2020 was really a year of upheaval. Not just because of the pandemic – though of course that was part of it – but because it’s also the year I started freelance translating. When March (and COVID) hit, I was wrapping up my master’s in Translation and Interpreting and living outside of the US far from my family. And suddenly, I wasn’t really allowed to go anywhere at all. That initially gave me hours and hours every day to focus on my thesis, but once that was done, it was time to put my shiny new degree to work. I paid an artist friend to design a logo for me, took a summer course in subtitling, and then started sending out emails. And emails and emails and emails.
Five years later, it’s sometimes still hard to believe I made it through the last half decade. For a long time, making ends meet was a real negotiation. (It still is, though a less hostile one now.) I’ve had clients try (and some succeed) to take advantage of me, underpay me, waste my time or take me for granted. But on the flip side, I now have many wonderful clients and colleagues that I love to work with; an amazing list of past projects from which I’ve learned a ton; and the freedom to set my own hours, choose my own projects, and shape my own career.
In honor of surviving this long – and maybe because I’m feeling reflective ahead of my birthday tomorrow – here are my five biggest non-translation related takeaways from the first five years of my freelance translation career.
1. Find a support network.
Freelancing can be lonely. I work from my home office, and while I have roommates (and cats) for company, I don’t have an officemate who’s in the same field as me: someone I can go to for advice, to vent, or just to laugh with when my brain gets tripped up between languages. For our health (both mental and fiscal), freelancers have to create a network. Start with professional associations. I’m a member of the American Translator’s Association, the Spanish Asociación de Traducción y Adaptación Audiovisual (ATRAE), the New York Circle of Translators, and the Global Reads Book Club.
I’ve gotten a lot out of these memberships. I got myself a mentor through the ATA; she’s now a colleague I can turn to when I have questions or need some backup. I’ve also participated in Corinne McKay’s March Marketing Madness event for the past three years; the Slack group in which we share tips, experiences, and successes truly helps me get through the tail-end of winter. Having trusted peers with whom you can confer on topics ranging from your preferred productivity software to whether or not an agency can be trusted is truly invaluable.
2. When they say it’s a numbers game, believe them.
In five years, I’ve reached out to nearly 250 agencies or direct clients – an average of 50 per year or about one a week. How many have I heard back from? About 65. So, around 25%. Most of those are people who responded to say, “You’ve been onboarded” and then never spoke to me again. Or they got back offering such low rates or poor work conditions that I never spoke to them again.
I regularly work with about six clients, and they make up the bulk of my income. Six consistent clients from out of 250 contacts. That’s less than 3%. But somehow, it’s enough. The point is that you may contact someone, send your diligent follow-ups, and get only crickets in return. Until one day, years later, when they have a project that fits your language direction. Then it turns out all their other translators are busy or on vacation, but they find your resume buried seven files deep on their computer, and they finally email you back.
Marketing can feel very thankless, but it’s the only way to make a career out of this. And not marketing is guaranteed to get you no results. So, if you’re feeling disheartened after sending 50 emails, know that 3% would only get you 1.5 responses. (The 0.5 is an auto-reply.) But if you’re willing to send 250 emails in five years in order to build a relationship with just 3% of those contacts, you might just end up a successful translator.
3. Diversify your portfolio.
I learned this one the very hard way. I have an agency client (who’s still a beloved client) in Spain, and they, in turn, had a big client for whom I did most of my work. Back in March of 2022, things were so good that the agency brought me on full-time, offering a salary, paid vacation, and consistent work. After a little back and forth, I agreed. After all, I liked the client, I liked the work, and I think I liked the idea of safety. They were my biggest collaborator anyway, probably making up 90% of my income, so not much would change in terms of my day-to-day work, right?
Well, I kid you not, less than a month into my new contract, the PM reached out to tell me that the end client had dropped the agency, which meant my newfound stability was no more. On top of that, my biggest client had lost their biggest client, translating into a serious downturn in work for me overall. Two years into my career, I basically had to start again from scratch.
Clearly, I made it out the other side (though not before I startled my roommates by bursting into tears at the dinner table when I delivered the news). But the point is that even something that feels like a sure thing (with a signed contract, no less) is not always guaranteed. Try to keep your consistent roster closer to five to ten clients rather than one. It will make a blow like this feel a lot less debilitating.
4. What gets tracked gets improved.
I actually wrote separate blog posts about how I keep myself organized and about how I track my time, so I won’t go too in depth here. I’ll just say that putting in the effort now to get organized really pays off in the long run. I have data from Zoho on when my least busy months tend to be, so that’s when I plan my vacations. I have data from Toggl on how long certain tasks take me, so I can easily calculate hourly rates when someone comes to me with a similar project. I have data from Asana on my marketing efforts, which helped me get to the 3% statistic cited above.
The key thing that all of this data tells me is that my business has grown every single year. Even with the major setback of 2022. I’ve continued to add new clients, increase my annual income, and refine my personal brand. If nothing else, it’s nice to be able to go back to the numbers and see what all that hard work has led to.
5. The joy of confidently saying no.
It’s led to the joy of saying no. And look, I still probably say yes more often than I should – a better work-life balance is my goal for the next five years – but often, I’m saying yes because I like the client or the project seems really cool or it pays well. But it’s because I have so many opportunities to say yes to good projects that I’ve also been able to embrace the rush of saying no to those with insultingly low rates or an irresponsibly quick turnaround.
This is ultimately part of increasing your earnings. How and when to raise your rates is a hot topic among freelancers, but I’ve found the most effective way to earn more over time is to transition into saying yes only to the projects that reflect that higher rate. Of course, that relies on trusting that another, better project is likely to come along. And that is a luxury that takes time and persistence and some hard-won confidence.
It would be disingenuous of me to tell early-career translators not to accept work for abysmal pay. First of all, there needs to be more rate transparency so people know what fees are actually acceptable; it’s not a newer translator’s fault if they haven’t yet gotten the lay of the land. Second, when you’re just trying to survive the month, it’s hard to say no to any work that comes your way. I know. I’ve been there. But say yes only in anticipation of one day working up enough clout and building up enough of a client base to be able to confidently say no.
Here’s to the next five
It’s been five years of learning both as a translator and a small business owner. I love that people genuinely respond by saying, “Oh, that’s so cool!” when I tell them what I do. I love making dumb jokes where I refer to my boss (me) in the third person. I love connecting with fellow translators and learning what they’ve learned from the five, ten, fifteen, or more years they’ve been at it. Really, I just count myself lucky that I had the support network necessary to shove out in this tiny sole-proprietor boat. But I know that luck doesn’t account for all the hard work that has kept it afloat. Happy birthday to both me and my business. And many happy returns.
This is a fantastic post, so much good stuff for beginning freelancers!! Thank you for writing it!