Questions about being a full-time freelancer
Mike D
while. Right now I'm a part time J->E freelancer, working mostly on
academic stuff. I'm strongly considering going full time (for reasons
other than the financial benefits, obviously). And I have a question I
wanna ask to some of you who have been doing this longer... seriously,
is this possible? I've done some math, and it looks bleak.
I'm sure many of you are fully aware of this but I'm just gonna repeat
it because this math is where my question is coming from: $30/hour x
40 hours a week x 50 weeks = $60k/year. Alright. But honestly, do most
freelancers even get 30 billable hours a week? It seems so far like
looking for work takes up a huge amount of time, and getting paid a
reasonable rate is really, really hard. I've run into people that want
to pay a per-word rate that literally comes out to minimum wage. Why
don't I just go work at McDonald's? It seems like a totally reasonable
question. I mean, rather than taking on that work, I could work at
McDonald's part time and then only take on the high-paid translation
work only. That seems... uh, sad.
I just wanna know how those of you who are full time freelance
translators deal with this. Do you find clients that occasionally pay
well over your normal rates? Do you start your own agency? Do you
accept the low-paid work to fill in the gaps?
Thanks for any feedback.
Mike
Fred Uleman
--
Fred Uleman
Roland Hechtenberg
> I do not understand where your "$30/hour" comes from.
From what he thinks he can get paid for what he can translate in
one hour?
Have fun,
Roland Hechtenberg
jmarc...@comcast.net
Hey everybody. I just joined the group and have been lurking for a
while. Right now I'm a part time J->E freelancer, working mostly on
academic stuff. I'm strongly considering going full time (for reasons
other than the financial benefits, obviously). And I have a question I
wanna ask to some of you who have been doing this longer... seriously,
is this possible? I've done some math, and it looks bleak.
I'm sure many of you are fully aware of this but I'm just gonna repeat
it because this math is where my question is coming from: $30/hour x
40 hours a week x 50 weeks = $60k/year. Alright. But honestly, do most
freelancers even get 30 billable hours a week? It seems so far like
looking for work takes up a huge amount of time, and getting paid a
reasonable rate is really, really hard. I've run into people that want
to pay a per-word rate that literally comes out to minimum wage. Why
don't I just go work at McDonald's? It seems like a totally reasonable
question. I mean, rather than taking on that work, I could work at
McDonald's part time and then only take on the high-paid translation
work only. That seems... uh, sad.
Academic translation work (like much translation work for government agencies) does not pay very well. Work for private industry pays much better. If you can translate patents or contracts or other technical documents, you will make a good deal more than $30/hour. I think that is the point of Fred's comment.
Translators make their money in a variety of ways, so it is hard to give you a specific answer to that. Some set up agencies and farm out whatever they cannot do themselves to other translators, but that has its own joys and sorrows. But the most important thing is the get on a few agencies' "A list" so that they come back to you routinely with projects. You may not always have time to take them on, or you may not hear from an agency for a long time between jobs, and then suddenly one day it will call you with 30,000 words of work, and so on, but I think if anything is typical, that is it. Get on the short list of a dozen agencies that are routinely sending out J>E work.
As to how you would go about it, have a look at Tom Gally's general info (it can be accessed from the Honyaku home page) about getting into J>E translation as a freelancer, and also have a look at Morry Sofer's general book, "The Translator's Handbook" (now in its 4th or 5th edition, I think).
HTH,
John Marchioro
Mike D
long term.
Thanks for the advice.
Mike
Friedemann Horn
> I just wanna know how those of you who are full time freelance
> translators deal with this. Do you find clients that occasionally pay
> well over your normal rates? Do you start your own agency? Do you
> accept the low-paid work to fill in the gaps?
Another option is to get a job as an inhouse translator.
Friedemann Horn
www.horn-uchida.jp
Fred Uleman
--
Fred Uleman, translator emeritus
Marc Adler
But by saying "$30 an hour was coming from what I think I can make over the long term," you have already set the parameters that you were asking about.
--
Marc Adler
http://www.linkedin.com/in/adlerpacific
Ginstrom IT Solutions
> I'm sure many of you are fully aware of this but I'm just gonna repeat
> it because this math is where my question is coming from: $30/hour x
> 40 hours a week x 50 weeks = $60k/year. Alright. But honestly, do most
> freelancers even get 30 billable hours a week? It seems so far like
Many translators earn more than $60K per year. Translation is a viable career, but it's a demanding one -- probably more demanding than most people realize at first (I know this was the case with me). Most people who try their hand at translating professionally give up after a short time. For those who stick with it, it can be a rewarding career.
Regards,
Ryan
--
Ryan Ginstrom
trans...@ginstrom.com
http://ginstrom.com/
Wataru Tenga
> The lack of response here is partly due to this hopelessness implied
> in the original question, I think.
It's a bit like walking up to some baseball players and saying you don't
see how they can possibly make a living playing baseball. True, many
translators languish in the "minors," or translate only in their spare
time; but there are also translators who have built up a steady, well-
paying client list and can make a decent living without breaking into a
sweat. If you decide to become a translator, that's what you aim for.
As a profession, translation has numerous advantages over other ways of
making a living. If you become good at it and have good luck finding
customers, the upper limits to what you can earn are higher than you
might imagine.
Wataru Tenga
Kichijoji, Tokyo
Fred Uleman
The lack of response here is partly due to this hopelessness implied in the original question, I think.
I think Marc is right. And it is this hopelessness mindset that I would like Mike to question. Why assume you can only make $30/hour? Why assume you can only work 40 hours/week or whatever? Why assume all of these barriers are there and insurmountable? Why not decide what you want to do and then set about finding ways to get people to pay you to do it? If you want to be a translator, be a translator. If you want to be an accountant, be an accountant. Ditto for truck driver, bartender, or anything else. There are people making good livings doing these things. Why not you? (NB: It may well be that you end up defining a new occupational category. Why not? Figure out what to call it and put it on your card.)
Jacob Dunlap
only important insofar as I am able to comfortably support myself and
my family; the time I am left with after the work is done is what
makes me feel rich.
Jacob Dunlap
Jean-Christophe Helary
On 15 avr. 10, at 11:28, Fred Uleman wrote:
> Why assume you can only make $30/hour? Why assume you can only work 40 hours/week or whatever?
That's about ¥450,000/month correct ?
In my part of Japan, that's enough to pay back a house loan, save money and raise kids. It's tight but it works.
And considering that most of the jobs discussed here pay more than that, you also have a lot of free time to watch your potatoes grow.
If you worry about buying power, delocalize to a nice cheap relatively safe spot, get a good internet connection and have fun with the $60k.
Jean-Christophe Helary
----------------------------------------
fun: http://mac4translators.blogspot.com
work: http://www.doublet.jp (ja/en > fr)
tweets: http://twitter.com/brandelune
Mike D
definitely appreciate the idea that a freelancer doesn't just play the
game, they create the game... that totally makes sense. I mentioned
that figure because as far as I've seen, good clients will pay that
amount or maybe a little higher. And I frequently see jobs or are in
contact with people that want to pay half or even a quarter of that
(what I really mean is they want to pay a per-word rate that is so low
that it comes out to the same wage as flipping burgers if you actually
take the time to do a good job on the translation). You contact them
and suggest a higher rate and they balk. So the dilemma for somebody
who isn't 100% established (which happens to be my dilemma) is to take
on some of this McWork to fill in the gaps, or to, uh, not get paid.
Apparently, there are people out there who are doing the work at
absurdly low rates. You can say "a translator makes $80,000 a year,"
but it's just as true that "a translator makes $20,000 a year." Well,
that may not be the clearest way of putting it, but I think it's
probably apparent what I'm getting at.
Maybe this is really about building up a good list of clients. I am
guessing that simply takes many years, and probably those "many years"
are what stands between somebody who translates for a McWage and
somebody who makes a respectable income doing respectable work. I
could complain about the unfairness of that, but I don't really feel
like it. If anybody has more input here, have at it!
Mike
On Apr 14, 8:02 pm, Jean-Christophe Helary
Jean-Christophe Helary
On 15 avr. 10, at 14:15, Mike D wrote:
> Maybe this is really about building up a good list of clients.
Cheap rates for Japanese to English (at least on the Japanese market) seem to be around ¥5~6/c. To reach $30/h you would need to translate at most 600c/h (10c/min). That's far from impossible since such low paying jobs are not generally very difficult.
Also, you can do proofreading jobs. They are payed about 1/3 the translation rate but you spend much less time on them, and less than 1/3 the time required to translate. Which makes them more interesting in a lot of cases. Also you want refuse a job after you've seen that the translation was made by somebody who barely masters the language... That happens sometimes and that will make you loose time, and money.
Jean-Christophe Helary
----------------------------------------
fun: http://mac4translators.blogspot.com
Ginstrom IT Solutions
> Let me explain where I got my idea that $30/hour was the limit. I
Hint: This is one of the reasons why freelance translators seldom charge by the hour.
Kevin Kirton
> Let me explain where I got my idea that $30/hour was the limit.
Just a few more things that might be of interest here. I did my first
four years in-house and the last six years or so I've been
freelancing.
Starting in-house is a great way to build a solid relationship with at
least one client.
Also, as with others here, the attraction of freelancing is not just
the money. Unless it was a job I loved, I'd find it very difficult to
work regular office hours now. There are some downsides of having to
manage my own time, but overall I love that freedom.
But then again, every once in a while I like to see how much I'm
earning for an average hour. So I use one set of 40 minutes to
represent an hour (have to factor in breaks etc). And I work on a job
that is moderately difficult (there are some parts of some jobs that I
fly through, but I don't use those parts), and I get my word count
after the 40 minutes and multiply it by 60% of my word rate (have to
factor in tax etc), and even with this pretty conservative method of
calculation, it's not as low as $30/hour.
Then again, there are hours where I check my email, read the comics
and news headlines, check my RSS feeds etc etc and earn sweet diddly,
so...
Kevin Kirton
Australia
jmarc...@comcast.net
Let me explain where I got my idea that $30/hour was the limit. I
definitely appreciate the idea that a freelancer doesn't just play the
game, they create the game... that totally makes sense. I mentioned
that figure because as far as I've seen, good clients will pay that
amount or maybe a little higher. And I frequently see jobs or are in
contact with people that want to pay half or even a quarter of that
(what I really mean is they want to pay a per-word rate that is so low
that it comes out to the same wage as flipping burgers if you actually
take the time to do a good job on the translation). You contact them
and suggest a higher rate and they balk. So the dilemma for somebody
who isn't 100% established (which happens to be my dilemma) is to take
on some of this McWork to fill in the gaps, or to, uh, not get paid.
Apparently, there are people out there who are doing the work at
absurdly low rates. You can say "a translator makes $80,000 a year,"
but it's just as true that "a translator makes $20,000 a year." Well,
that may not be the clearest way of putting it, but I think it's
probably apparent what I'm getting at.
Maybe this is really about building up a good list of clients. I am
guessing that simply takes many years, and probably those "many years"
are what stands between somebody who translates for a McWage and
somebody who makes a respectable income doing respectable work. I
could complain about the unfairness of that, but I don't really feel
like it. If anybody has more input here, have at it!
Pay a McWage, get McQuality. You have completely factored out quality of work in the above equation.
Take patents. Some patent translations are for internal reference, but a lot are for court submissions. It goes without saying that contracts are legal docs and have to be done at a high level. And so on. And if we are talking about lawyers and judges and multimillion dollar lawsuits, the quality of those translated docs has to be high, or the case can get tossed and lost.
Other patent translations are obviously for submission to the USPTO. Same thing applies. Bad translation, no go.
Advertisement copy? Has to be good if you are trying to sell a product.
And so on. And that means over time if you can do quality work, clients and agencies will keep coming back to you, since that is the x factor in all this from their standpoint. I just cleaned up some dreadful translations for a law case a few months back for an agency I had never heard of before; now that same agency is regularly sending me work, because I saved its rear with that particular client. Several other people on this list have told me about clients who switched to cheaper providers, but came back soon thereafter after being appalled by the lower quality that came with that lower price.
Bottom line: Quality matters. You may not get a gold watch and an employee of the month award, but you will get a steady flow of work.
John Marchioro
Minoru Mochizuki
took to become a professional translator.
I waited to become a full-time translator until other means of earning money
exhausted and that was when I turned 60th birthday, i.e., when I became 61
years old and a few months past. One fine day of March that year I was
patted on my shoulder that my employment would terminate in one month time
if I peacefully accept the fate and be content with a certain amount of
severance pay. I accepted the offer peacefully and as gracefully as I could
manage.
Thus I became a full time translator, which I always wanted to be. In the
following 15 years or so, I reported to one of the other government that I
earned easily over 2 million dollars (some of which earned in yen at the
rate of 120-90 yen/US$) in total.
Last year, I earned only about US$700,000. This year I may be earning even
less. But you have to be lucky to earn that much as a person in his middle
seventies having pensions on the side.
For my life as a full-time engineering employee of a Japanese and several
American firms for about 40 years, I have no regret either, because I knew
that I would be getting a promised salary at the end of each month
regardless of the degree of my toil or contribution to the company and one
thing I never worried about is each of the companies I worked for could go
bankrupt (they didn't). My life as an engineering employee was with much
less stress and had many fringe benefits than being a translator. As a
translator, you may have to work at wee hours fighting sleepiness, glaring
at the screen of your computer. The profession as a translator has, of
course, various advantages as many JATers can witness, of course.
Don't ask others what you should do in your life. Do whatever you wish to
do, or simply do whatever that comes into your life. Calculation before
committing to do something will probably not help you too much as things do
not happen as you calculate. So long as you are more or less decent as a
person, life is not that difficult to live. If you have a bad luck, or well,
nobody can help you.
Minoru Mochizuki
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Canuck in Japan
"Minoru Mochizuki" <min...@rhythm.ocn.ne.jp> wrote:
> Thus I became a full time translator, which I always wanted to be. In the
> following 15 years or so, I reported to one of the other government that I
> earned easily over 2 million dollars (some of which earned in yen at the
> rate of 120-90 yen/US$) in total.
>
> Last year, I earned only about US$700,000.
Minoru,
$2,000,000/15 years = $133,333/year
So, I guess you meant $70,000, and not $700,000, right?
I kind of doubt there are translators anywhere earning $700,000 a year...
- Dan in Yokohama
-----------------------
Dan Burgess
canuck....@gmail.com
jmarc...@comcast.net
Minoru wrote:
> Thus I became a full time translator, which I always wanted to be. In the
> following 15 years or so, I reported to one of the other government that I
> earned easily over 2 million dollars (some of which earned in yen at the
> rate of 120-90 yen/US$) in total.
>
> Last year, I earned only about US$700,000.
> $2,000,000/15 years = $133,333/year
> So, I guess you meant $70,000, and not $700,000, right?
Deja vu all over again.
John Marchioro
Uwe Hirayama
I am still wondering about what your " chokuyakism" might be. Does
it simply mean that when translating you keep the syntactical surface
structure as it is and that you select the translation of each singe word
from those candidates appearing in commonly accessible glossaries
and dictionaries or does it mean something else?
Well, considering your translation of the sentence that you quoted:
> The original sentence:
>
> 科学や技術についての専門家で形成される科学コミュニティにおけるやりとりでは、
> 発信者のみが情報の意味を決定し、受信者は“字義通り”解釈することが必要とされ
> る。
>
>
>
> My translation:
>
> In an exchange of ideas in a science community formed among professionals of
> science and technology, it is required that only the sender defines the
> meaning of a message while the receiver is expected to interpret the message
> “literary.”
>
I have one question. What inspired you to use the word "ideas"?
Kind regards,
Uwe Hirayama
hira...@t-online.de
JP2GER TRSL
Mike D
that's the way things are - at least when you convince the client you
do good work - that's encouraging. I cannot understand why people want
work done for $.05 per word. I have seen this many times. But to make
it worth my time to work at that rate (i.e. to get a good hourly rate
- again I'm talking about the number of characters I could translate
per hour), I'd have to do a fast, sloppy job... and I don't work that
way.
Thanks for the input.
Mike
Jarrad Shearer
Cheers,
Jarrad.
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Minoru Mochizuki
In other part of my message I first wrote that I earned $20 million in 15
years which I caught before I sent the mail.
Exact amount of my translation income for FY2009 I reported to the local tax
office was 6,835,913 yen after converting some of the amounts from US$ and
Euro into yen using current Forex.
The same amount for FY2008 was 11,077,561 yen. I earned about the same in
FY2007 and FY2006. I was earning more until FY2005, but a personal reason
occurred and I decided to come back to Japan in FY2006. It was a good timing
to sell my house on Long Island, however, considering what happened later in
housing market and the rate was approximately 120 yen to a dollar.
Minoru Mochizuki
> -----Original Message-----
> From: hon...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com] On
> Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 11:28 PM
> To: hon...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: Questions about being a full-time freelancer
>
> On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:18:42 +0900
> "Minoru Mochizuki" <min...@rhythm.ocn.ne.jp> wrote:
>
> > Thus I became a full time translator, which I always wanted to be. In
> the
> > following 15 years or so, I reported to one of the other government that
> I
> > earned easily over 2 million dollars (some of which earned in yen at the
> > rate of 120-90 yen/US$) in total.
> >
> > Last year, I earned only about US$700,000.
>
> Minoru,
>
> $2,000,000/15 years = $133,333/year
> So, I guess you meant $70,000, and not $700,000, right?
>
> I kind of doubt there are translators anywhere earning $700,000 a year...
>
Fred Uleman
I cannot understand why people want work done for $.05 per word.
Stilll, I wonder how long it will be until an enterprising fly-by-nighter somewhere assumes that the people who want stuff done for $0.05/word or less aren't even looking at it and don't care about the quality, accepts a thousand pages or so, and runs it through GoogleTranslate or one of the other free buyer-beware services.
--
Fred Uleman, translator emeritus
Jean-Christophe Helary
On 16 avr. 10, at 19:49, Fred Uleman wrote:
> Stilll, I wonder how long it will be until an enterprising fly-by-nighter
> somewhere assumes that the people who want stuff done for $0.05/word or less
> aren't even looking at it and don't care about the quality, accepts a
> thousand pages or so, and runs it through GoogleTranslate or one of the
> other free buyer-beware services.
This is already happening.
Jean-Christophe Helary
----------------------------------------
fun: http://mac4translators.blogspot.com
work: http://www.doublet.jp (ja/en > fr)
tweets: http://twitter.com/brandelune
Fred Uleman
If it is already happening, do we have any reports on what, if any, impact it is having on the business model?
--
Fred Uleman, translator emeritus
jmarc...@comcast.net
I cannot understand why people want work done for $.05 per word.
> Because they think they can make money that way. This might be because the client does not care -- or cannot tell -- that it is lousy quality and is not willing to pay much > > more. Or it might be that the end client is paying a reasonable price and the agent (a) has mind-boggling overhead or (b) is making mind-boggling money on this.
As for why an agency would want to PAY $0.05/word, read "Das Kapital".
John Marchioro
Jean-Christophe Helary
On 16 avr. 10, at 20:06, Fred Uleman wrote:
> J-C,
>
> If it is already happening, do we have any reports on what, if any, impact
> it is having on the business model?
I suggested she says a word to the PM but that was a relatively run job so she did not have the time.
Jean-Christophe Helary
----------------------------------------
fun: http://mac4translators.blogspot.com
work: http://www.doublet.jp (ja/en > fr)
tweets: http://twitter.com/brandelune
Laurie Berman
On Apr 15, 2010, at 1:13 PM, Mike D wrote:
> I cannot understand why people want
> work done for $.05 per word.
industries to cut corners on quality. They are rewarded for keeping
down costs, and since the problems are not apparent until much
farther downstream, they do not imagine they'll be held responsible
for them.
Laurie Berman
Fred Uleman
And even if you are willing, is that the market you want to be competing in? Because if it is not, the question becomes: how do you un-commodify yourself? How do you compete on something besides just price?
And going there, we get into discussions of quality reading in the source language, quality writing in the target language (both of which assume specialist familiarity with the subject matter), and branding. We get into discussions of how you earn more than $30/hour.
--
Fred Uleman, translator emeritus
Mike D
contacted me off the list as well. When I first joined this list there
was a huge flame war going on, but despite that I'm pretty convinced
that this is a really cool community.
As far as the problem with cheap rates, if anyone wants to start a
proletariat revolution, just get in touch.
Mike
jmarc...@comcast.net
> As far as the problem with cheap rates, if anyone wants to start a
> proletariat revolution, just get in touch.
John Marchioro
Chika Kamiya
Warren Smith
minutes ago), I always send the following:
"Thank you, but most of my clients pay between 15 and 20 cents per word, so
I would not consider working for $0.06/target word."
FWIW
Warren
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 1:13 PM
To: Honyaku E<>J translation list
the way things are - at least when you convince the client you do good work
- that's encouraging. I cannot understand why people want work done for $.05
per word. I have seen this many times. But to make it worth my time to work
at that rate (i.e. to get a good hourly rate
- again I'm talking about the number of characters I could translate per
hour), I'd have to do a fast, sloppy job... and I don't work that way.
T
Andy
Andy
Warren Smith wrote:
When I see these ridiculously low rates (like an inquiry I received a few minutes ago), I always send the following: "Thank you, but most of my clients pay between 15 and 20 cents per word, so I would not consider working for $0.06/target word."
Jean-Christophe Helary
On 21 avr. 10, at 01:48, Warren Smith wrote:
> When I see these ridiculously low rates (like an inquiry I received a few
> minutes ago), I always send the following:
>
> "Thank you, but most of my clients pay between 15 and 20 cents per word, so
> I would not consider working for $0.06/target word."
When I raised my rates a few years ago I started to only get proofreading jobs from a Tokyo agency because they had decided to work with a super low cost Italian translation sweat shop that pays translators about ¥4/c source. The results were not good, but they did not care.
Jean-Christophe Helary
----------------------------------------
fun: http://mac4translators.blogspot.com
work: http://www.doublet.jp (ja/en > fr)
tweets: http://twitter.com/brandelune
Jean-Christophe Helary
On 21 avr. 10, at 01:48, Warren Smith wrote:
> minutes ago), I always send the following:
> 今回下記英訳の案件があり、このような単価でも請
> け負って頂けるかどうかお尋ねさせて下さい。
> ・翻訳方向：日⇒英
> ・内容：某自動車会社の社内資料翻訳
> ・翻訳の目的：元受翻訳会社の下請け翻訳
> ・ボリューム：元受受注額は数億円で膨大な量です。
> ・期間：5月GW明けから数ヶ月に上る翻訳プロジェク
> トです。
> ・単価：仕上がりベースで1ワード3.5円
> ・納期：期間中何度もファイルを配分し、その都度
> 納期を指定し納品して頂きます。そのサイクルが何
> 度もあります。
And they specify "翻訳者お一人様1日8時間の作業で、1ヶ月あたり20万～30万円の収入になると考えております。"
I'm glad I know :)
And for "official" rates here is what you get:
http://www.world-i-english.net/english/
Jean-Christophe Helary
----------------------------------------
fun: http://mac4translators.blogspot.com
work: http://www.doublet.jp (ja/en > fr)
tweets: http://twitter.com/brandelune