London Book Fair

It’s time for the annual London Book Fair. I don’t think I can go this year, but I urge those of you in the UK who can to do so. There are plenty of translation events (many organized by the BCLT), and it’s always great to meet fellow translators, writers, editors, publishers, and others.

Another thing I like about events such as the LBF is how you can almost do an ethnographic study there. The different countries (and different publishers and organizations) have very different stands, and the stands often reflect their culture. It’s fascinating to go talk to people from, say, Saudi Arabia, then Nigeria, then China, then Finland, then Mexico, and so on. It’s almost like travelling the world in just a few hours.

Translation as a Profession

I am always quite excited when it seems that more attention is paid to translation and to translators. Our profession needs more understanding and recognition. And it needs more talented people. I encourage people to learn more about translation. But sometimes I wonder about some of the people who join the field, or who attempt to join it, or who show interest in it.

I get many emails asking for advice about how to become a translator. In the past year or so, perhaps along with the economic crisis, I’ve been disturbed to see an increase to the number of messages I get where people tell me that they need a job and think their language skills are pretty good, or that they’ve lived in a certain country and believe they could translate that country’s literature, or that they really would rather do something else, but this is a good option because they could do it from home, in between taking their kids to school, and so on.

Translation is not an easy profession. It’s a satisfying and thrilling and stimulating one, in my opinion, but it isn’t right for everyone. Nor is everyone right for translation. It is not a job to do because you happen to know a particular language sort of well. It’s not a field you can just break into by deciding that it’s the best option. It’s not something you can do while waiting for something better to come along, or even while waiting for your kids at their sports events or dance classes. It’s a profession, which means translators must be professional. Ideally, they’d also be passionate.

So if you are unsure about translation as a career and you think it is a fast and simple way of earning money, let me assure you that you are wrong. It isn’t and you’d be better off picking another job. However, if you are truly linguistically talented and knowledgeable about languages and cultures, this might be the right career for you.

A Roar for Powerful Writing

For the last post of the year, I’m going to discuss powerful writing.

Not long ago, I was honored with a “roar for powerful writing”. See Erika Dreifus’ very kind post for more on that. And see this site for more on the roar.

The “roar” requires that those roared at list three things that they think are needed for powerful writing and also that they then roar at five others.

First of all, I think writers have to learn to not be afraid. It can be really hard, I know; there have been many times when I’ve not written something, or else written it but kept it to myself, for fear of offending others. As I get older, however, I realize that holding yourself back in that way or not being completely honest works against the writing, and can affect you personally, too. I’m learning to let go of my fears and hang-ups, and to open myself, in order to allow the written work (including translation) to be all that it could be.

That relates to my second point. My own writing has suffered both when I have tried to rein in my topics/opinions/feelings and also when I’ve tried to write about things I didn’t honestly care about. So now I know that without passion and engagement, my piece isn’t going anywhere. Not only that, but if I don’t care, why should the reader?

A third comment follows from the last two. You may have an interesting topic and you may be ready to write about it without worrying excessively about other people’s feelings, but you also need to write about it in a way that isn’t forced or awkward. I’m in favor of keeping it simple, which means don’t overreach or make a text more complicated than necessary. No jargon (unless strictly required). I read way too many articles and books by authors who seem to think that by using bigger and/or more specialized words and many clauses, their work will seem more intelligent. It doesn’t. It seems pretentious and often it is clear that the overly fancy language is trying to hide what really is just a small idea (or no idea). Don’t force the language. Let it work for you and for your ideas.

On to the bloggers I’d like to roar at. Unfortunately for me, Erika’s two blogs, one on writing and the other on Jewish topics, are the first ones I would have thought of to link to. So I want to roar back at her. Now, for five more blogs that I enjoy; none, you might be interested to know, are about translation, though one is about language in general. Instead, they are on other topics that are fascinating for their own sake but these enthusiastic, talented bloggers find a way of drawing in readers even more. That’s why their writing is powerful.

Carl Zimmer writes about science for the New York Times, among other publications. His blog sometimes goes into more depth than his articles have space for and he also discusses other topics as well. I’m no scientist, but I learn a lot from his writing, and sometimes wish I were a scientist because he makes it so interesting.

I enjoy the career advice over at Penelope Trunk’s blog, Brazen Careerist. Not all of it is directly applicable to me as a translator or a freelancer, of course, but the ideas are often worth thinking about or storing away for possible future use.

I recently discovered Margaret Robinson’s website, which has a lot of interesting, well-written material on issues of sexuality, particularly bisexuality. I was glad to see that she has a blog, too, so that I could include her here, though the blog is new and so far doesn’t have too many posts.

I liked Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt’s book Freakonomics, so I was excited to see that they started writing for the NY Times Magazine some time back, and now they have a blog there as well. Popularizing science and social science is getting more common these days, but I still think Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt are among the best at doing it.

Finally, because I can’t not include a blog on language, I want to mention David Crystal’s blog. As you can see from his regular website, he is a prolific writer and an expert on the English language. His book The Stories of English is a good history of a tongue that, as these blogs reveal, can be used very powerfully indeed.

Thank you again to Erika for roaring at me. I hope you enjoy the sites I have now roared at.

Have a wonderful 2008, filled with powerful writing and powerful translations!

Making Sales

The last post looked at marketing. On the same day I attended Keith MacGregor’s workshop, I also attended one by Helen Jones on how to sell our products/services to customers.

Ms. Jones started her workshop by saying that many people have negative perceptions of selling. They imagine that it means persuading people to buy things they don’t need or want. On the contrary, she said, selling is not coercion. It is communicating, explaining to people who you are and what you can offer them.

She described Cialdini’s six principles of influence, which relate to the process of selling products/services. The six principles are: reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. Yes, some of these techniques might sound a little sneaky, but I am just passing on what I learned, not necessarily recommending everything described here.

Reciprocation means that if someone does something for you, you then owe them a favor. For sales, there are two major techniques: give something to your potential client first, or else create rejection first (by beginning to say something, for example, then cutting yourself off, and saying “No, never mind. You probably won’t be interested.”). In either case, the client might then feel duty-bound to listen to your sales pitch.

Having commitment and consistency means that you follow through on what you say and also that you have a consistent (typically professional, reliable, and trustworthy) image. This relates to liking, since the image you portray and your personality help clients like you.

Social proof refers to other people recommending you and believing in you and your products. There is a difference between when a salesperson describes a product and when a friend does so; you are more likely to believe your friend, colleague, or relative, who presumably has nothing to gain by making a recommendation, than you are to believe a salesperson, who clearly has to push a certain product in order to make a living. This is why some brochures or websites list quotes from satisfied customers.

Showing your authority is a beneficial way of getting customers to realize that you have the experience and knowledge necessary. Therefore, do not be shy about mentioning your degrees, what training you have, your memberships, and so on. All this is proof of your qualification to do the job well.

The last principle, scarcity, doesn’t relate to our field so much, but it means that if people believe a product is scarce, rare, or in a limited edition, they tend to be more willing to buy it quickly and to pay higher prices.

Ms. Jones then discussed the six steps to a sale: preparation and planning, identifying potential customers, deciding on the marketing strategy, selling the product/service and closing the sale, delivering the product/service, and collecting payment.

The first three steps are related to what was described in the mentioned in the previous post. You need to know what it is you are selling and why it is different from that offered by your competitors, then you need to find your customers, and offer them this information. Here, you can use the specific features of your product/service that you came up with for your marketing plan, but Ms. Jones said that it isn’t enough to just name the features; rather, you need to also say what the benefit is to the customers. For example, if you have lived in five countries and can speak seven languages, that means you have more cross-cultural knowledge and can therefore help your clients create documents that truly work in the target culture.

After you have marketed your product/service, you need to sell it. Whether you are out on a sales call or having discussions with a client in your office/over the phone/by e-mail, the steps are the same. You need to be prepared to introduce yourself and your product/service in detail and you should find out what the client’s exact needs are. Explain how you can fill that need and describe your features and benefits.

Your client may have objections; Ms. Jones felt that price is often mentioned, but it is usually a red herring. If a client says the price is too high, you can ask, “If I give you a 5% discount, would you then be happy to buy?” However, she warned that you shouldn’t be too quick to give discounts, or if you do, you should make it clear that the customer will lose something by taking the discount, such as “I can give you a 10% discount, but then there will be no free delivery and you will not get access to the helpline.”, and/or you can say that the discount is only a first-time offer. Ms. Jones said that if you are willing to quickly discount, clients will get suspicious and think that your prices must be quite inflated. She also said that asking questions about the objections is useful. For example, if you have said “If I give you a 5% discount, would you then be happy to buy?” and the client then admits that she or he thinks the quality might not be high enough, you can say, “What concerns you about the quality?” Then you can give explanations, such as about the materials you use or the warranties you include.

After you have dealt with any objections or concerns the client may have had, it is time to close the sale. Confirm all the terms – what you will deliver and when, how much it will cost, when the client will pay – so that you both know what is being agreed upon, and also to remind yourself, so you don’t later have to call up the client and ask embarrassing questions, the answers to which you should have known. Next, thank the client and leave and/or end the meeting. Ms. Jones said many people, especially new businesspeople, get scared at this point and they keep talking, giving the client a chance to back out of the deal or to get buyer’s remorse. So she recommended that as soon you have completed the agreement, politely finish the discussion.

But you aren’t finished yet. Now you have to deliver the product/service. If you are unable to fulfill the contract for any reason, do not wait until the last minute to tell the client. Tell him or her as soon as you know that your supplier has not come through or that you have a problem with your computer, and offer to find someone else or to help in some other way. If you handle this professionally, the customer may return to you another time; if not, she or he might even discuss you negatively with colleagues, making you lose even more potential future business.

Finally, you need to collect the payment. As Ms. Jones said, “A sale is not complete until you collect payment. Not when they say ‘yes.’” You are not, as she put it, “a glorified charity” and “if they haven’t paid, your business is going nowhere.” So make sure you have agreed on the payment terms in advance and that you invoice the client immediately. If they try to take advantage – they have, after all, presumably already received the work from you, so they may try to force you into agreeing to a discount or to re-negotiate in some other way – be firm. This won’t work for most translation jobs, but Ms. Jones mentioned times when a client tried to nastily re-negotiate with her and she actually destroyed the work rather than be “pushed over a barrel.” An important note is that you should not keep delivering work or agreeing to work with this client if you do not get payment in a timely fashion. But, as Ms. Jones said, “It is easier to safeguard yourself than to mop up afterwards,” so try to make sure you know that you are working with someone you keeps his or her end of bargains and/or try to get at least part of the payment up-front.

Hopefully, this advice on marketing and selling will help your translation business!

Marketing Your Business

In June, I attended a workshop on marketing run by Keith MacGregor. Mr. MacGregor, who has a public relations firm in Cardiff, Wales, said that finance and marketing are the two most important aspects of a business, but they are also the two that people avoid or don’t really understand.

Marketing is communication. You want to communicate to potential customers what is different and valuable about your company/services; the goal of marketing is to get known and to get sales. This is a continuous process, one that you will work on as long as you offer services/products, and not something you do just once, as in a series of advertisements.

There are many different ways of marketing, though most people assume that the only way to market is buy ads in newspapers, trade publications, yellow pages, and so on. Mr. MacGregor mentioned the following kinds of marketing: advertising, public relations, direct mail, direct e-mail, having a website, leaflets/brochures, leaflet drops, launches, open days, other events, networking, radio, television, telesales, and newsletters. For translators, I’d also add that membership in associations is also a form of marketing.

With all these choices, though, how do you how best to market your own services/products? Before you get to the point of choosing how to market, Mr. MacGregor suggested that you first make a list of the six specific things that make your business different from that of your competitors. Maybe you’re cheaper, or you offer better service since you work longer hours and can answer e-mails even late in the evening, or you have lived in five countries and can speak seven languages and therefore have more knowledge and experience, etc. These reasons will form part of your message. After you have carefully thought about this, figure out who your customers are and how you can find them. The next step is to review the options for marketing and then consider what the best way/s to reach your customers would be and what you can afford.

Then you can create a detailed marketing plan. Decide what marketing activities you will do and how much they will cost, what your objectives are with this marketing (for example, to find five more customers, or to let people know about a new service you are now offering), identify your target markets, and begin the marketing, which should have consistent messages and consistent designs. Mr. MacGregor warned that that is not the end of the procedure, however. You must regularly review how the marketing is working, so you can adjust your marketing plan if necessary, and you should also follow up with potential new customers. If you sent out letters by direct mail, for example, call the people you wrote, remind them of who you are, and try to interest them in your business. You might also want to ask new customers how they heard of you, so you can track which strategies are working best for your business.

As Mr. MacGregor said, “It is one thing to have a good business. It’s another thing to convey it in a marketable way.” As translators, it’s easy to just assume that people know they need us and know how to find us. Actually, though, we need to think about why customers should choose us over other translators and how we can reach those customers.

The next post will be about the step after marketing – sales.

A Job for “Professioanls” Who Don’t Mind “Loosing”

I’m on a lot of translation lists, and advertisements of translation jobs are a frequent feature of several of them. Not long ago, I saw one job that was so ridiculous that I had to mention it here.

The would-be employer was looking urgently for a highly qualified translator with at least 25 years of experience, who was a member of “professioanl associations”, and willing to translate one million words of a legal text from Arabic to English at, of course, competitive rates. The employer could not afford to pay “unrealistic American and European sky-high rates”, but noted that “whatever you might loose financially on this very BIG job, and others to come in future, you will “definetely” gain in-kind out of this mine of unprecedent legal terminology.”

Hmm, let’s see – does anyone know a single “professioanl” translator with 25 years of experience who would seriously consider a job in which they would “loose financially”, especially knowing that this job would likely lead to more work in which they would “definetely” “loose” more?

Job offers like this, which unfortunately aren’t as uncommon as you’d think, add to my feeling that we translators have to educate our customers.

Do You Have What it Takes to Be a Translator?

Here is a recent article, published online at Writing-World.com, that explores reasons why few writers incorporate translation into their careers.

Do You Have What it Takes to Be a Translator?

Translation, just like writing, is a creative, challenging craft that requires excellent writing, analytic, and editing abilities, as well as a love and feel for language. The major differences between translating and writing, of course, are that translators must have near-native skills in at least two languages, and work with transferring words an author has written in one language into another language, whereas writers need only work with one language and with their own thoughts and texts.

Writers are the ideal people to work as translators because they generally already have excellent writing and language skills and an enthusiasm for words, yet not many attempt it. There are several possible reasons for why few writers make translation part of their business.

The first is a belief that translating is less creative or interesting than writing. As both a writer and a translator, I'd argue that translation is incredibly demanding and creative. The limits imposed by the fact that a translator has to understand what the author meant and be able to recreate it in another language for a different audience forces translators to work very hard to find just the right way to express the author's thoughts given the target language's vocabulary, grammar, melody, and culture. This process can be compared to how some poets prefer to write haikus or sonnets rather than free verse, or how some fiction writers create artificial rules for their work (they can't use a certain letter, for example, or they have to focus on a specific topic). The fact is that the restrictions imposed by the form compel translators to be creative in a new way.

The second reason is that writers don't think they can earn money by translating. It's true that literary translation generally does not pay well and that it can be difficult to find such work; most English-speaking countries publish few literary translations, in part because publishers don't see much importance or profit in foreign literature and thus aren't eager to pay for it. Nonfiction translation, however, is very lucrative. Literary translators report getting around $2000 per novel, while nonfiction translators can earn that in just a week or two. Rates vary quite a bit, depending on the location, customer, level of difficulty, and the languages involved, but 12¢ per word is about average. Large companies with customers in many countries need translators and are willing to pay for quality work. Although some writers fear that it would be boring to translate user manuals or articles, such work can be quite stimulating and demanding. Translating court documents, for example, can be like reading a thriller; working on annual reports can teach you something about finance; while translating advertisements requires not just an understanding of language, but an ability to subtly make the ads more appropriate for the new culture. Translators I have spoken to report just as much satisfaction from finding the right word for a translation of a website as they do for a poem.

The final reason why writers are reluctant to seek translation work is because many simply don't know where to begin. The easiest way to start is sign up with translation agencies and to join one or more of the many e-lists that focus on translation. It is generally more common for translators to work for agencies rather than directly with customers, especially when starting out. Though agencies usually pay less, many translators like working for agencies because then they don't have to try to market to, contact, and sell their services to customers and also because agencies edit all the translations before sending them to the end clients, which means that an extra pair of eyes always checks over the work.

E-lists are useful because they often have job announcements and one can also meet other translators through them; more experienced translators might have advice for new ones, and they also might have too much work on occasion and be willing to subcontract assignments. For people who are more serious about translation, joining a professional organization, such as the American Translators Association or the International Federation of Translators, is a good credential. Such associations often have databases of translators where potential customers can find you, as well as newsletters with information, and conferences to attend. It's not cheap to join professional organizations, but the investment is worthwhile. Finally, make sure you tell your family, friends, neighbors, bosses, writing clients, and everyone else that you work as a translator. You might be surprised by how many people know someone who needs a translator and how many jobs friends or colleagues can pass on to you. In any business, making contacts is important.

Translation is a creative and stimulating art and craft, it can be lucrative, and there are easy steps new translators can take to find business. Not least, many writers are uniquely suited to being translators. All that remains now is for writers to expand their writerly horizons and start translating!

Just Be Honest

As a brief follow-up to the recent post about writing letters of inquiry, I have to add one more piece of advice. I didn’t mention it before because it seems so obvious, but then I received yet another such letter from a freelancer and his letter made me realize that sometimes the obvious is, well, not quite so obvious.

Here it is: you can, and should, proudly mention your education, your work experience, your skills, and anything else related to the prospective job that sets you apart from all other applicants, but please, do not pretend to be, do, or know more than is actually true. In other words, do not exaggerate or lie in any way.

If a potential employer believes that you are not being completely honest, she or he will not feel enthused or confident about hiring you. And if someone does ask for more information or even hires you, but later discovers you were not telling the truth – perhaps by the low quality of your work or by you being unable to do something you claimed you were proficient at – not only will that negatively affect your working relationship with that person (as in, you probably won’t have a working relationship anymore and she or he will certainly not recommend you to others), but you may also make that employer more suspicious and less likely to employ other freelancers in the future. Even one small lie can make things difficult for yourself and for others.

If you are exaggerating because you feel you don’t have enough experience, be honest about that instead and realize that you may have to accept lower fees or less challenging work until you can build up your CV. If you are exaggerating because it is part of your culture to do so, keep in mind that this may not work in other cultures and that you might have to adjust your approach. If you are exaggerating to make yourself feel better in some way, that is something for you to think seriously about.

So, do not say you have near-native fluency in seven languages (like that “interpreter” mentioned a few posts back) or that you are equally comfortable with literary, financial, legal, technical, and academic documents, or that you regularly translate 15,000 words a day. Do not pretend to have degrees from schools you only took one or two classes at or that you are familiar with all the translation software programs when you have in fact just heard about them. Do not give as references people who wouldn’t even recognize your name, and do not lard your CV with claims of work that you did not actually do.

To summarize, be honest about who you are and what you can do. Often, that’s good enough, and there is no need to employ exaggeration or lies; doing so will probably backfire in some way, and it will likely make you disappointed in yourself as well.

Writing Good Letters of Inquiry: Advice for Freelancers

Lately, there’s been a plethora of new freelance translators wildly sending out their CVs to any translation agencies, companies, or even other freelance translators that they find. Most of us who get these e-mail messages tend to ignore them. Why? What are these new translators doing wrong? Or, rather, let me rephrase that question positively and ask: How should freelancer translators write good letters of inquiry?

First of all, if you’re looking for work – and this applies to any job, not just translation – you need to do some research. I suspect that many of these new translators are buying or finding lists of translation companies on translation websites or else that they are doing quick Google searches and that they don’t bother to carefully look at the companies’ websites before hurriedly sending off letters of interest. If you translate from Spanish to Chinese, there is no point in writing to a company that only works with Scandinavian languages. If you only have experience translating personal letters, don’t try to get work at a company that just hires authorized translators. And, frankly, there isn’t much call at all for you to write to other freelance translators, since chances are that they don’t want or need to hire someone, and that even if they do, they already have the contacts they need. So make sure you check to see what languages and what subjects each potential employer works with, and what needs they might have, before you waste both your time and theirs sending them a letter.

Once you have narrowed down your list and know where you want to inquire about work, you have to write a good, brief letter. Some of the applicants who have sent me letters have rambled on about themselves or mentioned things that have little to do with translation, and that doesn’t make me want to keep reading. Say who you are, what your background is, what you can offer the company you are writing to, and why you are interested in just that company. Each letter should be personalized; it is always obvious when someone is sending out a mass mailing (especially when there are lots of e-mail addresses listed in the “To” and “CC” fields, which really looks unprofessional) and mass mailings show that little thought or effort went into it, and that won’t make people want to hire you. This is why research is so essential; if you know something about the company, you’ll be able to add a sentence or two about why you would fit in well with their business objectives and needs. If they haven’t advertised for new freelancers (and, of course, even if they have), then you have to be able to clearly and succinctly explain why they ought to consider you.

Speaking of personalization, find out the actual name of the person you are writing to and don’t just write “Dear Madam/Sir.” If you are unsure of the gender of the person you are addressing, study the company’s website a little more; usually, the biographical information will refer to the person as “he” or “she” and then you know whether to use “Mr.” or “Ms.” Don’t use first names (or any other casual language or slang, for that matter) and make sure you spell the name of the person and the company correctly. In fact, check all your spelling carefully. Correct spelling and good language usage are always important, but this is particularly the case when you want to work with language!

So, if you want your letters of inquiry to be read, start by doing thorough research, then target your letters appropriately, write personalized and brief letters, and use correct, polite language. If you take the time and make the effort to look for work in this way, potential employers will see that you are conscientious and careful, and they will be more likely to consider your application, instead of just reading a sentence or two, getting frustrated and annoyed, and deleting your letter.

Translator Cupids

A brief article in today’s Chicago Tribune highlights the translation profession, and it focuses on an interesting, little discussed area: translators who help love along.

It has long been common – and necessary – to have interpreters at business meetings or similar events when people from more than one country attend, but with the increase in intercultural relationships, interpreters are also needed at multi-ethnic weddings and other family gatherings. This article also mentions the translation of letters exchanged after flings, and the possibility of interpreters needed on dates between two people from different cultures.

I personally probably wouldn’t want to be an interpreter on a date (although it could be an unusual experience!), but I have met someone who interpreted at an event that occurred some months after a date: the birth of a child!

It’s great to see people being educated about what translators and interpreters do, and how we can be useful in any stage of life, including romance.

Educating the Customer

In the most recent issue of the Translation Journal, I have an article entitled ‘Educating the Customer.’ I’ve posted it below, but there are other interesting articles to read in the Translation Journal, so check it out. And let me know if you have any other ideas on how to educate customers!

Educating the Customer

“$35 to translate that? I heard there are computer programs that can do the same thing,” a potential customer complained to me once. It wasn’t the first time someone had said something along those lines. “My colleague was very pleased with your work,” another person told me, “but I found someone who could do it much cheaper.” While many customers don’t seem to know much about the translation process, a surprising number of them do seem to have pretty firm ideas about who can translate and how much it should cost.

I’ll never forget the Friday night when a customer e-mailed me a bunch of documents at 10 p.m. with instructions to have everything translated by Monday morning. He had not asked me if I was available to translate that weekend, if I was proficient in the field the documents covered, or even how much it would cost. I wrote him back within the hour (yes, I was actually working then anyway!) to tell him that because his assignment was a weekend rush job it would cost more than usual, and he sent me an angry response in the middle of the night. “I suspect that you and I have vastly different ideas about working together,” he wrote. “There is no way I am paying that amount.”

In May, at the annual conference for the Swedish Association of Professional Translators, translator David Rumsey gave a lecture about the United States translation market. Something he mentioned was that one reason why the American market is large but underdeveloped is because there are pervasive myths there about what exactly translation involves. Mr. Rumsey mentioned that many Americans believe that translation is simply “typing in a foreign language,” and others think anyone can do it (say, the secretary whose grandpa came from Puerto Rico, or the Chinese chef at a restaurant), and still others have heard that there’s translation software that’s just as good as, or possibly better than, actual people. Mr. Rumsey may consider these false beliefs American, but the fact is that they are not unique to the United States. Many translators I’ve spoken to, whether from Sweden, England, the United States, or elsewhere, have shared tales about customers who claimed they’d go find “some student” or “ask the foreign neighbor for help” rather than pay a professional translator to do the job correctly.

If so many translators have stories like these, the question then becomes how to educate customers about what translation really is and why it is worthwhile to pay for professional services. To start off, translators can include detailed information about their background, their work methods, and their opinions about translation in any marketing material they use, including their websites. This sounds obvious, but there are people who think that their job title means enough on its own, or that since translation is necessary and important, it can sell itself. While some customers may simply skim over whatever you write and instead just request an estimate, many are curious and will read the text. If you have been to law school and specialize in legal texts, for example, or if you have translated a dozen novels, or if you have attended programs in translation, or if you worked as an engineer for 15 years before becoming a translator of technical manuals, announce those facts and describe what they mean for you as a translator; potential clients will be impressed and will know that you clearly are qualified for the job and will expect to be paid accordingly. You can also write about why translation is important and how your services will help the customers. If you translate grades for students who want to apply to study abroad, point out that you are certified, or if you work primarily for corporate clients, tell them that if they expect to sell products to customers in other countries, it is essential that the language on their website or in their users’ manuals is correct. Give examples of poor mistranslations that they should want to avoid, and remind them that without good translation, their customers won’t trust in the quality of their products or services. By the way, take that advice yourself, too, and make sure your own website is flawless; if necessary, hire a copy editor to review any foreign language pages you have written.

Another step we translators can take is to turn down any assignments that are outside our fields of expertise. It is tempting to want to accept all jobs and to want to convince customers that we are excellent all-around translators, but honestly telling people that you work only on medical documents and never on poems, or that you are comfortable with genealogy but not with contracts, makes them more aware that each translation is a specific text with its own requirements and that special skills and knowledge are needed. Just as a heart surgeon wouldn’t think of treating a patient’s allergies and a professor of Victorian literature wouldn’t dare teach a physics course, neither should translators attempt work on subjects that are far out of their own fields. That doesn’t mean, of course, that translators can’t learn about new areas and add new specializations, but it is not professional to endeavor to do that in just a couple of days and if you don’t do a good job, you will not only have lost a customer, but also anyone he would have recommended you to. If you turn down an assignment, try to recommend an appropriate colleague for it. Both your colleague and your customer will appreciate it; the former may in turn offer you jobs in your field, and the latter will remember the extra service you provided and may return to you with other assignments in the future.

Something I try to do whenever I receive a shocked response to an estimate is to write a polite e-mail in which I explain what is involved in translation and how I arrived at the price. If a lot of research is required in order to find specific technical words or if the assignment requires you to work nights or over a weekend, tell the customer. If you are expected to complete a large job in a short period of time or if you will have to go to a university library to use reference books that are only found there, explain that. Don’t be shy about saying how many hours you anticipate a translation to take you or about describing what the work will demand of you; most people don’t understand what goes into a translation and they may, as Mr. Rumsey said, view it as merely “typing in a foreign language.” I have more than once told customers how long their documents would take me to translate, how much tax I would pay, what amount would be left over, and how much that equaled per hour of work. Some people were definitely surprised at the minimum wage the fee they offered me turned out to be, and they understood that the prices I named weren’t just randomly chosen but that they had been carefully considered. Others were interested to learn that a translator didn’t just sit down at a computer and look up words in a dictionary for a few minutes and then the assignment was finished. It is unfortunately easy to take a job for granted when you don’t know what it really involves.

In his lecture, Mr. Rumsey offered some other ideas. He suggested that translators should provide information about different languages and cultures, which would presumably help those who believe that the world is monolingual, and reduce the risks for customers. By reducing the risks, he meant that translators and translation agencies should be prepared to provide free consulting and editing, have third-party reviewers, and other such things. I personally am not sure that offering cheaper prices or free services is the best method, as people are often reluctant to start paying for something they initially received for free or for a reduced cost, and there is a strange phenomenon in which people don’t always value what they don’t pay for. But I know that some translators like to draw in customers with low prices and then convince them to remain customers, even as the prices are increased, by doing good work.

The more customers know about what translation means and what qualifies a translator to take on a given assignment, the more they understand why they ought to pay for high quality work. It’s true that some people will always want to take the cheap route, regardless of what that means for their documents, but others will realize that doing something right usually means paying for it. So make the choice easy for your customers by giving them as much information as you can about your background and experience, about what translation entails, and about your pricing system. A customer who really cares about his documents and who has been educated about translation is less likely to waste your time by arguing that his friend or a computer program could do the job just as well and for half the cost. An educated customer is more likely to choose you and your services, and to gladly pay for a job well done.