pricing? (for a fresh-faced translator)
Ben Allen
I'm just a grad student, trying to make ends meet between semesters
here in Japan taking odd translation and tutoring jobs. A big
translation job just came my way, but I don't know quite what to do
about the fee.
The project itself is a 400-page scholarly research work on Buddhism.
Substantial portions have already been translated into "poor English"
according to the author. I am to correct the bad parts, and translate
the rest. My current understanding is that somewhere from 1/2 to 3/4
is the already translated part, and the remainder will be my complete
translation.
Given those admittedly loose and unclear conditions, what would be a
reasonable fee to ask? I haven't discussed the issue yet with the
author yet, but have broached the question, and wanted to get some
input from all of you to have some kind of ideas when I go into
discussing this with the author.
Much thanks again in advance to the Honyaku community.
Sincerely,
-Ben Allen
--
Benjamin Lowell Allen
Foreign Languages and Area Studies Fellow
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Fred Uleman
Hope you don't mind a few questions first.
When you say this is 400 pages, how are you defining a page? Is this,
for example, 400 characters of Japanese? Or is it a sheet of paper
with as much print as they can cram onto it? Or what? Because unless
you know that, you don't know how much work 400 pages really is.
Of course, even if you know that, 400 pages can be a lot of work or it
can be lots and lots and lots of work. How academic (pedantic) is the
writing? How familiar are you with the field (Buddhism, you said, but
Buddhist thinking, history of Buddhism in Japan, or what)? Because
this can also make the difference between doable and deadly.
What kind of a deadline do you have? 400 pages sounds like a bit much
to do in the month or so that is left of summer vacation, but maybe
they don't need it until the end of March. And what does the rest of
your schedule look like for that time frame?
Finally, you should probably assume that the bad translation is
basically useless and you will have to redo those sections as well --
which means you will have some lousy reference material for parts of
it but should be thinking of this as 400 pages (whatever that means)
to be translated. Trust you already know this, but it bears
mentioning.
--
Fred Uleman
Edward Lipsett
> semesters here in Japan taking odd translation and tutoring
> jobs. A big translation job just came my way, but I don't
> know quite what to do about the fee.
In addition to Fred's excellent comments, it might help if I point out that
I don't provide estimates of any kind until I see the actual document.
Once I can see exactly how much work is required (not only translation, but
also for example, formatting), then I can provide an estimate for time and
money. And then when they want me to change the estimate, I can make
reasonable proposals (more time for less money; or vice-versa).
=====
Edward Lipsett
Fukuoka, Japan
Alan Siegrist
Welcome to the list. I think most of the translators on this list do
commercial translation. While we generally know the market rates for
translation that has obvious commercial value, it is probably hard to put a
value on translated scholarly research work in an area like Buddhism. I
suppose the value would be one of professional prestige for the author as
opposed to the prospects of resale. No one will be making any money on this
work. I am afraid that if you ask for commercial rates, the author may not
have the budget to hire you if he is paying out of pocket. Perhaps some sort
of foundation is providing the backing for the project, so the budget may be
known.
I think it might be most practical to simply ask the author what sort of
budget is available, and you can decide to do it or not depending on whether
or not you think it will be worth your while.
Regards,
Alan Siegrist
Orinda, CA, USA
Fred Uleman
> While we generally know the market rates for
> translation that has obvious commercial value, it is probably hard to put a
> value on translated scholarly research work in an area like Buddhism.
With all due respects, this is an irrelevant distinction. What has
obvious market value? Well, subtitles for movies -- assuming the
movies themselves have market value. Patents? Hard to tell. They could
be to patent a new material or process. Or they could be spoilers to
keep a competitor from gaining an edge. Or they could be frivolous.
Political speeches of the type I used to translate? No commercial
value at all. The government _gave_ them away. But does this mean the
"market rates" are unknowable? Does this mean the government got a
discount?
The question is not what commercial value the translation has. The
question is how much the person commissioning the translation thinks
getting the translation done is worth. Translating a vanity-press book
can be lucrative if the person with the boundless vanity has money to
match. Conversely, translating a crucial user manual can be poorly
paid if the company commissioning it does not recognize how important
it is the translation be done well.
So don't worry about the commercial value, Ben. Just think about what
is involved and how much your time and effort are worth. That's what
they will have to pay you to get you to do it. (Of course, payment can
come in many forms. If they'll count the translation as a dissertation
and give you a PhD for doing it, that could also be compensation.)
Never mind what market rates are for this or that. How much time,
energy, and intellect are you going to have to spend on this? What's
that worth? How much do you think you can get away with charging? How
much do they want you to do the translation?
HTH
--
Fred Uleman
Friedemann Horn
> While Alan writes that
> > While we generally know the market rates for
> > translation that has obvious commercial value, it is probably hard to put a
> > value on translated scholarly research work in an area like Buddhism.
>
> With all due respects, this is an irrelevant distinction. What has
> obvious market value? Well, subtitles for movies -- assuming the
> movies themselves have market value. Patents? Hard to tell.
Not at all. We are talking about translation.
In fields in which there is a considerable market, there are more or
less established market rates. Of course, there is always a range,
and anyone quoting outside that range will usually not be considered (even
if the quoted rate is below that range, because that indicates that
the translator does not know the market and, hence, the subject
matter).
I doubt that there is a market worth speaking of for texts on
Buddhism. If not, then there is no typical market rate for that
type of text and you'll have to take other indicators.
In any case, I thought that Alan's point that you should ask about
the budget for this project was excellent. In my experience,
such projects rarely materialize, once the author hears what it
is going to cost. Often the thinking seems to be "well, if I buy
the book, it will cost 5,000 Yen. So translating it can't be more
expensive than --- let's be really generous here --- 20 times
that, so maybe 100,000 Yen."
In other words, this is the kind of project, many translators
wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole. (Of course, the situation
might be different if you have two months to spare and do
not need to earn a living.)
> So don't worry about the commercial value, Ben. Just think about what
> is involved and how much your time and effort are worth. That's what
> they will have to pay you to get you to do it. (Of course, payment can
> come in many forms. If they'll count the translation as a dissertation
> and give you a PhD for doing it, that could also be compensation.)
> Never mind what market rates are for this or that. How much time,
> energy, and intellect are you going to have to spend on this? What's
> that worth? How much do you think you can get away with charging? How
> much do they want you to do the translation?
Obviously they want him to do the translation as long as he is
not too expensive. And obviously he came here to get an idea of
what might be considered too expensive.
Maybe someone who has done or commissioned literary translation
(which is probably the closest to this kind of work) could step forward
to give us an idea what typical rates are in that area. Edward?
Friedemann Horn
www.horn-uchida.jp
Karen Sandness
consider, and I'd like to emphasize that potential private clients, as
opposed to agencies or companies that are accustomed to hiring outside
contractors, sometimes have no idea what the going rates are.
A private individual once asked me to look at translating a book that
he was personally interested in. I had recently translated two other
books, both for publishing companies, so I both knew how much time a
book takes and was aware of the going rates.
The individual was indignant when I quoted the price, because he had
been thinking of paying just a little more than the rate for
manuscript typing. That was the end of that potential job.
Keep in mind that translating a book is more time-consuming than you
can imagine. For that reason, I insist on receiving 1/4 of the fee
upfront, 1/4 after turning half the manuscript, and the remaining half
upon completion. Even 400 sheets of 原稿用紙 is 160,000 characters,
and as Fred said, if "pages" means actual book pages jammed with
print, the character count could be any figure above that.
I agree that you should ask how much is budgeted for translation and
rewriting. Don't be surprised if the figure is ridiculously low. Then
decide if the project is more trouble than it's worth.
Appraisingly yours,
Karen Sandness
Alan Siegrist
> > While we generally know the market rates for
> > translation that has obvious commercial value, it is probably hard to
> > put a value on translated scholarly research work in an area like
> > Buddhism.
>
> With all due respects, this is an irrelevant distinction. What has
> obvious market value? Well, subtitles for movies -- assuming the
> movies themselves have market value. Patents? Hard to tell. They could
> be to patent a new material or process. Or they could be spoilers to
> keep a competitor from gaining an edge. Or they could be frivolous.
Patents have obvious commercial value. Some are certainly more valuable than
others, but someone must be convinced of the potential value of an invention
(or the prestige thereof) for them to be willing to spend the money to get
the patent and have it translated to obtain a patent in another country.
> Political speeches of the type I used to translate? No commercial
> value at all. The government _gave_ them away.
I beg to differ. Political speeches certainly can have commercial value.
They could affect markets and the attitudes of investors that may or may not
wish to invest in a certain market or country, depending on the attitudes of
politicians responsible for regulating the market. The value of a political
speech is potentially huge, perhaps dwarfing the value of other words. Such
is the influence and power that politicians wield in our society.
The politicians giving the speeches may place more or less importance on
properly conveying the import and nuance of their speeches to their foreign
audience, and may thus place different values on the translation. So the
speeches may have different values, and the speaker may be willing to spend
different amounts of money on the translation, depending on the perceived
importance of the speech. Some speeches are worth paying Fred Uleman to
translate, and some are not.
> The question is not what commercial value the translation has. The
> question is how much the person commissioning the translation thinks
> getting the translation done is worth. Translating a vanity-press book
> can be lucrative if the person with the boundless vanity has money to
> match.
This is precisely why I thought that asking the author about the budget
might be more important than trying to determine market rates, which might
not be relevant at all.
Ben Allen
off throw out a few more details, such as I have, in general and in
response to Fred's initial questions.
I haven't seen the actual full document/manuscript. All I have so far
is the first couple of chapters, and the endnotes, and two articles
translated into English from which parts of the book originate (but I
don't think these are exactly the same thing as chapters in the book)
The book itself clocks in at 330 pages or around less than 900
chararcters per page, and then 25 pages of footnotes. It is a pretty
scholarly work, but I think there might actually be a nice chunk of
change set aside for the purposes of translating the work. It
apparently ran as a series of articles in some major newspaper, and
perhaps they gave the author some money to have it
translated/published as a book.
I don't think that the author himself knows "the going rate" nor do I
think that he will be paying me himself (or trying to lowball me).
Again, I'm trying to get more details, but, for the sake of argument
let's throw out a hypothetical situation, closest to my current
understanding:
- 330 pages+60 pages endnotes, total approximately 350,000 characters
(probably less)
- approximately 2/3 has been translated into English that will be of
some use to me (I've reason to believe that his English isn't all that
bad)
- the author is not paying out of pocket, and probably doesn't know
the "going rate"
- no deadline as such set so far (so I could be working on this on the
side for the next year, for example)
This is begining to look more and more like a long-term project that
could get me good experience, and pay well enough for that experience,
to do in addition to my research activities (which won't begin for
another two months). Karen's policy of some up front, some at the
mid-point and then the rest seems sound, and Fred's advice about
making the calculation of if it's worth it to me in terms of time,
money, experience, adding a line to my CV etc. is all very helpful.
But before I sit down (virtually) to discuss these terms, what might
be general monetary figures attached to the hypothetical case I
outline in the above bullet-points?
I hope that might clear things up a little bit more to make some kind
of vague supposition possible. Thanks very much again for helping out
a greenhorn.
Sincerely,
-Ben Allen
Alan Siegrist
> - 330 pages+60 pages endnotes, total approximately 350,000 characters
> (probably less)
Well, just to give you an idea of what commercial translation would cost if
they were to go through a translation agency, I did a rough estimate and
came up with about $40,000 for the translation. Do you think they will be
willing to spend that kind of money? If you are going to be spending a year
of your time doing this, would this be worth your while? These are the sorts
of questions you should think about when deciding how much to ask or settle
for.
> - approximately 2/3 has been translated into English that will be of some
> use to me (I've reason to believe that his English isn't all that bad)
I would not necessarily give a discount for the English provided. It may be
usable or not. Even if it is usable, it would still need to be edited to
match the style, register and tenor of the newly translated portion.
Fred Uleman
about 900 such pages, you have a number. (JPY5,000 per 400-character
page feels low to me and I suggest you start the discussion at
JPY7,000 per 400-character page, which gives you a different number.)
How long is this going to take you? Do you have other things that need
to be done during that period of time? Are they put-off-able?
Some of the reference may be usable. Tell the client you will adjust
your final bill down to reflect how useful the reference (the stuff
that's already in English) is. If it turns out it is zero useful --
because it is badly done, for example -- that's a zero discount.
Remember that you have to check it anyway to see if it is useful, so
even if it is 100% useful, those sections are not free.
If the author is not going to pay for this, that suggests an
organization is. Which means you might want to start the discussion at
JPY10,000 per 400-character page, which gives you a different number
again.) And you might want to think about how comfortable you are
working with this organization.
Personally, if I were discussing it with the client, I would probably
end up with a number in the area of JPY10million for the project (with
payment in stages as work progresses) now that I'm retired and more
casual about rates. But then again, Buddhism is not one of my fields
and I would not even discuss it with the client. (Note: this last is a
personal judgment that I do not assume other people share.)
Hope it works out the way you want it to.
--
Fred Uleman
Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven
>But then again, Buddhism is not one of my fields and I would not even
>discuss it with the client. (Note: this last is a personal judgment that I
>do not assume other people share.)
As an aside: I found Shambhala's The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and
Religion a good reference work, especially with the lineage charts in the
back.
--
Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven <asmodai(-at-)in-nomine.org> / asmodai
イェルーン ラウフロック ヴァン デル ウェルヴェン
http://www.in-nomine.org/ | http://www.rangaku.org/ | GPG: 2EAC625B
Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value...
Matt Stanton
Judging by what you've said, I think 2,000,000 yen is probably the
absolute bare minimum. For that they could probably find someone with
a reasonably high level of Japanese ability and a bit of translation
experience - someone looking to really get into the field. If they
have 3,000,000 yen to spare, I think they'd be a lot of takers who
could do a pretty good job on it. Most of them wouldn't have much
knowledge of Buddhism, but it's such a big job that there'd probably
be plenty of time to get the required studying in.
But as others have said, even at the low end we're talking millions of
yen, and many people will be absolutely blown away by that. So to
avoid wasting any time, I'd probably say something like, "I can come
up with a quote if you like, but you do know that we're talking in the
millions of yen here. Are you really serious about getting this
translated?" Just try and get a quick reaction first.
Matt Stanton
>
> - Show quoted text -
minoru
On 7月20日, 午後3:51, "Ben Allen" <cathar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear fellow translators,
>
> I'm just a grad student, trying to make ends meet between semesters
> here in Japan taking odd translation and tutoring jobs. A big
> translation job just came my way, but I don't know quite what to do
> about the fee.
>
> The project itself is a 400-page scholarly research work on Buddhism.
should be applied for your situation (by a novice translator
translating a research document). No commercial rate should
be applied, I believe. How about estimating first how long it might
take to do the job, and how much you would earn as a teaching
or research assistant in a university for the same period, or how
much you would need for doing other menial works?
Minoru Mochizuki
Fred Uleman
> I have no idea what kind of rate
> How about estimating first how ...
> much you would need for doing other menial works?
This is just a personal thing, but I don't think of translation as menial work.
--
Fred Uleman
Ben Allen
exact same kind of work, merely because I am a student. If a
dishwasher was also skilled as a violinist, but didn't play violin
professionally, should he get minimum wage (like a dishwasher) just
because that is his primary profession, rather than about $100 per
hour as might be appropriate if he were to play at an even like a
wedding? I hardly think so.
And I absolutely agree with Fred when he says that translation is not
"menial work," and I also strongly believe that research and teaching
is not "menial work." Bringing information to a wider audience,
educating others, promoting understanding and knowledge; precisely how
is that "menial?"
-Ben Allen
Tom Donahue
> And I absolutely agree with Fred when he says that translation is not
> "menial work," ...
In Minoru's defense, I don't think he meant to suggest that. He meant
something like 上記専門性を必要とする職業以外の単純労働.
His point was about asking whether you can make more by doing
this job than by doing other things. With the implication that, if
the answer is yes, then maybe you should consider doing it
regardless of what the going commercial rate might be.
As professional translators, it's hard for us to suggest that
someone should work for less than the commercial rate.
But then Minoru is less inhibited in these things, and he's
just made that suggestion, so I say take it for what it's
worth. It's one point of view.
--
Tom Donahue
Ben Allen
out how long this will take you. Multiply that by the going rate for a
research assistant. Make that your price." Since there is no doubt
that a research assistant would make a pittance compared to what a
translator would over the same time frame, I took this to mean that I
should accept only the pittance, and not what the rest or you (who are
professionals) can and do (quite reasonably) ask. I found this to be
(almost comically) insulting. To me, equal pay for equal work is a
no-brainer. Perhaps I have misinterpreted Mr. Mochizuki's comments
though.
-Ben Allen
Dale Ponte
> If a
> dishwasher was also skilled as a violinist, but didn't play violin
> professionally, should he get minimum wage (like a dishwasher) just
> because that is his primary profession, rather than about $100 per
> hour as might be appropriate if he were to play at an even like a
> wedding?
dishwasher, so employed, were discovered squeaking Mozart's quartets
off the dishes!, and even outdrew the hired violinist, should s/he
make, say, somewhere between minimum and $100, or even more than a
$100? Then again, I can imagine a shower of tips, not to the mention
the dishwasher's own pre-economic pleasure, mooting the question.
(Caveat paupertas, of course.)
Best of practical sense, advice, intuition, creativity and heart to
you, Ben. And fertile, absorptive mind for study!!
~
Dale
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another without any
loss of enthusiasm." Winston Churchill, who was also an extraordinary
painter
Alan Siegrist
> If a
> dishwasher was also skilled as a violinist, but didn't play violin
> professionally, should he get minimum wage (like a dishwasher) just
> because that is his primary profession, rather than about $100 per
> hour as might be appropriate if he were to play at an event like a
> wedding? I hardly think so.
I think wedding musicians are an interesting case in point. I don't think
the primary profession of the musician is particularly important, but it
certainly might be. The pay for the musicians can be nothing (or maybe just
free dinner at the reception) if they are doing it as a favor to the bride
or groom, or perhaps if they are amateur or not well-established musicians
motivated to do the gig for free to demonstrate their skills to be noticed
by other wedding-goers that might actually hire them for money. This
scenario is most likely when the bride and groom do not have the money for a
big-budget wedding.
The next level is probably what musicians call "scale" which is probably not
a lot but still better than minimum wage. I think you have to become a
member of a union or such to be paid scale.
But on the high end, the sky's the limit. Famous bands like U2 will still
play private parties and weddings if the people putting on the event pay the
thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars they charge, and of course if
they have the connections to make it happen.
But this is all for the same work of playing music at a wedding. The skills
of the musicians are clearly not the only factors determining how much they
are paid.
Regards,
Alan Siegrist
Rock Star Translator (not quite)
Orinda, CA, USA
Marc Adler
This is just a personal thing, but I don't think of translation as menial work.
Marc Adler