Business tips for translators #1: CV vs Service offer
Alain Marsol
is giving a few tips on freelancing for translators, focusing on how to
approach clients and collaborators in a professional manner, showcase your skills
and protect your business and reputation.
Low paying agencies
Steven Caller is the owner of the british translation agency Verto Languages.
He wants to promote a fair pay for translators and better business practises in the industry.
8 comments:
The best blog I've read regarding the industry. Congratulations! Keep up the good work.
Thanks Esther!! That's what I love to hear
Thanks to your blog, I just decided to dump a long-term client. Their name just showed up on your blacklist, which gave me the courage to stand up for myself and not accept their low rates and repeated late payments any more.
Thank you for making this list available to all of us.
Anna H. Farren
I have just discovered your blog and I want to subscribe to it with my pen name. I also want to share some more input on one translation agency in particular (factual anecdotes), but via private email. It is very important to support your efforts. I am also concerned on the explosion of translators in the market. I don't know who calls many of those people translators, proofreaders, editors, writers and the like, when they do not even have a basic college formation as linguists! ATA is mostly interested in the money you pay them, but does not do their job. They should also go into the Hall of Shame.
Thank you for this valuable blog... You should mention ABELLANA PLUS too, as a NON-PAYER translation agency. I did few translation projects for them, although they sent me a PO for the first one, they did not pay me for any of them!!! I have sent them several emails concerning the payment, but they never answered. I decided to work for them as in Proz they had a good rate.. but this should not be trusted either!!
The Premium Linguistic Services ( partners with The Big Word) should be added to the NON-PAYER interpreting/translation agency. I did few jobs for them and 2 months later still chasing my money. Promised get paid every time. And apparently I'm not the one who does not got paid.
About Talkshub:
She is a bipolar crook. Used to do jobs for this one-person show. Last job, she advanced the deadline by 24 hours of a 3000 words job while I was doing it, I managed to deliver one hour after the changed deadline and she had the gall to complain about it. Cherry on the cake, she had forgotten to include some texts and blamed me for it. I commented on her lack of professionalism as a result she sent me a pdf stating that she would not pay for this jobs and the previous ones! $300 gone.
Talkshub is to be avoided at all costs.
PUSH PROFESSIONAL LTD trading as
PUSH INTERNATIONAL LTD
(01/02/16) Hello dear fellow translators. I've just read your comments about PUSH International (see below for address and phone numbers) and I'm afraid it's all true. They are the most disorganized bunch I've ever come across (or so they'd like you to think as I'm sure it's all calculated). Although I was able to negotiate a 50% upfront payment on the last few jobs (all in excess of £1,000), it took me months to recover the other 50% (and only because they needed me for a new job). I was just about to take on another job for them, for which again they paid 50% upfront and agreed to repay all money owed. The 50% was paid but not the outstanding payments. I therefore refused the job and offset the money I'd been given upfront against what they'd owed me for months. I hadn't intended it that way but it happened. I now owe them money (the difference) and I'm waiting for their bill (this happened last week). As your bloggers say, they have died and reinvented themselves several times, owing translators' money each time. Although I'm happy to give people and agencies the benefit of the doubt knowing that anyone can start a business, get it wrong and start again successfully in some instances, I find no excuse for agencies that don't pay their suppliers. Put your barge-pole down if you don't like to chase money, not knowing whether you'll ever get it or not. Good luck everyone.
THE OLD BREEDON SCHOOL,
8 READING ROAD,
PANGBOURNE,
BERKSHIRE,
RG8 7LY,
UNITED KINGDOM
Telephone Number
01189841931
Website
http://www.push-international.com
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