainy day fund so that you won’t be destitute if you can’t work for a few months. You can take enough time off to recharge and enjoy life. You’re not in perpetual overtime mode to make ends meet. And in order to do that, you’re looking at a pretty big number.
  • Freelancing is a (freaking) lot of work. Let’s say we rank people in most salaried jobs on a scale of 1-10. Some companies will only retain the 9s and 10s, but a lot of companies out there are doing the opposite. They’re only getting rid of the 1s and 2s. They’re promoting the 9s and 10s, and everyone else (3-8) is warming the chair and drawing a salary. In the freelance world, your tail is on the line every single day that you go to work. If you’re not a 9 or a 10, clients may just move on and find someone else. Being the director of marketing, IT person, customer service rep, accountant, bookkeeper, office cleaner, general admin person, AND doing the actual translation work puts a lot on your plate.
  • You will never be able to stop marketing. Unless, I guess, you work for big agencies that will always need you, and you never raise your rates. Otherwise, you always need to replenish the client pipeline. This year I lost a big direct client (literally) overnight, because they hired an employee who took over the translation work. Agencies will go out of business, or shift their own focus. If you cannot make yourself market, freelancing isn’t the right job.

But on the other hand (phew…I was waiting for this point, because I love my job and I want you to love it too!):

  • Pretty much any index you read will rank translation and interpreting as in-demand, fast-growing careers. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 29% increase in the demand for translators and interpreters through 2024. If my own teenage daughter wanted to become a translator or interpreter, I would wholeheartedly encourage her. Overall, I feel very positive about our industry and our job prospects.
  • Translation is a just plain awesome job if you love languages, writing, and learning new things. Translation has made me realize that I could never do a boring job. I can do a hard job, or a stressful job, or a job that requires ongoing professional development. But to me, boredom at work is death. Translation is a good job if you share that sentiment.
  • Your income potential may be higher than at a salaried job. For example, there are few to no in-house jobs for French to English translators here in Colorado. And I have just about zero desire to move to a major city. But by freelancing, I can run a thriving business from basically anywhere. When people comment that, “it must be hard to make ends meet when you’re self-employed,” I actually see the complete opposite side of that coin.
  • The freelance quality of life is an enormous factor. Don’t ignore it. This depends on your situation. Some people don’t mind, and even enjoy, the 9-5 culture. But I’ll use my own example: what would it take for me to accept an in-house job? Well, it would have to replace my freelance income (perhaps not in terms of cash, but including benefits and other compensation). It would have to let me leave work in time to be home when my kid gets home, so that I can take her to her after-school activities. I’ll make up the hours at other times, but I need a break at 3:00. It would have to let me reshuffle work when other members of my family (husband, parents) need me. It would have to give me 6 weeks of complete vacation (no paying work), plus another 2-3 weeks of “paid vacation,” when I’m working part-time from another location. And realistically, those factors are very, very unlikely to happen. At least not without a significant hit to my career advancement potential. So for those reasons alone, freelancing is very, very worth it for me.

    I’ll also say: the classic work/life balance example is kids. People who want to be home with their kids, or be home when their kids get home, etc. But as my own daughter gets older, I can see that the work/life factor doesn’t end there. For example now that I have a shred of free time, I’ve gotten into playing the lute. Then I found two (very patient) retired women who were willing to incorporate me into a little music group. We play together one morning a week, which I could never do with a salaried job. So, I also think it’s time to broaden the work/life focus beyond kids, and into “having a life outside work.”

Readers, thoughts on this? Advice on how to assess the “is it worth it?” factor for newbies?


Corinne McKay

Reader question: freelancing in the EU

A reader asks:

I am a freelancer working largely through agencies. I am retired and a US citizen, and I currently live in Vietnam. I am considering relocating to Europe – more specifically, France – and I am uncertain what the tax consequences would be. Currently I do not pay taxes to anybody except the USA, I am not paid directly in Vietnam for any work I do and none of my agency contacts are in Vietnam. My suspicion is that if I were to relocate to France I would have to pay French taxes on my work (and perhaps charge VAT) even though none of my clients are French and I am paid for all my work by transfer to accounts in the USA or Thailand currently.

I should say that I’m not an international tax expert, and I don’t live in the EU, so I’m mostly looking for input from other readers here. I have investigated freelancing in Switzerland since my husband is a Swiss citizen, but that’s a different situation since Switzerland is a member of the Schengen Area but not the EU. It seems to me that freelancers who want to do the location-independent thing for a while (and why not…it’s a huge advantage of our profession) have a few issues to think about:

  1. Immigration/visa requirements
  2. Tax requirements
  3. Getting paid

So let’s have at it! Readers, I’m looking to you for tips, so please add them in the comments.

Immigration/visa: this reader didn’t mention whether he’s a citizen of any EU/Schengen Area country, but let’s assume not. If you’re a US-only citizen, you’ll need to figure out how to legally stay for more than 90 days in the EU (after which, on a US passport at least, you have to leave for at least 90 days before you can re-enter). Here’s a post from Nomadic Matt that gives a good summary of the situation and your options. There are EU countries that issue long-stay tourist visas (I know two freelancers currently using that option: one in Spain and one in Italy), but it’s a long process to apply for one, and many countries will require that you have a significant amount of money in savings and that you waive your right to work while you’re there. It’s also a little unclear whether you’re considered to be “working” if, for example, you’re freelancing for clients in the US but living in France? More on that later…

Out-of-the-box options that might be worth investigating: The Savvy Backpacker has a full rundown of these, which may be more or less appealing depending on your financial resources and risk tolerance. Apparently, Germany has a freelancer visa that you can apply for in Germany, as opposed to other countries’ long-stay visas that you must apply for in your home country. If you have even a moderate interest in being a full-time student, you could investigate the student visa requirements for the country where you’d like to stay. There are also ethically dubious, but probably often-used, ways to stay in the EU: finding an inexpensive university program and paying the tuition in order to get a student visa, but never attending classes (or attending only on the first day so that there’s some record that you attended; overstaying your tourist visa, hoping you don’t get arrested for anything, leaving the EU over land or on a ferry (where you’re less likely to have your passport checked), and then flying out of a non-EU country. Not recommended, although many people probably do pursue those options.

Taxes:
Here I’ll have to defer to readers who know more about this than I do. Do not take any of this advice as reliable: always consult an attorney or tax professional before you make any decisions about taxes. Short version: it’s complicated. Basically, if you’re a US citizen, you probably have to file US taxes no matter where you live or earn money. This is unusual: I’ve even seen claims that only the US and Eritrea require non-resident citizens to pay tax on the income they earn while living abroad.

However, there is a substantial (up to $99,200 for the 2014 tax year) exclusion for *earned* income (not pensions, interest, capital gains, etc.). Note that this applies only if you meet the definition of “living outside the US”: currently, you must live outside the US for at least 330 days in the calendar year, not just for a majority of the year. I’m also not clear on whether that exclusion applies to income earned from US clients, because it’s called a “foreign income exclusion.” Here’s an article from The Freelancers Union that touches on some of those issues. Whether freelance work performed in a foreign country for a US client would be considered US-sourced or foreign-sourced, I’m not really sure.

Depending on where you live, you may also have to pay taxes in your country of residence. Here’s the IRS web page for US citizens and resident aliens abroad, and here’s the introduction to taxes abroad page from the American Citizens Abroad organization. Whether you have to pay in-country income tax depends on the US tax treaty with the country where you live. To answer our reader’s question, my impression (see disclaimer above) is that a US citizen in France would have to file a tax return in both the US and France, and pay French tax at least on his/her French-sourced income. Our reader comments that he doesn’t have any clients in France, so this might not be an issue for him.

To address the VAT issue: again, it’s complicated, not least of all because EU-based clients seem to have differing views on paying VAT on non-EU translators’ work. For example, many of my clients have told me that it’s financially advantageous for them to use non-EU translators because translation services procured outside the EU aren’t subject to VAT. But then, other translators have told me that that’s completely false, and that any translation service that an EU client pays for is subject to VAT. No clear answer there, unfortunately. Readers, I’m counting on you for some insights!

Getting paid
If you live abroad, it’s worth thinking about how your clients will pay you: not least of all because the payment method may affect your immigration status (complicated enough for you yet?). For example, if you’re a US citizen living in France, but with no French clients, and all of your clients are paying into your US bank account, it seems that you could make a reasonable argument that you’re not “working on the local economy.” But if you do have French clients and they’re paying into a French bank account, it might be hard to make that same argument. I think that it’s ethically fairly straightforward if your clients are in the US and paying into a US bank account; it’s less straightforward if you have clients in the country where you live. For example if you direct those in-country clients to pay into your US account, that might look fishy (tax evasion) if the in-country tax authorities investigate you.

The bottom line

Like lots of other things in life, this whole process is easier if you have a significant savings cushion. If you have enough money in savings or enough income from other sources (retirement accounts, investments, etc.) that you can present yourself as not needing to work in order to pay your basic living expenses, you have a much better chance of getting a long-stay tourist visa from an EU country. If you have all of your clients pay into your US bank account, with no income funneled through the EU country and no EU-based bank accounts, and you pay US taxes on what you earn, the chances are probably slim that you’ll run into trouble. The situation gets more complicated if a) you’re dependent on your freelance income to support yourself (as most of us are!) and/or b) you have clients in the country where you’re hoping to live.

I’m sure that there are some social/cultural factors at work as well. For example in our reader’s case, the fact that he’s retired from another career is probably a plus: he has an ostensible source of income in the form of personal savings, Social Security or a pension. I’d say that in the EU, it’s also more common for people to completely retire in their 60s, so people probably won’t wonder how our reader supports himself; that situation would be different for a younger person and certainly for a family. So, lots to think about here!

Readers, over to you (help!).


Corinne McKay

Food for thought: what if agencies were more transparent?

A short post, because I’d really like to hear from you. What would our industry look like if agencies were more transparent about what services they provide and what percentage of the total project fee they earn? For example:

In other types of “agent” relationships (authors, athletes, etc.), the client knows exactly what the agent will do, and what percentage of the total billings they will take in exchange. If you find a salaried job through a recruiter, they get a percentage of your first year’s salary, and you know what that percentage is.

This idea came to me for a few reasons. Good agencies have trouble finding good translators, even if they are willing to pay/interested in paying/desperate to pay real money for their services. Partially, this is because some good translators have had it with agencies and will only work with direct clients. A more transparent model could solve some of that problem. In addition, a more transparent model would make it clear that the agency is adding value (or not), and translators could choose to jump on that value (or not).

For example, I understand it when translators rail about “agencies that add no value,” and simply forward e-mails back and forth from the end client to the translator. I get it, and I also avoid working for those types of agencies. But I also think that agencies add a value that they don’t always trumpet: finding the client in the first place. As anyone who works with direct clients will tell you, finding them is a lot of work. It takes time and creativity and persistence and research, so the fact that a translator who works with agencies is freed from that step in the process should be worth a lot, and agencies don’t always point that out.

So what about this. The agency tells the translator how much they’re charging the end client. Sometimes translators already know this, because agency staff mistakenly send us e-mails meant for the end client. In any case, my assumption is that my agency clients are charging the end client 2-3 times what they’re paying me, and I’m OK with that. Then, the agency takes a set percentage of that amount, just for having found the client in the first place. Then, the rest of the agency’s fee is based on what they actually do; the translator knows whether the document is being edited by another translator in the same language pair, or proofed by a speaker of the target language, or not reviewed at all, and the agency charges accordingly. It seems like this would also allow translators to gravitate to agencies that provide the level of service that they want or need. For example, I spend a lot of time researching and marketing to direct clients, and I’d rather work with my own editors than with an anonymous editor provided by an agency. So, I’d be interested in working with an agency (or perhaps more accurately, an agent) who would simply find clients for me, forward the work back and forth and take a percentage of my billings.

Further disclaimer: I’m not at all anti-agency. I disagree with translators who call agencies “parasites,” and I really enjoy working with my agency clients because they let me focus on the parts of the job that I enjoy and am good at. But I think that a) agencies need to do a better job of highlighting their strengths (such as finding and retaining clients), and b) there’s room in the market for more of a commission-based “translator’s agent.”

An idea whose time has come, or a non-starter? Over to you!


Corinne McKay

Beyond the Basics of Freelancing: FULL

Update: the May 14 session of Beyond the Basics is now full. Registration is open for the August 20 session (same links as below)

The next session of my online course Beyond the Basics of Freelancing starts next Wednesday (May 14) and I have four spots left. The course lasts four weeks and is for established freelance translators who want to work with higher-quality agencies and with direct clients. Everyone gets individualized feedback from me on four homework assignments: the current state of your business; marketing to the clients you want rather than taking the work that falls in the inbox;  money matters (rates and income) and creating a plan to move your business forward. In addition, everyone gets a one-hour individual consulting call with me, and we do four one-hour question and answer conference calls with the whole group. The last session went quite well, with this feedback from a student:

This course boosted my confidence immensely in terms of how to look for work and it gave me a sense of direction and of what I need to do in order to find long-term success as a freelance translator. Before, I felt as though I was reaching around in the dark and this course has really clarified the “how-to” business aspects for me.

Registration is $325, with a $50 discount for members of the American Translators Association. Read the full description or register on my website, and you can also read about/register for my beginner-level class, Getting Started as a Freelance Translator, which starts on June 18 (seven spots left in that session).


Corinne McKay

Beyond the Basics of Freelancing: starts May 14

I just wrapped up the “beta” session of my new online course Beyond the Basics of Freelancing and it went well; this class has been bumping around in my head for years and it felt good to finally launch it with a full session of ten great translators! We focused on various topics for the intermediate/advanced freelancer, such as writing different marketing materials for agencies and direct clients, identifying potential direct clients and ways to make contact with them, and how to set rates for various freelance services. Here’s some feedback from the participants:

Corinne is a blessing to all of us translators that have not reached terminal velocity yet. She is very knowledgeable about all aspects of a freelance translator’s challenges and has great passion for helping her students. Her books are great, but her online course is even better, because you take a feeling of “I can do this!” from it. I had a big increase in income the year after I took Corinne’s course and I attribute a large portion of that success to Corinne. I could not think of a better way to give your freelancing career a big boost than taking her course. Very inspirational, very valuable information, great program all-round!

Corinne’s course arrived just at the right moment in my freelance translation career, at this crossroads where you know you have to move up in terms of client base, rates and overall income, but you just don’t know where to start or how to do. Corinne has been a source of inspiration and motivation, as well as a role model, throughout the course and I will do my best to follow her advice – I want to be just as happy with my career as she is!

I feel very proud of being a follower of this “beta” session of Beyond the Basics course. The course was extremely well-structured, the topics were of great use to me and to my ongoing full-time freelance activity. Corinne is a passionate and skilled professional and teacher, she is always available and is a volcano of ideas and energies. This course helped me increasing my self-confidence and faith in what I do, it helped me out of the same ideas I sometimes indulge into and opened up a variety of options I would have never thought could be possible in translating and in marketing strategies. We are important as freelancers, as translators and as interpreters, we need to believe in this and to do our best to let the others understand that as well. I warmly advise everyone to follow the course.

The next session of the course starts on May 14 ($325; $50 discount for ATA members), so please hop on over to my business website to read a full description or to sign up.