How to have a job everyday? Any advice?

Sergei Tumanov wrote:



that
your prices are too low

and the statement may sound like 'due to my USD 0.04 price'

==

I would recommend you to read some manuals, something about starting a business.. They usually contain some good advice on setting prices on your product, entering markets, etc...
Not a translation business but a general business... something like starting your own grocery shop

[Edited at 2014-06-24 19:03 GMT]

Sheila Wilson wrote:


Welcome to ProZ.com, Cristiano! You're obviously not doing too badly as I see you already have one WWA entry, which is a very good start. I think it's simply twofold:
- you aren't yet in a sufficiently visible position on this site, or in the industry as a whole, to attract much attention
- you are trying to do too many things rather than concentrating on what you do best.

As someone else has said, you shouldn't rely on ProZ.com to keep you in full-time work - you need to be more proactive. However, within ProZ.com, there are certain practices that will help you to gain more jobs. Paying membership is a great start, but it isn't enough, I'm afraid. The Site Guidance Centre: http://www.proz.com/guidance-center will explain what you need to do and how to use ProZ.com to grow your business.

Now, I know very little about you, so you may have a lot of knowledge and/or experience than I'm unaware of. However, taking what I can see on your profile and CV, it would seem to me that you are not a native speaker of Russian, English or Spanish - in fact you may not even have spent time in countries where these languages are spoken, nor had official studies in some of them. You may well have sufficient knowledge to translate FROM them, but I really doubt that you should be offering translations INTO them (although things are different in interpreting). Of course, you may be in a position to take on some jobs, particularly if you have specialist subject skills, but you should make it clear that your work will be revised by a native speaker of the target language. There are so many unqualified people out there who speak more than one language - do you want to be yet another of those, or do you want to be a professional freelance translator?

When you have tailored your service offer to cover only what you can do superbly well, I'm sure you'll agree that your rates could double. If you're going to be providing an excellent service, you should be paid adequately for your skills. I would have thought that there can't be too many translators qualified to work directly from Russian to Portuguese, so clients should be prepared to pay more (although I doubt there will be too many jobs on offer).

BTW: maybe you should have Military/Defence as your main specialisation and highlight the fact that you're a retired military officer, then charge higher rates. And maybe lose a few other specialisations. Tourism, for a start, seems an unlikely bedfellow with your other subject areas.

I think you just need to rethink how the clients see you, and keep working at attracting the right clients.

Good luck!

HSahner wrote:

- As you don't have a degree in translation, I would recommend that you try to become a certified and/or sworn translator (if you have the possibility to; I don't know the regulations in your country). In most countries and for many clients, degrees, titles, etc. are very important. A certificate will therefore make clients feel more confident about your translation capacity.

I hope this helps.

Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz wrote:
you can just read a book or play a computer game or go take a walk outside or have a beer at the pub.

Nicole Coesel wrote:
Those translators with a steady workflow have worked very long and hard for that, and continuously maintain their client database, manage their assignments and keep up with their administration. These translators are 'not just lucky'. They are extremely dedicated people and hard workers. They are so much more than addicted to translating.

Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz wrote:

You don't need a job every day. You need a certain average amount of cash monthly (or even quarterly or annually) to cover your bills and get you some profit. Nothing wrong not working on some days.

The difference is that instead of sitting at the desk looking out the window while nobody comes up with any matters requiring your attention, or inspecting the base wall for the umpteenth time, you can just read a book or play a computer game or go take a walk outside or have a beer at the pub. Freelancers don't have the idle office hours which fill up so much of an office employee's work time.

If you can only make, say, $1000 monthly, it's better to translate 10K words at $0.10 per than 50K words at $0.02 per. Better still if you can translate 5K at $0.20 per. — Which is well doable within a single day, even if that's gonna be the single day that feeds you for the rest of the month.

Bottom line: you need to make the pay, not to kill the time.

Dan Lucas wrote:


Łukasz, very persuasive, totally buying into this way of life, come over to West Wales and have a pint!

Diana Coada, PGDip DPSI NRPSI wrote:

Exactly! That is definitely my philosophy

Elizabeth Tamblin wrote:

Thanks for the link, Sheila - I've never seen this page before. Just out of interest, how would one navigate to that page from the ProZ home page? I can see no link to it in any of the menu bars.