Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 731 views
To be or not to be: operate as a freelancer or as an employer?
Are you planning to set up a translation business? Then there are two or three fundamental questions you will need to consider if you want your business to be a success. One of these, and in fact the most obvious one, is how to attract clients. However, the marketing effort and insight needed to tackle the issue of client acquisition is the subject of another article. In this specific issue I would like to concentrate on a fundamental dilemma that many self-employed translators will face: to work as a freelancer or to take staff on board.
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Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 2,004 views
An on-going challenge your business probably faces is ensuring clients continue using your product or service.
In other words, you want repeat business.
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Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 833 views
This article sums up my experiment in attempting to divulge my freelance translation services over the web. I hope it will be useful for translators in a similar situation, as well as translation agencies who are permanently seeking freelancers worldwide. It was written right after the campaign itself, before any concrete objectives were attained, so I’m not claiming any effectiveness. The intent is to provide both freelance translators and translation agencies with a few ideas to tinker with.
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Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 738 views
In case you haven’t the time or inclination to read through all of the articles, or did and now find yourself stumped as to where you saw some particular idea or suggestion, or perhaps have a specific question that was not addressed in detail in the text of the article series, I have assembled here some common questions and answers, many inspired by students in my course at the Monterey Institute of International Studies on the translation profession, others from correspondence with professional translators and new entrants to our industry. I hope your own questions are answered in this article, but if not, please contact me and I will do my best to provide you with an answer. And if your question turns out to have general applicability, it will appear in a future version of this article.
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Monday, January 21st, 2008 964 views
In April 2001 I published my article entitled “Test Translations—To Do or Not to Do?“. This publication generated quite a lot of feedback from all over the world, with all correspondents and freelance translators supporting my idea that test translations are practically useless and should be ignored. The conclusion substantiated in my article was based on my first nine months of marketing my translation services worldwide.
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Monday, January 21st, 2008 558 views
From the moment my first translation was published in the popular Soviet literary magazine Znamya (The Banner), my desire to become a professional translator has dominated my life. The year was 1981 and I was a recent graduate from Moscow State University. However, due to Russia’s ideological and economic climate, it was only in 1989, after having received my Ph.D., that I had a chance to become a full-time, freelance literary translator. And I did not miss this chance.
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Sunday, January 20th, 2008 569 views
Working as a freelance translator is often a solitary business and usually our direct contact with clients is limited. Nowadays it is not uncommon to deal with our clients entirely over the internet; never talking to them or meeting them face-to-face.
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Popularity: 30% [?]
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