An English-Spanish Translator Shares His Secrets

( part 2 interview with Clint Tustison)

A: - Every small business person has challenges, and mine aren't very different from others: Finding clients, getting paid, networking, etc.

The way that I overcome these inevitable challenges is by keeping things in perspective.

I am my own boss and I enjoy what I do. Yes I have challenges, but how many people out there would love to trade their work situation for mine. I don't take what I have for granted and this helps me see that the challenges I face aren't as challenging as they initially seem to be.

Q: 7)Do you consider yourself a freelance English-Spanish translator or an entrepreneur? Why?

A: - I consider myself an entrepreneur because I enjoy earning money by other means than just translating. I am not a person who likes to only do one thing, and I am always looking for ways to not only increase my customer base, but to also help others become better translators as well.

That's why I've put together The Freelance Translator's Ultimate List of Translation Agencies, which is an ebook that provides freelance translators with a list of global translation agencies in need of freelance translators.

Q: 8)What’s your advice to translators who feel trapped by the low pricing practice on many freelance websites?

A:- I wrote about this on my website. I had an experience that illustrates this point 100%. The other day I was checking out Elance.com, looking at some of the various translation jobs posted on the site. I don't use freelance job sites usually, but I like to not only see what people are willing to pay translators, but also to see how low some translators are willing to go to secure a translation job.

Well, this particular day I found the exact posting below:

"We need approximately 70,000 words to be translated from English into Spanish. There is nothing technical about the work. The work is in dialogue format. We want to hire someone now. We will only use elance escrow service and the work needs to be quality. It will be checked by a third party. Only bids under 0.01 will be entertained. The ideal bidder could do it for 0.005."

As an English-Spanish translator, it's easy for me to see so many things that are absolutely CRAZY about this posting. The client not only wants the 70,000 words translated, but he wants a quality job done and would only like to pay the translator a total of $350! But I don't know what was worse, seeing that someone would actually post such ludicrous translation terms, or the fact that I saw that six translators were willing to do the translation and had already bid on the job!

So what do I say to translators who feel like they have to compete with these translators? I say don't. Don't compete with their low prices. I charge on the high-end of the spectrum and am not willing to go below a certain threshold.

As a translator, you have to realize what your time is worth. The time it would take me to translate 70,000 words is definitely not worth $350. If it's worth it for other translators, that's fine. In the same amount of time it would take them to translate so many words for cheap, I would have used that same amount of time to find 2 or 3 clients that recognize a translator's value.

(This is part 2 of the interview with English-Spanish translator Clint Tustison. Read part 1 Spanish language translator here

Read more here:

Legal Translation - Interview With Lawyer-Linguist Suzanne Deliscar

The power of language translators - Interview With A.M.Sall (part 1)

The power of freelance translators -Interview With A.M.Sall (part 2)

Be an entrepreneur - Interview With A.M.Sall (part 3)

Importance of marketing - interview With A.M.Sall (part 4)

Interview With Joey Wong, a Chinese English translator

Interview with Aya Takasuna, a Japanese to English translator (part 1)

Interview with Aya Takasuna, a Japanese English translator (part 2)

Interview with Glenn Cain, a French language translator(part 1)

Interview with Glenn Cain, an English French translator(part 2)

Interview with Joanna Scudamore-Trezek, a German to English translator (part 1)

Interview with Joanna Scudamore-Trezek, a German English translator (part 2)

A translator turned entrepreneur shares her tips on opening a small business

A translator turned entrepreneur reveals her secrets to sell from home successfully

From English-Spanish translator To Professional Translation Service
From English-Spanish Translator To Translation Jobs Homepage