| A témához tartozó oldalak: < [1 2 3] | Are we undoing what trade unions used 150 years to achieve? Téma indítója: Carole Muller
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Carole Muller
Dánia
Local time: 08:18
angol - francia
+ ...
TÉMAINDÍTÓ
Guy, I think Werner is right. In a \"high cost level\" zone like the US you can easily get more, diplomas or not, who cares, as long as YOU know you can do the job and your clients are satisfied, they\'ll come back for more. Read on please, I\'ve got some concrete examples of what\'s going on behind the curtains.
What I\' ve been trying to say all the way was understood and rewritten elegantly by Cecilia. Who says translators in low cost countries should get less per word th... See more Guy, I think Werner is right. In a \"high cost level\" zone like the US you can easily get more, diplomas or not, who cares, as long as YOU know you can do the job and your clients are satisfied, they\'ll come back for more. Read on please, I\'ve got some concrete examples of what\'s going on behind the curtains.
What I\' ve been trying to say all the way was understood and rewritten elegantly by Cecilia. Who says translators in low cost countries should get less per word then their colleagues in high cost countries? CERTAINLY NOT I.
I\'m saying the opposite: I\'m saying to all translators: \"Be tough, keep a minimum price, regardless of whether you live in Argentina, India, the US or France.\" You may experience a few rejections, but some times later, the good jobs start coming in, and one good job will remunerate your work as three bad jobs. Just try and flirt with the risk of not having work for some time, it\'s worth it even if it\'s tough. Do something else in the meantime. just don\'t sell yourselves for cheap, it\'s killing the profession (not the market, mind you, translation agencies are laughing all the way to the bank, especially those that don\'t pay us).
If all translators on proz agree NOT to do translations under a minimum price -whatever the level we can agree among ourselves here- and agree to stick to this ´minimum at least on proz, you\'ll see prices increasing for all.
The objective ought to be: regardless of language combination, regardless of accreditations, or of diplomas and regardless of the geographical location, no translator should accept a job on proz for les than the agree minimum level. The optimal would have been to ask Henry to integrate this into the bidding, so that no agency may post a job BELOW an agreed minimum level and so that nobody may post a job without STATING clearly the per word pay.
THIS WOULD PREVENT THE DOWNWARDS SPIRALLING OF PRICING LEVELS ON PROZ. We agree outside of proz it\'s not realistic to control prices. But MUCH WOULD BE ACHIEVED by defining a fixed floor for the lower end of pricing, and let translators compete on experience or quality or service rather than price.
THERE IS A LARGE MARGIN for requiring a higher share of the pie agencies cash in from the end clients, i.e. for requiring higher per word rates.
WHY? Too lengthy here but here\'s a resumé: I\' ve been conducting \"research\" regarding prices. Most agencies advertising a job on these pages (for instance in calls to place a bid) expect a price of say 0.06 to 0.10 USD/word. That\'the tariff given to the translator, diplomas or not. Well I\'ve got concrete evidence that the same work is then resold to the end client at a price 5 to 6 times higher.
HOW do I know? I was for instance contacted by one person- an anomynous web mail based X-who offered me a highly technical manual to translate in to Danish. There was work for around 3 to 4 weeks and the offer was of approximately 2,000 USD for translating, the average hourly pay for doing the job (I calculated) would be app. 8 USD. The offer was on a per word basis. My suspicion was awakened when I saw that besides translating, the \"client\" asked me also to insert the translated text into a pdf document. For this, the \"client\" would pay per hour, and the pay was to be app. 22 USD per hour.
Now ask yourselves: why does secretarial work (i.e. inserting written text into a pdf file) pay 300 % better than translation work?
MY GUESS WAS: the anonymous \"client\" was either an agency or a translator contacted by an agency not knowing what to do with the translation but who already had accepted it and was committed to delivering it.
AND SO IT WAS. THE MYSTERY WAS SOLVED AND REVEALED THAT... I did some cracking of the pdf file to find the original source and found who was the end client, a German company. It was then easy to find their telephone number and call the CEO of the company. Guess who was surprised?
THE END CLIENT! BECAUSE THEY HAD CONTACTED A GERMAN TRANSLATION AGENCY AND WERE PAYING around 6,000 USD for having the document translated... So whoever contacted me would pay me 2,000 USD and pocket 4,000 USD... for doing what exactly? Forwarding the file. Because the technicity and complexity of the terms was so high that I rejected doing it, and I believe only an engineer specialised int he domain might do the job. None of the terms were listed in any technical dictionary and none were found through documentation or Internet and other research. So it\'s not likely the translation agency or wnybody involved had anyone able to conduct quality assessment for the 4,000 USD to be pocketed.
...and since then I ve been \"researching\" other projects to get to know the real prices of the market. All price research reveals the same. Agencie cash in between 66 to 84 % of what the end client pays and the translator gets between one third to one sixth, on average.
The price level we\'ve been discussing here over and over are the prices paid by translation agencies. Believe me, I was startled when I joined proz. Having worked as an interpreter for over 10 years I had not done any written translation for a long time and was disconnected from the price level. True prices have gone dramatically down but not to the levels of proz... outside of proz and outside of the agency circuits.
Because by way of the Internet, agencies now occupy the lucrative market position of intemediaries between the end clients and those actually doing the work, the artisanal craft, i.e. the translators being abused of, regardless of country by the intermediaries. Over 10 years ago, end clients would contact translators directly, at least what I know of, and agencies \"used\" to pay decent pay, i.e. above minimum wage levels for unskilled labor.
However since the Internet and automated translations such as TRADOS, prices have decreased, because agencies have means to pressure translators. I\'ve discovered some agencies even send the same work to 2 or 3 translators AT THE SAME TIME and then cancel the other two, once they receive a finished file from one of the 3. Nice. Neat. Ethical. Thos of you who do not believe me, do your own research. Call agencies, pretend to be a client. Ask weired questions. Make yourself a \"difficult\" client with a \"difficult\" (technical) text and ask to see the CV\'s of the translators who are going to do the jobSee for yourselves. You\'ll never get any. Guess why...They haven\'t got any inhouse staff as most pretend with the qualifications you\'re asking for and your \"difficult\" text will first be tried with TRADOS and the odd thing coming out of TRADOS will be sent to any of us for whatever ridiculous pay we accept.
So, my personal conclusion is: either
(1) translators on proz agree to a minimum pricing level -at least on proz- and limit the damage of Internet market places to the profession- REGARDLESS of diplomas and geographical location. It\'s pointless to pursue the issue of accreditation online: translation agencies posting jobs don\'t even bother to check credentials.
or
(2) if it\'s too controversial an issue to have translators-regardless of diplomas, accreditation and geographical location-etc to follow my point -unite or die- (I mean some of those debating felt more inclined to send me personal hate mails than to read the debate) then let\'s turn into agencies, those of us who can and those of us who can\'t or won\'t are better off teaching language or doing something else.
BECAUSE: the pay level of agencies-regardless of diplomas or geographical location- has reached a level below the wage and social benefits of for instance waiters/waitresses... and it\'s bound to continue its downfall, if you believe you have no power to impose your prices. For sure, if you\'re not ready to loose some work, if you don\'t like to stand up and be tough, if in other words you feel you have no bargaining power, prices will keep falling, at least on proz. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Guy Bray 
Egyesült Államok
Local time: 23:18
francia - angol
| Thanks for sharing | May 4, 2002 |
Well, I’m sure you guys mean well, but your responses, especially Carole’s, only seem to demonstrate the point I was trying to make. I’m outta this forum, but if anyone has advice that the rest of us can actually use (those marketing secrets, Werner?), please e-mail me.
Thanks.
| | | | Carole Muller
Dánia
Local time: 08:18
angol - francia
+ ...
TÉMAINDÍTÓ | Marketing secrets | May 4, 2002 |
Guy, I\'m not sure there are secrets apart from starting from scratch and defining your \"profile\" and then defining the matching \"profile\" of your ideal target customer (to whom you would be the ideal translator). Look at and deascribe your experience, language combination, localisation, services offered etc.)
However I know this one works: but it\'s the tough part... if you decide you d\'like to get for instance \"not-under-10 cts/word\", you ought to say flatly (but po... See more Guy, I\'m not sure there are secrets apart from starting from scratch and defining your \"profile\" and then defining the matching \"profile\" of your ideal target customer (to whom you would be the ideal translator). Look at and deascribe your experience, language combination, localisation, services offered etc.)
However I know this one works: but it\'s the tough part... if you decide you d\'like to get for instance \"not-under-10 cts/word\", you ought to say flatly (but politely) \"no\" to any offers below this rate. It is hard, really, especially in the beginning. Then for some odd reason, it starts to work. But only if you\'re firm and can induce your customer not to fall back on \"yes, but the others get XXX\" or \"yes but we always pay our translators XXX\". Find some convincing argument -related to your own profile- to destabilize your negotiating partner when resorting to the manipulative \"we\" and look out for the word \"always\" when used in conjunction with \"pay\" or payment terms and payment options.
You will certainly loose some, just keep on going until you find those customers (or the type of customers) who are willing to pay your price. You may experience that the 0.06 USD customer turns into a 0.10 USD customer, but they\'ll do it only if they do not loose their face by doing it.
Once you have your own bargaining style, look at it this way: once you find the ideal customer(to whom you\'re the ideal translator) if you loose one out of three jobs -which originally would have been remunerated at $0.06/word- you still earn more and work less by doing only two jobs -but paid now at $0.10/word.
N.B I recently read on the Net that the translation business (the demand) is expanding, especially in the US. There\'s no reason we should be paid so little...unless there are too many intermdiaries standing in the way between us and the end client. On the other hand, many companies I know from another context complain they used to find their own translator, then had some material poorly done a few times and now prefer going through an agency. So I believe the best marketing tip is to be known for delivering quality. In other words to work only within domains and language combinations where one is really proficient- if one wants to by-pass the agencies.
There\'s one exception: it seems -from what I\'ve read on the Net that translating literature (and contracting directly with a publisher)is underpaid and getting worse all the time - at least in most European countries.
Good luck! ▲ Collapse
| | | | Werner George Patels, M.A., C.Tran.(ATIO) (X)
Local time: 02:18
német - angol
+ ...
| Carole is right | May 4, 2002 |
There are no secrets; instead, it is about NOT taking the easy way out.
So, if you are, apparently, unhappy with your lot, stop complaining and pointing fingers elsewhere, and start charging a decent and proper US rate. There may not be any justification for equating price and quality in developing countries, but in the US, 6 cents smacks of low or no quality. And that may be why you are having trouble.
As I said before, you have an impressive CV - so u... See more There are no secrets; instead, it is about NOT taking the easy way out.
So, if you are, apparently, unhappy with your lot, stop complaining and pointing fingers elsewhere, and start charging a decent and proper US rate. There may not be any justification for equating price and quality in developing countries, but in the US, 6 cents smacks of low or no quality. And that may be why you are having trouble.
As I said before, you have an impressive CV - so use it, man!!!!!! You are an expert in your field - charge accordingly!!!!! You live in the US - don\'t charge third-world rates!!!!!!!!
▲ Collapse
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