| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Should we accept any rate? Thread poster: Alicia Mateos
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Arianne Farah 
Canada
Local time: 15:40
Member (2008)
English to French
| Same, but without the peanuts ;-) | Nov 17, 2021 |
Ice Scream wrote:
Work for peanuts and/or evenings and weekends to get your foot in the door. They see your brilliance. You put your prices up. They either run with them or they don't. Either way you've gained experience and earned a bit of cash. And for the record, I currently charge one global agency twice what I originally charged them, so it really is possible to put your rates up, whatever some people say.
I quickly figured out it was better to work one weekend at full rate rather than a week at half the rate. Weekends and holidays are how I got my foot in the door with large agencies when I started; the trickle of work quickly became a flood. When my schedule become full, I charged a penny more for new clients and asked the client I was most willing to lose for an increase. Rinse and repeat for over 15 years.
Nowadays I don't work weekends nor holidays, and no Fridays in summer either, so there's room for the next hungry translator who wants to show what they've got!
| | | | Adieu
Ukrainian to English
+ ...
Alicia Mateos wrote:
Some days ago I saw a translation offer. They wanted a translation for the next day, but it was a very short one and at a really low rate (even for what I was willing to accept), so low that I would actually have lost money shall I have accepted it.
I'm just starting as a professional translator and I get that I am not earning too much money at the beginning or even no money at all but should I accept anything I get, just for the sake of getting started? should I have taken this translation?
Thank you all!
Because short + low rate will never, ever turn into a lucrative future collaboration
For shorties, the name of the game is HIGH MINIMUMS. On the typical week, I collect several hundred dollars in the difference between my word rate and my $50 minimum.
If you want free practice, find website text on a topic or online public records and practice on those instead.
Lots of places like the EU or the State of Florida make surprising amounts of documents available to the public. Also, certain online repositories collect and post things that they probably shouldn't have, like contracts, pharmaceutical companies' internal documents, etc.
| | | | | And not to forget ... | Nov 18, 2021 |
Adieu wrote:
Lots of places like the EU or the State of Florida make surprising amounts of documents available to the public. Also, certain online repositories collect and post things that they probably shouldn't have, like contracts, pharmaceutical companies' internal documents, etc.
... DeepL. That's (among others) one of the reasons why they offer you (Alicia) a rock bottom rate right from the beginning. You should have that in mind that, since DeepL has started, a new area has begun in this business. For newbies like you, it will never be as easy as it was for me when I started in 2007, when in fact it was possible for me to start with low rates to raise them soon until they found a cheaper one after two or three years. Almost everybody uses DeepL today. Carelessly enough, today even manufacturers in mechanical engineering translate their manuals and GUIs completely with DeepL, without having them "post edited".
The same text as above (in my decent English) below in German, "translated" with Deepl:
"Und nicht zu vergessen DeepL. Das ist (unter anderem) einer der Gründe, warum sie Ihnen (Alicia) von Anfang an einen Tiefstpreis anbieten. Sie sollten bedenken, dass mit dem Start von DeepL ein neuer Bereich in diesem Geschäft begonnen hat. Für Neulinge wie Sie wird es nie so einfach sein wie für mich, als ich 2007 anfing. Damals war es mir möglich, mit niedrigen Tarifen zu beginnen und diese bald zu erhöhen, bis sie nach zwei oder drei Jahren einen günstigeren Tarif gefunden hatten. Fast jeder nutzt heute DeepL. Leichtsinnigerweise übersetzen heute sogar Hersteller im Maschinenbau ihre Handbücher und GUIs komplett mit DeepL, ohne sie "nachbearbeiten" zu lassen."
And see by yourself, how it would sound in Spanish:
"Y no hay que olvidar DeepL. Esa es (entre otras) una de las razones por las que te ofrecen (Alicia) una tarifa mínima desde el principio. Debes tener en cuenta que, desde que DeepL ha comenzado, se ha iniciado una nueva área en este negocio. Para los novatos como tú, nunca será tan fácil como lo fue para mí cuando empecé en 2007, cuando de hecho era posible empezar con tarifas bajas para subirlas pronto hasta encontrar una más barata después de dos o tres años. Hoy en día casi todo el mundo utiliza DeepL. En un descuido, hoy en día incluso los fabricantes en ingeniería mecánica traducen sus manuales y GUIs completamente con DeepL, sin tenerlos "post editados".
Traducción realizada con la versión gratuita del traductor www.DeepL.com/Translator
But, as Andrej already suggested, you may use bilingual sources (i.e. DeepL) to hone your translation skills (and that of DeepL, too).
[Bearbeitet am 2021-11-18 07:00 GMT]
| | | | | Narrow specialization is the key to higher rates | Nov 18, 2021 |
Matthias Brombach wrote:
Almost everybody uses DeepL today. Carelessly enough, today even manufacturers in mechanical engineering translate their manuals and GUIs completely with DeepL, without having them "post edited".
This is why generalists are going to face very hard times soon.
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| And experts too | Nov 18, 2021 |
Vladimir Pochinov wrote:
This is why generalists are going to face very hard times soon.
Some of my earlier clients only come back to me when their documents would be too tough for their generalists (they call them certified translators anyway) and when it would even for them (the clients) be too dangerous to deliver technical translations translated 1:1 only. But of course, they offer these texts still for the earlier price I long have left behind me (so I thought) and less.
| | | | Daryo
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:40
Serbian to English
+ ...
| Even if some money is coming in ... | Nov 18, 2021 |
Ice Scream wrote:
How could you lose money? Was it a negative rate?!
At the very beginning, yes I would take what I could get for the experience as Samuel says. But then rapidly work your way up the ladder.
Being cheap is your only competitive advantage and is how you get your foot in the door.
Starting out at average rates is only for those with some other USP. Or a trust fund.
Even if some money is coming in ... you STILL can be losing money, depending on which costs you realistically include in the calculation.
Very few businesses that ended belly-up were getting paid "negative rates" ... most were charging "something" - not enough to stay afloat.
As for "being cheap is your only competitive advantage" - if that's the case, you better start looking for better options ...
| | | | Adieu
Ukrainian to English
+ ...
I made no mention of DeepL. Or of bilingual sources. Although those exist too, mostly for legal documents (note: if you mash Stop fast enough while the ads are loading, no paywalls, because apparently, lawyers are utterly bad at IT).
[Edited at 2021-11-18 11:32 GMT]
| | | | | Agree, but... | Nov 18, 2021 |
Ice Scream wrote:
It worked for me. Work for peanuts and/or evenings and weekends to get your foot in the door. They see your brilliance. You put your prices up. They either run with them or they don't. Either way you've gained experience and earned a bit of cash.
There is nothing to stop you continuing to try to get well-paid jobs the whole time you're doing the ones for peanuts. And in the meantime you can pay your bills.
It really doesn't make sense to sit at home doing nothing, waiting for Perfect Client to come along.
It's exactly the same now when I'm at the peak of my career. If I have gaps between well-paid jobs I will take some agency work at lower rates if it looks interesting, because something is better than nothing.
And for the record, I currently charge one global agency twice what I originally charged them, so it really is possible to put your rates up, whatever some people say.
you do work in a "less crowded" language combination... 
Edited for typo.
[Edited at 2021-11-18 14:26 GMT]
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[quote]Ice Scream wrote:
Kevin Fulton wrote:
It worked for me. Work for peanuts and/or evenings and weekends to get your foot in the door. They see your brilliance. You put your prices up. They either run with them or they don't. Either way you've gained experience and earned a bit of cash.
When I got started way back in the 1990s I accepted what seemed like pretty humble rates too. But these days I am seeing translators advertising themselves on sites like Fiver and Upwork at prices like £7.78 for 600 words (real example). That's way, way lower than I ever charged 25 years ago as a raw beginner. I honestly think you would be better getting a job in the local supermarket where you would at least be guaranteed to earn the minimum wage (and learn a bit about the retail industry too) and practicing in your spare time on carefully chosen texts that reflect the niche you want to enter.
I don't know whether these are the kind of rates the OP is talking about but, no, I don't think it's worth accepting 'any rates'.
| | | | | Know your customer(s) | Nov 18, 2021 |
If agencies are your customers, do you really want to cater to each and everyone?
How many collaborations do you need to make a healthy revenue? A handful, I suppose.
By charging decent (or slightly lower than average) rates from the get go, you immediately become inaccessible to many clients and agencies. They are simply priced out by better clients.
Do not negotiate from a position of need. And even if you need customers, fake it until you make it.
... See more If agencies are your customers, do you really want to cater to each and everyone?
How many collaborations do you need to make a healthy revenue? A handful, I suppose.
By charging decent (or slightly lower than average) rates from the get go, you immediately become inaccessible to many clients and agencies. They are simply priced out by better clients.
Do not negotiate from a position of need. And even if you need customers, fake it until you make it.
Working for peanuts (at least if you don't quickly "branch out") can be very expensive in the long run. Think loss of income, but not only.
[Edited at 2021-11-18 16:16 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Peanuts and stuff | Nov 18, 2021 |
OK, my idea of peanuts is not full-Brazilian HISIP rates. I was coming in at around half the going rate, maybe.
I still don’t see how you can lose money working at a low rate as opposed to not working at all (while obviously not taking huge jobs that prevent you from accepting any well-paid work you are offered, but surely that stands to reason?).
And while there are fewer translators in the smaller languages, they are competing for smaller volumes, and in my pairs th... See more OK, my idea of peanuts is not full-Brazilian HISIP rates. I was coming in at around half the going rate, maybe.
I still don’t see how you can lose money working at a low rate as opposed to not working at all (while obviously not taking huge jobs that prevent you from accepting any well-paid work you are offered, but surely that stands to reason?).
And while there are fewer translators in the smaller languages, they are competing for smaller volumes, and in my pairs there is plenty of competition from natives who can English, people translating the wrong way, and Germanists and polyglots who’ve spent ten minutes swotting Scandi grammar. There aren’t agencies wandering around desperately seeking translators at any price. To command above-average prices, you still have to offer something more than the average translator. And if you can offer that in any language pair, you’ll be able to up your rates. Supply and demand, innit? ▲ Collapse
| | | | Michele Fauble
United States
Local time: 12:40
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
| Less crowded? | Nov 19, 2021 |
Ice Scream wrote:
And while there are fewer translators in the smaller languages, they are competing for smaller volumes, and in my pairs there is plenty of competition from natives who can English, people translating the wrong way, and Germanists and polyglots who’ve spent ten minutes swotting Scandi grammar. There aren’t agencies wandering around desperately seeking translators at any price. To command above-average prices, you still have to offer something more than the average translator. And if you can offer that in any language pair, you’ll be able to up your rates. Supply and demand, innit?
Spot on.
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