Rate mal! What’s in a rate? — Part 4

Part 4 — Marketing your rates —

Throughout my studies and setting up my business, I’ve come across various little tidbits about how you can market yourself more effectively, both as a freelancer and translator.

Exposure, of course, is one such avenue and something I am actively working on—furthering my LinkedIn presence (the translator bubble is one of the nicer sides of the app), refining my website, making sure my CV is in the hands of as many vendors as possible and expanding my portfolio so my expertise is more easily on display—it’s a long road to travel.

One important piece of advice I’ve noticed throughout several group conversations that not all my peers necessarily think about is how to discount and mark-up your rates, not only to attract business but to dissuade being treated in bad-faith.

So this concluding article in the Rate Mal! What’s in a rate? series will briefly look at how you might augment your rates to do both.

Rate mal! What’s in a rate? — Part 3

Part 3 — Valuing your rates —

Before completing my post-graduate in Translation Studies, I had mostly worked minimum wage jobs. Jumping up to a relatively high hourly wage but with lower billable hours was quite a shift. No overtime for me!

With the lack of standards in the industry though, it got me thinking.

How well or poorly paid are translators really?
How do rates compare to a country’s minimum wage?
And how well do rates compare to the average post-graduate pay-check?

So let’s have a thunk.

Rate mal! What’s in a rate? — Part 2

Part 2 — Comparing your rates —

Like many of my peers, I’ve had to ask myself the questions “am I actually charging too little?” and “am I actually charging too much!?”

I’ve actually found myself being accused of both and although I’ve measured myself against some industry averages and taken my qualifications into account, it’s still hard to pin down whether I’m accurately assessing my worth.

This is because, in the translation industry, there are no clear standards regarding pay. So let’s take a look at some of the factors that influence this.

Rate mal! What’s in a rate? — Part 1

Part 1 — Creating your rates —

When calculating your rates, it’s important to give yourself some manoeuvrability and to design different rates for different tasks and to give yourself some boundaries to work within. Broadly speaking, these boundaries range between “how much do I need” and “how much do I want”.

To do this, we’re going to look at three things:

How much time do I have to make money?
How much money do I need/want to make in a year?
How much money do I want to be making per hour?