Working for Free?

Following on from my “How’s the Pay?” post a few days ago, I thought I’d mention working for free. 

Recently, someone asked on Facebook about doing work for free and that reminded me of this great list from Katy Derbyshire. (Her whole blog is worth looking at, incidentally.)

Someone on Facebook also posted this website in response to the question about working for free.

Both links are helpful, I think.

In my opinion, when you’re starting out, yes, do some stuff for free or for discounted prices, but be careful about what you do and who you do it for. Later in your career, you might want to do work for free for a charity or because of the connections it might lead to or for some other reasons. But just like in any industry, translators are highly skilled professionals and there’s no need to do high quality work without getting paid. It’s not fair or right.

How’s the Pay?

One of the questions I’m asked most often, both by email and in person, is how much translators get paid. “How much do you actually make?” folks ask. I sometimes wonder how polite of a question that is and whether they’d ask that of, say, a teacher or a doctor or a salesperson.

Well, anyway, the pay depends. How long have you been a translator? What type of work do you do? Where do you live?

The Translators’ Association here in the UK writes on their website: “The negotiation of fees is a matter for the individual translator and client to resolve. In the Society's experience of reviewing contracts, we have found that UK publishers are prepared to pay in the region of £88.50 per 1,000 words.” That’s a sensible starting place. Obviously, some really complicated jobs will require you to ask for a higher fee, while a simpler job that allows you to use translation tools and includes a lot of repetition of words will earn you less. Likewise, if live in a country with a really high cost of living, your prices should be higher. A small job may make you want to ask for a flat fee, rather than a per word rate. But start from the assumption that you want to earn around £0.08 per word.

“Can you actually make a living as a translator?” people also ask me.

The answer to that question is yes, and no.

It too depends. It depends on what type of translation work you do, how good you are at both translation and networking, how able you are to work alone for long hours and to chase down work, and how long you’ve been at it for. If you’re just starting out and you only translate poetry, you most likely won’t be able to work full-time as a translator. If you have a medical degree and you want to specialize in pharmaceutical texts, then you might have a better shot. If you’re an award-winning translator of thrillers, you’ll probably end up having to turn down work.

I recognize that this isn’t necessarily very helpful of a response. But it does reflect reality for translators. As you broaden your customer base and get more experience, you’ll get more work and be able to raise your rates. But it’s unrealistic to expect that as soon as you print business cards, you’ll suddenly be very busy with work.

That’s why many translators have “portfolio careers” or “parallel careers”, developing their freelance translation careers while also doing other work, such as working for a translation agency or publishing company, teaching, painting houses, practicing law, doing admin work, etc. It’s also quite stimulating to have different aspects to your career and to have the opportunity to move from one task to another. Personally, I feel it makes me a better translator.

A Video on Translators and Their Rates

You might want to laugh, or possibly cry, at this video on how not to talk to translators about their rates. We probably have all had such experiences!

Funding and Grants

I’ve noticed that more and more often these days, publishers are contacting translators and asking us to find funding for books they want to publish but don’t want to pay for (or, to be fair, can’t pay for). Getting funding and applying for grants is not something we learn in university programs in translation and it’s not really something that many of us consider part of our jobs (see this article I wrote on getting grants awhile back). But it is something we have to learn more about; at the very least, we have to know how to advise publishers to go about finding and applying for the grants that governments and cultural institutions offer, even if we don’t do the actual applications ourselves. Sometimes we’re even asked to translate grant information (usually for free) and occasionally we’re begged to forgo part or even all of our fee so a book can get published.

Getting grants is not easy. It’s also quite a different skill from translating. Whose responsibility should it be? Personally, I’d like to be left to do what I’m good at (translating, editing, and writing), but I know that in this market, we have to be more willing to go into the business side of things and to help get the grants that will pay for our labor and get our work published. What do others think?

No to Peanuts

This is a great site on payment for translators that I’ve recently discovered. The slogan tells you all you need to know: “If you’re NOT a monkey, stop working for peanuts!” Indeed! Payment is a big issue for translators, so check out the site.

A Guide to Working as Freelance Translator

A translation company contacted me earlier this year about a book they have written. It contains a lot of basic information about working as a freelance translator and could be useful to those of you who are now starting your translation careers.

Guest Post: The Translating Twins

In February, I was lucky enough to meet the delightful translating duo of Dagmar and Judy Jenner. Together they run Twin Translations and the blog Translation Times. They graciously agreed to write a guest post about working together as translating twins.

The Translating Twins

We frequently get asked if we are really twins or whether we are using the business name Twin Translations just because it sounds good. We are indeed identical twins. Judy is older by ten minutes.

A little bit about us: We were born in Austria and grew up in Mexico City, which makes for two native languages. After high school, Judy went to Las Vegas for college (yes, there’s a university in Vegas!) and has lived and worked there for 14 years. She’s a recovering former in-house translation manager for a big Spanish-language travel website and has an M.B.A. in marketing. Dagmar studied French and communications at the University of Salzburg/Austria and at the University of Tours/France. She is currently finishing her degree in translation and interpretation studies at the University of Vienna. Judy is on the board of directors of the Nevada Interpreters and Translators Association, and Dagmar serves on the board of UNIVERSITAS Austria, the Austrian Translators’ and Interpreters’ Association. Our translation practice focuses on marketing, e-commerce, tourism and travel, IT, legal and financial texts. Our working languages are German, Spanish, English, and French. We run Twin Translations (www.twintranslations.com) and Texterei (www.texterei.com) from both sides of the Atlantic. Dagmar is based in Vienna, Austria, and Judy is based in Las Vegas, NV.

How did you decide to work together?
Judy: Even back in high school in Mexico City, we knew we had an affinity for languages and always envisioned working together. When we were 15, we talked about having a business called “Jenner + Jenner Cross-Cultural-Communications”. Our current business is somewhat similar to what we envisioned more than 15 years ago, and perhaps at some point we will offer language consulting services as well. We always wanted to work together because there’s no one we trust more than each other. And it’s no surprise that we work very well together. And no, we can’t read each other’s minds. However, as twins, we know each other so well that we are usually pretty certain about what the other one is thinking.

How can you run a business on two continents?
Dagmar: It actually works to our advantage because of time difference: we are available for our clients almost 24 hours a day, and the two of us work together around 10-12 hours a day if needed. When the other person needs to proof a document, we oftentimes do this when one of us is sleeping, so one can wake up to a fully edited translation. Our American clients are usually quite delighted to hear that if a project is due, say 9 AM PST, that Dagmar has all day to work on the project, as Vienna is nine hours ahead of Vegas.

How do you decide who does which project?
Judy: It depends on the subject matter and language combination. We leave translations into German mainly to Dagmar, as she’s lived and worked there for 15 years, while I have lived in the US since I was a teenager. Ergo, I do more of the into-English translations. In terms of subject matter, Judy is the marketing/press release expert, and Dagy has substantial legal translation experience. We are a good fit. For translations into Spanish, we mainly work together. I don’t have French as one of my working languages, and Dagmar translates from French into German, English, and Spanish, so those translations are always hers.

What’s your editing process like?
Dagmar: It’s pretty thorough and includes at least 3 - 5 steps, depending on length and difficulty. One of us does the initial translation and consults with the other during that process. Once the first draft is finished, it goes to the other person for an in-depth review and revision, which usually takes a few days (we are not the fastest translators and don’t accept unrealistic deadlines). The changes/suggestions/comments are added via track changes in Word. After that second step, the original translator thoroughly reviews the changes and accepts or rejects them. The final product then goes to both of us again. We both print out a hard copy and edit it on paper.

How are you different from each other? Is one better at something than the other?
Judy: Dagmar is, without doubt, the better negotiator. I tend to be a bit too accommodating, but she usually sets me straight and tells me to stick to our prices, which are non-negotiable. Dagmar is also more creative than I am when it comes to marketing ideas, even though I am the one with an M.B.A. in marketing. Last but not least, my twin is the queen of the new German spelling. Nothing in German ever leaves my desk without a thorough re-work from Dagmar.

Dagmar: Judy is the more outgoing of the two. She loves meeting new people, going to networking events of all types, and follows up on all leads. We are both not natural salespeople, but Judy has a knack for telling everyone she meets what we do and how much we love it. Through that, many times business follows. Judy has also built an impressive circle of business acquaintances through social networking and blogging (http://translationtimes.blogspot.com).

How do you handle international payments?
Judy: We try to make it as easy as possible on our clients. For European clients, Dagy does the billing in euro and receives payment to her account in Vienna. Judy bills the American clients and receives payment to her American account. If one did a project for the other, we simply log that as a business expense on the respective account. Judy has a registered company in the U.S., while Dagmar’s business is registered in Austria. We could both be registered with our businesses in both countries, but that adds a whole new dimension of tax difficulty, so our accountant did not recommend that.

Translation and the Economy

Lots of translators have mentioned being hit by the downturn in the economy. It makes sense -- if customers are going to cut corners somewhere, they'll often do it by skimping on quality translation (or editing or writing). As it is, many clients grumble about the supposedly high prices that a good translator charges, so this is a good excuse for them to find cheaper translators (often in far-away countries where the costs of living are much lower but where people may not be experienced with the source or target languages).

I rarely do work for agencies, but I am still listed in several agency databases from the early stages of my career, when I did take on such work. For this reason, I have received several emails in recent times from agencies. These messages subtly offer the following message: Times are bad, so lower your prices or you won't get work from us anymore. Agencies don't pay translators that well anyway, and it saddens me to think about all the ways agencies and direct clients are finding ways of not paying translators what they are worth.

Personally, I am not lowering my prices. My services are worth just as much, if not more, as they were a year ago. I hope my colleagues will consider keeping their prices the same, too, so that clients won't start taking us for granted. They get what they pay for and they should be willing to pay well for good translators, financial depression or not.

A Round-Up of Articles

Time for another round-up of articles.

First, an article on apostrophe usage, which three different people sent me this article; that’s how well-known my obsession with apostrophes is!

Next, a piece by Lawrence Venuti, who is always interesting to read.

An article on spelling.

Then an article about translated literature in Sweden.

Finally, here is some interesting reading on the income of literary translators and related issues.

Raising Rates

The beginning of a new year is when many freelancers raise their rates. I’m interested to know how often this happens (every year, every few years, when you think of it, etc.) and by how much (5%, 10%, a few pennies/pence/kronor/other relevant currency, etc.).

As for me, since I rarely work for agencies and since I don’t generally do just one kind of translation work, I don’t have completely set rates. Instead, I estimate the cost of each project by looking it over and trying to figure out how difficult it is, how much work is required, and how much time it will take me, plus I take into consideration how soon the client wants the work completed. This in turn means that I don’t have an annual increase in rates. Rather, as I get more experience and as I get more compliments and messages of gratitude from customers, I slowly increase my prices a bit. I probably don’t do this often enough, but as I try not to quote prices that are lower than I know I deserve or that I feel comfortable with, I am generally satisfied with rates that are fair both to my customers and to me.

From informally talking to other translators or from seeing messages on translation lists, however, it seems that an annual increase in rates is quite common. Judging by the rates people list, I estimate that their fees go up by about 8% a year. What do you do? Please vote below.

How often do you raise your rates?

Every year.Every few years.More than once a year.Whenever the market seems to allow for it.When I think of it.Other.

Free polls from Pollhost.com

How much do you raise your rates by?

1-5%5-8%8-10%10-15%15% or moreOther.I rarely or never raise my rates.

Free polls from Pollhost.com

Name and Shame: Dealing with Problem Customers

I recently had an unpleasant experience with a customer. I rarely work with agencies, but not long ago I was contacted by an agency and invited to work on the Swedish and Danish parts of a large, multilingual project. Since I have trouble saying “no”, I agreed.

Before I started the work, I signed a contract. The agency had calculated the number of words and written how much I would get paid. The project itself was sent to me in an unusual program that makes it hard to count words, but I eyeballed the text and thought the amounts listed on the contract looked about right. So I signed.

Immediately, I noticed that a few sentences in the Swedish part were not Swedish, so I pointed this out several times to the project manager, who didn’t seem to understand or care. I translated the Swedish parts, ignored the rest, and everything seemed fine.

A week later, I got a new contract and was told to sign it. Suddenly, the price I was getting paid was close to one-half of what I had originally agreed to. I protested, explaining I had already signed a contract and agreed to a fee. Yes, I was told, but they had initially just estimated the number of words and now they had actually counted the words (not including the few ones that they only now figured out were not Swedish). So the original contract didn’t mean anything, as it had, they claimed, just been an estimate.

Of course at this point, I’d already submitted the translation, so it seemed that there was nothing I could do but agree to the new price (and, no, I didn’t feel like wasting my time counting all the words). But I strongly resented this tactic and felt that I was being cheated; I had followed my part of the contract, and now they were going back on what they had promised. What, then, was the point of having a contract?

This is one reason why I don’t like working with agencies, but even direct customers sometimes try to change fees after they have received the translated text. Some translators ask for payment (or partial payment) upfront, to avoid these kinds of situations, but often assignments are expected back quite quickly, which means the translator doesn’t have the time to wait for a check to clear or a transfer to show up in their bank account before starting the job.

It is a difficult to find an ideal solution to such situations; one thing we translators could do is to publicize the names of problem customers, both so our fellow translators don’t get burned as we have and also to shame these clients into treating their translators better.

Fairness in Payment Practices

I recently came across this website, which compares English texts with their translations. It claims to give information on how 100 English words translate to other languages. I can’t attest to the truthfulness of most of the figures here, but as for the Swedish amount given (103), I have to disagree. Generally, an English text becomes shorter, in terms of word counts, in Swedish, because Swedish allows for longer words (created by putting two or more words together into one).

Despite the possible inconclusiveness of the numbers on this site, it relates to an interesting and important issue. Since translators get paid by the source word, should the pay be different depending on which direction a translator works in? How does, or should, this asymmetry in word count affect translators’ fees?

For example, if a Swedish to English translator gets 12 cents per source word, should an English to Swedish translator get a lower amount per word (since s/he will have more source words)? Or should the English to Swedish translator get paid per target word instead? Or is the system fair as it is?