Work at Home business realities: translators and translation agency start up

A "Reality" Blog About the Translation Industry, Freelance Translating, How to Start a Translation Agency, Surviving and Thriving in Internet Home Business Lifestyles

NOTE: MUSIC PLAYER STARTS AUTOMATICALLY ON OPENING THIS PAGE. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO LISTEN TO THIS, SCROLL DOWN TO BOTTOM OF PAGE AND TURN PLAYER OFF OR TURN DOWN VOLUME CONTROL.

Occasionally, a client will ask about our translation process. Rather simple, we use a large terminological database, the translator translates and proofreads. Of course, they want a more detailed answer, but often I am not too articulate over the phone, and I tend to stammer if a big project is on the line.

While giving a quote for a 35,000-word technical translation project today, I began to think how hard it is sometimes for freelance translators to earn a living wage; I mean, we got clients everywhere who want a "good deal",but somehow think that would mean paying us what would be the equivalent of $7.50 per hour for professional translation. Preposterous.

Clients must realize that translation is a demanding profession, hard academic work, which takes years of preparation and study. I have had clients balk at the price of large translation projects. What, $1,000 for a week and half's work too much? God, how do they expect a translator to survive on less than that?

After sitting down at the computer translating for 10 days straight, the translator needs to rest a few days anyway. And then back to work, so maybe he or she can earn $24K a year....

And we freelance translators and small agency owners have to pay our own health insurance, which can get really pricey. Hand it to dog-eat-dog American capitalism for the Dickensian working conditions of the self-employed....

So far, and during much of this 4th page of the blog (refer back to site map for home page), I am doing nothing buy whining. Well, there are issues that come up when running a translation agency and being a translator. Hard work, but the rewards of autonomy, independence- simply not having a big fat boss staring down at you- are worth it.

Been sending piqued emails to translator applicants: "Any attachment document(i.e., a resume or CV) not titled with language combination and full name will be deleted."

It is for their own good. What agency is going to spend time typing in "save as" with all the info for each download into database?

Put a banner and link to your translation agency on this blog: One-time fee, $75

Holiday season for translation industry/Crazy friend and his mobile translation agency

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year translator friends. Business has slowed down quite a bit due to the worldwide economic recession and general holiday chaos. Nevertheless, it is also at this time of year / end of year/new year that we also get those projects that have been put off until now, those last minute translation projects, and lots of work from translation customers who can't find anyone willing to work at this time.

Was translating academic transcripts today from a Spanish and Cuban university. Quite a mess Spain and Cuba make of their official documents. I quoted my normal price for translating diplomas, certificates, etc.; however, the job turned into quite a bit of neck and back-breaking work, not to mention strain on the eyes.

I should have charged 15% more per page for these transcripts. The tables of numbers, subjects, dates, and grades was stupefying. Trying to put it in a simple table was chaotic, so I just listed the data somewhat unevenly, but under the correct category. My god.

Then my regular notary was closed, so I went to the UPS store, and the notary was off for Friday. Finally went to a notary I used to use back in the beginning of my certified translation career. They were rude so I never used them again and too exacting: fingerprints, declarations of "qualification" as translator, unwilling to make out form for notarization, demanding to see the translation, etc--no end to hassle and overall rude attitude.

Good tip: find a polite and easy public notary who isn't anal-retentive about the procedure and just get it done. I go to a public notary at an insurance office and get my notarizations of translations done quickly and smoothly with no hassle whatsover. They know what is necessary and what is just excessive procedure, and they sometimes give me 2 notarizations for one price.

Another payment issue here for our agency. We did a large English to French translation for a marketing agency in Los Angeles, who apparently sold this translation to one of their clients, or did it special for a "favor" ( and of course, they are going to take a cut of about 20% I assume).

Well, now they are 2 weeks late in paying our agency. They are waiting for their client, who has become a translation customer for them, to pay. So, they are putting us off for a full 30 to 60 days. I had to tell them that as an agency we only deal directly with our translation clients, and we expect payment no later than 2-3 weeks. It is clearly stated on our invoice We can't run an agency with late payments; we have to pay our translators. We are not a bank!

This marketing company said, after we gave them notice of unpaid invoice, that they have to wait for their client to pay them. They never told us they were selling this translation to their own client. They also said that with the economy as it is, many of their clients are paying later.

I told this marketing agency that they are my direct client. I did the translation for them, and they purchased it.

Our terms of payment are 30 days for our translators. We usually pay them within two weeks, and they get used to this fast payment; then they are a bit alarmed if they don't get a check in a week! Standard terms of payment of 30 days for freelance translators is a translation industry standard, almost universally, and some agencies pay their translators up to 60 days after delivery of the finished document.

The client mentioned above has still not paid for the translation we did for them at the beginning of last month. I had to repeat to them that they purchased they translation, not their end client. Their company is on the invoice. Now 41 days have passed since we delivered the translation to them.

Moral of the story: Make your terms of payment clear, repeatedly, before you start a translation for a customer. Make sure they understand the terms and/or negotiate a bit on terms, possibly extend by a week or little more, but be certain the original or extended terms are agreed upon before going ahead with the project.

62 days, and still no payment from that marketing agency Los Angeles. The staff who ordered the the translation: One person, who then passed the problem off to another person, have made no attempt to contact me after I sent 5 notices of late payment, plus 2 telephone calls.

I would urge any translation agency or translator not to do work for that marketing agency in Los Angeles.

I have spent over $2,000 on HP computers. Both , especially the laptop, have had major problems; and both came with the infamous Vista operating system. Spent all morning fixing my desktop HP. Turns out the new Logitech Quickcam webcam is screwing everything up. The cam worked for about a week or two, but now I can only operate my computer after uninstalling it. I suspect a combination of HP and Vista have f-cked things up.

Also yesterday I did a an R-Wipe and Clean on my laptop. This is a great program. Nevertheless, even though I only used my poorly functioning HP laptop for about 3 months in total, and rather minimally actually; it took about 12 hours to clean and wipe temporary and deleted files. I don't even think I finished, as I still had the NTFS thing left to wipe.

This HP laptop takes about 12 minutes to fully boot! It always has, from the very beginning. This is the computer I brought to Spain when I tried to operate my mobile translation agency.

Here's a video we created for the L.A. translation agency. Sort of dumb, but creates a groovy mood.

A little Goldfinger James Bond theme video never hurt anyone, especially if it plugs our London branch translation office.

Here are some sample translations for those freelance translators that want to study up:

Studying sample translations was a great way for me to get the feel of French and Spanish into English translation processes. I used to sit at Starbuck's and read side-by-side bilingual versions of a document, noticing the word changes/definitions and ways of re-phrasing sentences to make them more palatable in both French and Spanish, besides English.

In fact, during the past 6 years, I have spent about 2 to 3 hours a week studying translations at Starbuck's! Not that the coffee is that great(and it has 3 times the amount of caffeine), but usually the ones I went to were reasonably clean and were in a nice shopping area or, in

I'd print up the translation in both languages and put it in my briefcase and head down to have a coffee. I sometimes brought along a small dictionary. All this reading helped me absorb legal contracts and forms and business reports in French and Spanish,so when those jobs were assigned, I had an easier time editing and translating them correctly.

AS PARTY OF THE SECOND PART,Limited liability company, with capital of ,the undersigned,submits for the record,IS BROUGHT INTO EFFECT, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE FOLLOWING ANTECEDENTS AND CLAUSES,entered in the Public Registry ,copy signed and authorized by the undersigned Notary,Lender may delay or forego enforcing any of its rights ,Having regard to,To enjoy all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto...

You read these phrases over in French, Spanish and English several times over the course of six to eight years, you are going to make it part

Over the years I have not found it necessary to speak French and Spanish with clients on the phone, as their English is passable enough.

I did work out some answers to questions in French and Spanish for dealing with translation clients on the phone:

Combien de mots est votre document ?
Notre taux est de 16 centimes américains au mot
Traduction juré (assermenté) est de 35 dollars.
Tarif minimum est de 70 dollars.
veuillez télécopier à ce nombre …..ou veuillez envoyer un courrier électronique:.
à ce nombre.
Je vous contacterai plus tard aujourd'hui ou demain.
Je vous enverrai un courrier électronique.
Quand avez-vous besoin du document ?
Nous fournirons le document en 3 jours.
Votre numero de passport ou Permis de Conduire et addresse est exigé sur la facture.
Nous vous enverrons la traduction réalisée par courrier électronique
Nous vous enverrons la facture par courrier électronique.
Le document doit être rendu officiel, certifié
Le paiement est payable avant 14 jours.
Le paiement par chèque.

¿Cuántas palabras en tu documento?
Nuestra tarifa es 16 centavos por palabra
Traducción jurídicaes 35 dólares.
Tarifa mínima es 70 dólares.
Mandar el documento por correo electrónico o mandar por fax.
Mandar por fax a este número….
Le entraré en contacto hoy o más adelante mañana.
Le Enviaré el documento por correo electrónico
Cuando requiere los documentos?
Entregaremos el documento en 3 días.
Su número de permiso de conducir o del pasaporte y su dirección completa y informacion de contacto se requiere en la factura.
Le enviaremos la traducción por correo electrónico.
Le enviaremos la factura por correo electrónico.
La traducción debe hacer certificado por notario
Pagar en 14 días.
Pagar por cheque

No, we aren't translating Dostoievski's famous novel. I had contact with a Russian translator in Moscow today via Skype. Learned some interesting things about being a translator and running a home translation business in Russia.

First of all, she says almost 30% of her clients default on payment--they do not pay!! And most collection agencies will not take up a case under $3,000. She says there are about 1,000 translation agencies in Moscow, but only the big ones get any substantial number of jobs.

I told her she might demand down payment, payment in advance, and/or customer driver's license, national ID#, etc., but she says she loses clients that way.

Translations go for $0.01 per word, one cent per word there......for the translator, the agencies there get about $0.09 per word...talk about exploitation!! Maybe the Russian Mafia is in on this industry as well.....

In general I don't risk working with clients such as Russians or Czechs from Prague or other Eastern Europeans, except maybe the Polish, sometimes...(actually a Polish interpreter cheated me because he did not have his interpreter certificated updated, which caused a lot of chaos for one interpreting assignment in L.A. So, I am wary of the Polish translation or interpreting projects and requests also!!). I had one Russian client go completely around me, directly to my translator to get a video transcribed. He called on a Friday late afternoon, all urgent to get his Spanish translation project done; so I tiredly got to work fast setting up the job with one of my translators.

The Russian client in L.A. went directly to my Spanish translator's house and said "Let's go around this agency, I will pay you directly this much...etc"

So, my contracted freelance Spanish translator took the money directly. In the end I think I got $5.

Later I fired the translator, or rather stopped using him, called up the deceptive Russian and told him to go back home to his own country and rip off people there. After living in Prague for almost 4 years, I know about the lack of business ethics that part of the world is plagued with, but never thought it would follow me to Los Angeles, my home town.

Essentially, you're gonna get pretty tired of repeating the same info over and over to clients (The worst is when a customer asks "Is this a translation agency?" or "I need a translation into English of my French diploma, do you do this sort of thing?", or "Do you do translations?"). Right then I just spew out the information they will need......

I am simply a machine now for the most of the time, like a recording; when the client stammers out his request (I suppose they are intimidated by us, intellectuals, I guess). Before the typical client finishes his awkward information gathering, I just rapidfire tell him the process: "$70 minimum charge, $35 for certification, takes 3 days, 2 days by mail in L.A.; pay by credit card, Paypal, or check. If you pay after delivery, by check, please provide drivers' license, passport # or some type of company tax id#; email us your document or fax; we will invoice you by email, we must have email contact."

Right now at the beginning of February 2009 , business is slowing down again, after a relatively OK January. Always get these calls for certified translation and then the client doesn't send their documents...

Still that marketing company in L.A. has not paid us; and it is coming up on two months, 2 MONTHS, and they still have not paid us. What they did is purchase the translation for one of their clients who hasn't paid them yet and so that is their excuse, that money is tight and they have to wait until their friend or client will pay....I gave a grace period, a few more weeks, but last Friday I sent them a notice: Pay by next week or we will have recourse to a collection agency.

Still no payment received from that marketing agency. In the words of the Vice President of this $20 -million per-year marketing company in L.A. : "I will give you an update this Friday, as to whether or not we can make a payment this week."

And February 24th: The Vice President of that marketing company in L.A never did give us that update, as to whether or not they could make payment this week. Did I expect anything more from them? Their secretary (or whatever her title was) bought a translation in her name(as this was on the invoice) from us, so maybe she should pay.

Oh well, at end of February, they said the check was being processed and sent out Monday...

Ortakoy, Istanbul, Turkey. A place I used to hang when I was an English teacher.

My Playlist on this page(automatic music player you are listening to now): Mason Williams "Classical Gas", Ennio Morricone "Carillon", Bruno Nicolai "Il Mio Nome", Paco de Lucia's interpretation of "Concierto de Aranjuez", etc.

Are you an experienced freelance translators already? Register here for jobs here at my agency.

Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique

Dictionary Reference.com

Wordreference.com

Eurodicautom